City of Dreams

After a whirlwind courtship and marriage to dashing Frenchman Emile Daubigny, Anna, the teenage daughter of a Russian furrier, moves to Paris with her new husband, looking forward to a life of gaiety, love and comfortable affluence. Married life and the social scene in the most fashionable city on earth is everything Anna hoped it would be, but when Emile vanishes without trace and she is evicted, Anna is forced to discover the city's poverty-stricken dark side of harsh streets and squalid tenements, where the temptation for a penniless young lady to become a kept woman is overwhelming. To make matters worse, war with Prussia looms and Anna and the city she loves will both struggle to survive. (City of Dreams is the first in a series of novels that will follow the stories of Anna and her descendants in Paris and further afield.)