Seventeen-year-old Salka Radin fled from her small town to escape the poverty and opression inflicted on Russian Jews. But once settled amongst her rich German second cousins, Salka had new humiliations to face. Not only was she an Eastern Europen Jew, but she had the most unwomanly thirst for knowledge...Swept up into the opulence of Viennese high society by a whirlwind romance, Salka's keen intelligence and resourcefulness were tested to the limit by the strange and alien world she now inhabited. But new and greater challenges awaited her as as Europe teetered on the brink of world war...Salka is a fascinating and unusual heroine. Her world - with all its harshness and splendour - is unforgettably evoked in this powerful and engrossing novel.