UNICORN

In the years following World War One, Europe remains in turmoil…

As if the war to end all wars was not enough, now revolution is bringing an end to the remnants of the old ways. Monarchs, princes and grand dukes all tumble.

Only Rheingoldstein, a duchy so small as to be forgotten, remains untouched.

Even when the Grand Duke foresees the inevitable, and removes himself from the situation, his steely widow presses on regardless.

In her eyes, their daughter Margarethe must carry on the ducal tradition. But the choice is not hers to make.

In the years that follow, Margarethe and her mother forge a new type of existence, a peripatetic, hand-to-mouth lifestyle that horrifies the mother but affords her daughter a degree of freedom.

Margarethe, who lacks subtlety and elegance but has an abundance of courage and initiative, decides to make the most of that freedom.

Her subsequent adventures take her across Europe, into the company of struggling artists and dubious companions.

Then, somehow, she finds herself back home. And as she gives birth to what should have been the next Grand Duke, Margarethe senses that a new political movement may be stirring in Rheingoldstein…

An epic tale that traces events in a momentous period in European history, Unicorn is bound to appeal to lovers of both historical and character-driven fiction alike.

Praise for Marguerite Steen

‘Miss Steen is a superb manipulator of scene, and she makes her places as alive as her people’ - Daily Telegraph

‘Rich and enjoyable’ - The Observer

‘fine scenes and piquant portraits’ - The Sunday Times

‘a vivid narrative’ - Manchester Guardian

‘full of colour and character’ - John o' London's Weekly

‘rich, lavish, violent, passionate’ -Evening News

Marguerite Steen (12 May 1894 – 4 August 1975) was a British writer. Very much at home among creative people, she wrote biographies of the Terrys, of her friend Hugh Walpole, of the 18th century poet and actress (and sometime mistress to the Prince of Wales) Mary 'Perdita' Robinson, and of her own lover, the artist Sir William Nicholson. Her first major success was Matador,for which she drew on her love of Spain, and of bullfighting. Also a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic was her massive saga of the slave-trade and Bristol shipping, The Sun Is My Undoing. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1951.