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Adieu les rêves romantiques ! Quand Wanda constate dans quel état de délabrement se trouve son cher domaine de Kilburn, le pragmatisme l'emporte. S'il faut se sacrifier, elle n'hésitera pas une seconde. Quelques retouches à sa vieille garde-robe, et la voilà prête à conquérir Londres et le coeur des célibataires les plus endurcis... pour peu que leur bourse soit bien garnie. L'ingénue se croit cynique. Mais lorsque le véritable amour croisera sa route, qui, de la raison ou du sentiment, triomphera ?
230 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2009
7 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Cartland
1,531 books831 followersBorn in 1901, Barbara Cartland started her writing career in journalism and completed her first book, Jigsaw, when she was just 24. An immediate success, it was the start of her journey to becoming the world’s most famous and most read romantic novelist of all time. Inspiring a whole generation of readers around the globe with her exciting tales of adventure, love and intrigue, she became synonymous with the Romance genre. And she still is to this day, having written over 644 romantic fiction books.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 9, 2012
She is of course the Queen of Romance and she did write these stories ages ago. But her Wanda is such a ninny most of the time. So frail, so stupid. Were women really supposed to be that idiotic in those times? I want to slap her for being so gullible, so innocent. She comes to the most glamorous and sophisticated centre of affairs and just seems to go about like its not teaching her anything. And then, after pretending that she had no idea that the Prince is her father, she suddenly seems to get it and demand his blessings. Rubbish really. I skipped loads because some of it was just tripe.
January 26, 2020
Wow, this guy worked his way through some women!
The story revolves around Clement Metternich, chancellor of the Austro Hungarian empire and his love affairs.
He married three times and had countless liaisons with any lady who caught his eye even whilst married!
His longest suffering wife Eleonore knew from the start about his conquests but loved him to the end of her days and plotted and intrigued alongside him hoping to elevate him to an exalted position and fruitlessly wishing to earn his love.
A telling portrait of what I can see a very selfish man who use women and discarded them while climbing the ladder to the top of his game.
Fascinating and though fictionalised into a story it has a lot of key events and major names of the day.
The story revolves around Clement Metternich, chancellor of the Austro Hungarian empire and his love affairs.
He married three times and had countless liaisons with any lady who caught his eye even whilst married!
His longest suffering wife Eleonore knew from the start about his conquests but loved him to the end of her days and plotted and intrigued alongside him hoping to elevate him to an exalted position and fruitlessly wishing to earn his love.
A telling portrait of what I can see a very selfish man who use women and discarded them while climbing the ladder to the top of his game.
Fascinating and though fictionalised into a story it has a lot of key events and major names of the day.
March 9, 2014
Reading these very old romances makes me giggle. They are overly innocent, overly sweet. The main female characters more often than not make me want to shake them and yell "get a grip!" But they are sweet and quick reads, and I don't have to worry about little eyes when reading them
February 26, 2025
Prince Metternich of Austria is growing weary of the political machinations of the European nations arguing over the spoils of Napoleon’s Empire, especially those of the duplicitous Czar of all the Russias, Alexander I. They are all gathered for the Congress of Vienna in 1815
Presented with an exquisitely beautiful young girl with eyes as piercingly blue as his own Prince Metternich is powerfully reminded of a siren he once loved in his past and accepts Wanda as his Ward.
But he has an ulterior motive – he persuades the naïve Wanda to go undercover in the Court of the Czar to glean information on his real intentions for Europe.
Meanwhile the Czar has his own suspicions of Metternich and arranges for his English friend Richard Melton to take his place, as they have similar physical characteristics.
Richard Melton is an exile from his home in England because he has been accused of duelling and, although he is innocent, no one believes him.
So begins a tortuous tangle of deceit, secrets and subterfuge in which Wanda quickly loses her heart to the man she takes to be the Czar.
But just as the truth eventually comes to light and love for Wanda stirs Richard Melton’s heart, his beloved is betrayed and is carried away forcibly in a sleigh bound for the clutches of the wicked Count Araktcheef in Russia – a fate Richard cannot bear to contemplate –
Presented with an exquisitely beautiful young girl with eyes as piercingly blue as his own Prince Metternich is powerfully reminded of a siren he once loved in his past and accepts Wanda as his Ward.
