by Suzy Vitello
Release Date: October 1st 2015
Summary from Goodreads:
In this second Empress Chronicles book, Liz and Sisi continue their intertwined journey through time. On the heels of discovering a magical locket in the empress diary, Liz comes to understand its very special power: the wearer must speak the truth. Not only that, but it turns out that there are three lockets, each with their own magic and power.
Meanwhile, Sisi realizes that she's communicating with a girl who lives 150 years in the future. A girl who knows what awaits her if she marries the emperor: lack of personal freedom and a legacy that will refer to her as the "reluctant empress."
With the world's future hanging in the balance, the two heroines must work together to thwart Lola, whose ambition to rule the Habsburg Empire will rewrite history, and lead to a terrifying new version of reality.
Book One:
(click on image for Goodreads link)
Excerpt:
There was then a great to-do in the ballroom,
and the solemn occasion turned into a party, with King Max presenting a bust of
me made entirely from butter. We feasted upon roast boar with spiced turnips
and pickled calf’s ear jelly. There were mounds of potatoes and field peas, and
the king’s favorite pheasant soup, with curled carrots floating on the top. It
was good, simple, hearty fare, as favored by us Wittelsbachs, and lots of ale
in honor of the surprise guest—the man who had established the very first
Oktoberfest, the exiled King Ludwig himself.
He had been snuck in for the festivities, and
when he made his entrance the entire hall burst into deafening applause. Nobody
was happier to see him than Mummi, who had always been fond of her elder
brother. Oh, how merry were my relations in that moment, and all the sobriety
of the renunciation melted away with the clinking of steins.
But my fascination and focus began and ended
with Little Ludwig and Amalie, who were seated near the other Royal
Wittelsbachs at the head table. I winked and nodded in their direction, and
they back at me throughout the festivities. As they had a reputation for
eccentricities and outbursts, they were closely monitored by their attendants,
but I yearned to speak with them—for I had some questions.
After the second dessert and before the
brandy, I saw my opportunity, as that is the traditional time for ladies to
excuse themselves to the dressing room to loosen the laces of their corsets. I
took my leave, passing the odd butter sculpture that nobody dared dig into, and
slipped off down the hall, glancing behind me to see if my cousins had taken
the cue.
It had been more than a year since my last
conversation with my odd cousins, and I recalled the incident with the vision
locket, and how the photograph inside had shifted from pustule-faced Karl to
the handsome Count Sebastian as soon as I’d acknowledged a change of heart. And
then there was that curious behavior from Amalie in the Schönheitengalerie, and her caution regarding Lola Montez—back when
I thought the witch merely a beguiling courtesan, a benevolent faerie.
I yearned so to share with someone the odd
events of the past year—Amalie and Little Ludwig would be my only real option
for confidante, and even then, I worried they would think me mad. Madder than my
dear spinster cousin who only wore white and thought that she’d swallowed a
glass piano. I was laughing to myself at the very thought—Amalie and I linked
arm in arm, skipping forever in the Palace Garden. Both of us perpetual
children under Lola’s spell, when I heard Little Ludwig galloping up behind me.
“It is just as I wished! You will be the most exquisite of all princely figures
there on that Austrian throne.”
Little Ludwig’s face had stretched beyond the
chubby cheeks of boyhood, and he wore proper formal attire, but around his neck
was wrapped a garland of pink ostrich feathers, and on his feet, women’s
slippers. We embraced, and I whispered, “Let us find a quiet place; I must tell
you everything, but they will not give me much time before sending the army
round to find me.”
He took me by the hand and led me to a cold
room, where we were quite in the dark but for the waning light through the
window. We crouched behind an ornate settee, then sat cross-legged on the
parquet, like small children in front of their toys. “Oh, but how Vienna will
adore you, meine Sisi,” he squealed.
I could not continue the charade one minute
more in front of this boy, who was so eager to place a crown on my head. I
reached for his cheek, but instead found myself snatching up a pretty pink
feather. I thought of my parrot, and wondered if, should I choose Lola’s
bargain, I might bring the bird with me in my exile or if that pet would be
shipped off to Vienna with my sister.
“There are some things, Little Ludwig. Some
things I must tell you.”
“Are you not a virgin?” he inquired, his eyes
round and big. “Did you lose your heart to a rogue? Will the archduchess turn
you out in the street when she uncovers the truth?”
My cousin was quite theatrical in his
assumptions.
“I did lose my heart, my cousin. But not my
virtue.”
I began my explanation with the changing face
in the Vision locket—which Little Ludwig himself had fixed just recently. “I
know all about that,” he said. “Your governess was quite in a stew about these
trinkets.”
