The Summer Day Is Done

At Livadia, when summer day is done and evening softens the warm shadows, the ghosts of innocents scamper over the green lawns, their laughter caught as whisper in the trees, and every still pool reflects the deep blue eyes of a dreaming girl."

John Kirby was a British secret agent. Olga was the oldest daughter of Czar Nicholas and his Empress, Alexandra. It was 1911. Imperial Russia was already in its death throes, torn between evil manipulators and determined revolutionaries such as Rasputin and Lenin. But still, women in dazzling gowns and men in lavishly decorated uniforms whirled around opulent ballrooms and took drives in splendid carriages. Palaces and villas still gleamed in the sun, winter and summer.

While the storm gathered, John Kirby played tennis with Nicholas, frolicked with Nicholas' children and floated on the delicious laughter of his radian Olga. But even the aching, unfulfilled happiness they won was not to remain undisturbed. Grand Duchesses are not destined to share their lives with untitled Englishmen. Glorious summer days do not last forever. The memories, however, do linger. And the images so hauntingly painted by R.T. Stevens-the characters ad the world they inhabit-will glow long after the last page of this novel has been turned.