Book summary

This debut novel from the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and the sister of "Dynasty" star Catherine Oxenberg tells the story of a young aristocrat trying to make it on her own. Maria Moses had it hard growing up as the daughter of dispossessed Yugoslavian royalty. Her mother was inattentive, and as a convenience, sent Maria to live in a psychiatric hospital for the majority of her youth. Now 18 and living in New York on a small allowance, Maria can neither type nor spell, and her wealthy friends are getting tired of taking care of her. Enter Tino Brooks, a con man and Maria's parents' worst enemy. Tino sweeps Maria off of her feet, and in the process steals away the Scottish castle that was to be her inheritance.

Media reviews

"Cynics will want to knock it, considering the pedigree it comes from, but that will be tough because [the novel]'s version of a bad and privileged childhood is funny, fetching, and full of gorgeous writing with a deep, tugging undercurrent of melancholy. Its intimate rendering of wealth without cliché is a triumph--imagine Evelyn Waugh rewriting 'Eloise'. For a first novel, what's most remarkable is that there's not a bum sentence in the entire thing."