"Once we
buy this place, we’re committed once and for all to Austria. And that frightens
me.” Thus, Christina Helmer voiced her forebodings when, one spring morning in
1923, she first viewed the great manor house and vineyards in the heart of the
Vienna Woods. Her husband, General Kurt
Helmer, confidently dismissed such fears, arranged for the house to be bought
and named in Christina’s honour - the House of Christina.
Thirteen years later, when Ben Haas’s powerful new story begins to unfold, Christina is dead but all she once feared has now become very much approaching. Adolf Hitler rules Germany and now threatens Austria. At the great house, the widowed general is looked after by his ravishing daughter Christa - who is a fantastic hostess to their many friends and visitors. Prominent among these are three suitors – an American novelist Lan Condon, and two Austrians, one a Jewish banker and other a rising Nazi. During the terrifying years that follow, these three very different men find that their destinies, amidst their bitterly opposed political creeds, are inextricably linked to that of the House of Christina.
All three men fall for Christa. However it is Lan Condon who saves her from the clutches of the rising Nazi - Robert - who once grew into adulthood with Christa. Ben Haas has written a heroic
novel of love and war that brilliantly recreates one of the most fascinating
and dramatic periods of war days.
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