But he has an ulterior motive – he persuades the naïve Wanda to go undercover in the Court of the Czar to glean information on his real intentions for Europe.
Meanwhile the Czar has his own suspicions of Metternich and arranges for his English friend Richard Melton to take his place, as they have similar physical characteristics.
Richard Melton is an exile from his home in England because he has been accused of duelling and, although he is innocent, no one believes him.
So begins a tortuous tangle of deceit, secrets and subterfuge in which Wanda quickly loses her heart to the man she takes to be the Czar.
But just as the truth eventually comes to light and love for Wanda stirs Richard Melton’s heart, his beloved is betrayed and is carried away forcibly in a sleigh bound for the clutches of the wicked Count Araktcheef in Russia – a fate Richard cannot bear to contemplate –
October 14, 2025
Dame Barbara Cartland era brava nel suo genere! Forse questo non è uno dei suoi lavori migliori, ma la classe non è acqua.
L'inizio ingarbugliato (non amo particolarmente le spy stories, anche se qui l'elemento spionaggio è molto leggero) mi aveva quasi fatto desistere dal proseguire la lettura, ma il plot twist posizionato ad arte mi ha fatto cambiare idea e marcia: terminato in due pomeriggi.
Lo stile è fluido e punta molto sul romanticismo, come è giusto che sia. Forse è tutto un po' troppo "instant", ma lo considero un punto a favore perché intrattiene piacevolmente.
3 stelle e 1/2
L'inizio ingarbugliato (non amo particolarmente le spy stories, anche se qui l'elemento spionaggio è molto leggero) mi aveva quasi fatto desistere dal proseguire la lettura, ma il plot twist posizionato ad arte mi ha fatto cambiare idea e marcia: terminato in due pomeriggi.
Lo stile è fluido e punta molto sul romanticismo, come è giusto che sia. Forse è tutto un po' troppo "instant", ma lo considero un punto a favore perché intrattiene piacevolmente.
3 stelle e 1/2
November 12, 2022
Hero is a typical Cartland sleaze, a toffee-nosed misogynist whoring around and behaving callously, with a whiff of a school bully and semi-pedophiliac thing to "child-like" look of heroine. Yuck. But the romantic opulence of setting, as always with Cartland, is a real star: pseudo-historical fairytale to leave Disney behind.
May 4, 2018
Há uma diferença entre ser ingénua e ser idiota, mas a BC parece não saber onde essa diferença se situa...
December 2, 2020
Tykkäsin, oli herttainen :)
March 19, 2023
The Girl and the Monarch
The young Comtesse Wanda was lovely and innocent. She had come to Vienna to have fun, to go to balls, to meet eligible young men.
But the first man she met was the handsome Prince de Metternich, the greatest statesman of his time. The prince asked Wanda to do an extraordinary thing - he asked her to work for her country, to spy on Europe's most ruthless and powerfull monarch.
At first Wanda was glad to do something for her country, for the world! Then she met the man she was to betray, and before she knew it the worst of all possible things happened - they fell hopelessly in love...
The young Comtesse Wanda was lovely and innocent. She had come to Vienna to have fun, to go to balls, to meet eligible young men.
But the first man she met was the handsome Prince de Metternich, the greatest statesman of his time. The prince asked Wanda to do an extraordinary thing - he asked her to work for her country, to spy on Europe's most ruthless and powerfull monarch.
At first Wanda was glad to do something for her country, for the world! Then she met the man she was to betray, and before she knew it the worst of all possible things happened - they fell hopelessly in love...
December 27, 2012
Just another poorly written, ridiculously exagerated novel by the "queen" of romance Barbara Cartland. I was fooled by the almost nice "A Serpent of Satan" and got myself this one, and in five minutes I could recall all the reasons that made me got my distance from books like that.
September 13, 2009
I like exciting books!Barbara Cartland has got a lot of exciting books better than this one.
This one is nice but not more than her other novels...
This one is nice but not more than her other novels...
June 10, 2017
واقعا تو دنياى امروز ما اتفاقات اين كتاب يك روياست
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews