Because it's Not to Be
Vienna, April 1914: in order to avenge his mother's death, 17-year-old Oskar Heller takes a job as a stable boy in the stately household of the Grayn family. And then the unthinkable happens: despite his liberal minded attitudes — he abhors snobbery and the aristocracy’s arbitrary claims to power — Oskar falls in love with Alexandra, the daughter of the house, and his love is reciprocated. But then war breaks out and the two of them lose touch — until the following winter, when they are reunited by chance and set out on a dangerous journey to the front lines to tend wounded relatives. The young lovers are caught in flagrante and brutally separated. But war changes people and society: is it possible that Oskar and Alexandra’s love will survive all the tests of conflict?
• Exciting, romantic, full of adventure and accurately researched
• Titanic meets Downton Abbey: the compelling story of an impossible love during the upheavals of the First World War