The Red Staircase

Here is a spellbinding tale of mysticism, love, and betrayal, set in St. Petersburg on the brink of revolution, with the Tsarina in thrall to Rasputin, the Tsarevitch ailing, and conspirators planning to topple the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty.

Reeling with the shock and humiliation of being jilted on the eve of her wedding, Rose Gowrie, a young Scottish woman with the gift and power to heal the sick, is delighted when her cousins invite her to Russia to imbue the exquisite fifteen-year-old Ariadne Denisov with British graces. But all too soon Rose senses enigmas in the Denisovs' elegant gray-stone mansion on Molka Quay:

The hostile French governess who holds an ambiguous place in the family:

The curious "red staircase," concealed behind rich draperies at the end of the picture gallery, that leads to a hidden chamber where the real heart of the Denisov family may be beating:

The gentle and dreamily attractive Peter Denisov, whose Charm melts Rose's icy reserve and whose role as St. Petersburg's playboy may mask a more serious purpose: