This book has been honoured as a B.R.A.G. Medallion winner by IndieBrag. Elisabeth (Sisi) enjoyed a carefree lifestyle in the hills of Bavaria until she was chosen by Emperor Franz Josef of Austria to be his wife. At the age of sixteen, she moved into the imperial palaces of Vienna, where a hostile court despised her for her low birth and strict protocol ruled her every act. She had no other purpose than to adorn the emperor's arm on ceremonial occasions and to make babies who were taken from her at birth to be raised by her domineering mother-in-law. Of too sensitive a spirit, she was often ill and anorexic and had to flee the court to distant places in order to heal. She struggled to find a place for herself in this alien environment until she found a cause into which she could pour her heart and soul: Hungary. Like Sisi herself, Hungary struggled to find a place for itself where it would not be subsumed by a soulless empire. Having found her salvation, she also found a man she could love in the great patriot, Count Andrassy.