“Yes, well, there is more.” I painted the
picture of all that transpired in the past year: Lola’s magic, Baroness
Wilhelmine’s secret that she was once in love with my father, and then, the
larger confidence. Lizbeth of the Future. The odd Peasant of Port Land. I
twisted and squirmed the Virtue keepsake out from underneath my renunciation
gown. “Despite Baroness Wilhelmine’s request that I trade this keepsake for the
one which bears the face of my betrothed, I find that I cannot separate myself
from this odd maiden.”
The young man peered over the likeness of the
girl, and his face turned down in disgust. “She’s quite plain!” he bellowed, as
though that were the ultimate sin.
“There is more yet,” I said, hastily, worried
that at any moment a search party would commence. “I have been told by this
peasant that I must find the other locket. A keepsake that may very well be in
the possession of our dear Amalie.”
I then told Ludwig of my recent exchange with
that witch, Lola. It felt as though I were weaving a fairy tale. As though I
were reciting the Heine poem: Lorelei,
full of sirens and heartbreak and throes of desire and love. At the end of my
tale, I asked my young confidante his advice, my heart hoping he would counsel
happiness. “Ludwig,” I said, “Should I relent, I might forever be free to love
whom I choose. Is that not what we should all seek? Our heart’s desire?”
Little Ludwig looked stricken. “You mean,” he
said, “that you would not be empress after all? That your boring sister would
instead take the crown and do Lola’s bidding?”
I nodded.
His face slowly broke into smile. “Then,
perhaps, you can be my queen when I become king! For you know that my father is
sickly. I expect he will perish before my eighteenth birthday.”
“No, Ludwig, I cannot be your queen. Remember,
I just took a vow of renunciation. And beside all of that, I would be forever
living in secret, with Count Sebastian, my one true love.”
Just uttering the word love sent my fingers to my throat to feel for the chain attached to
the virtue keepsake. Little Ludwig peered down my neckline. “So, what does this
freckled, speckled girl from the future advise?”
Just then the door burst open wide and I
crouched down, Little Ludwig’s ostrich feathers tickling my nose, threatening a
sneeze. Then, the advancing light of a candelabra, and soon thereafter, a
familiar shard of glass piano sound poked through the nursery song:
“London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down,
Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
And so are my dainties!”
Little Ludwig and I let out our common breath
and stood to see Amalie advance toward us, her face eerily cast in the shadow
of firelight.
“Take a key and lock her up,
Lock her up,
Lock her up.
Take a key and lock her up,
But bring back my dainties!”
“Oh, dear,” offered Little Ludwig. “She is in
a state.”
I reached out to embrace my cousin, but she
recoiled and said, “Where for art thou, my butter-brained cousin, the beauty of
the Balkans? The belle of the ball. What brings you to my quarters?”
“Why, Amalie, do you not recall?” queried
Little Ludwig. “She had to sign the document. But now, I fear, all manner of
evil will envelop our continent, for that changeling Lola has her hooks deep
inside of our Sisi.”
“She, took, my dainties,” sang Amalie.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” I ventured.
“But I have found myself in quite a pickle.”
“A pickle? Why, when last I checked, you were
in a mound of butter! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
“Shhhhh,” warned Little Ludwig.
Amalie grabbed at my locket, which now hung
outside of my clothing for all to see. “Yet another of these enchanted
necklaces,” she said. “What does this one make you do?”
“Enchanted?” I said.
“Handed down from tart to tart, these twisted
bits of metal.”
“But it was gifted to me by my governess,” I
said. And then, “You have one as well, yes?”
Amalie thrust the candelabra above her head
and sang,
“I once was lovely,
I once was haughty.
Now I’m nothing but a throwaway daughty.”
“Daughty?” said Little Ludwig
“Oh my, that doesn’t work at all, does it?”
“My dear Amalie, you are mad. Madder than
ever.” Little Ludwig swiped his boa round his neck and tossed his head back.
“But let us get back to the matter at hand. It is an abomination, Sisi, that
you would festoon yourself with such tawdry relics. And such a tragedy that you
would forsake a pageantry in favor of peasantry.”
Before I could respond, Amalie burst forth
with the next round of song:
“Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Stolen away,
Stolen away.
Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Just like my dainties.”
“Stolen away? What will be stolen away,
Amalie?” I asked.
My mad cousin moved in close to me, her nose
against my nose. “It is the way she got to me. The way she gets to everyone.”
About the Author
Suzy Vitello is a proud founding member of a critique group recently dubbed The Hottest Writing Group in Portland, and her short stories have won fellowships and prizes (including the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Award, and an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship).
Suzy's young adult novels, THE MOMENT BEFORE and THE EMPRESS CHRONICLES are available wherever books and ebooks are sold.
An e-chapbook of some of her stories, UNKISS ME, can be found here
Suzy's young adult novels, THE MOMENT BEFORE and THE EMPRESS CHRONICLES are available wherever books and ebooks are sold.
An e-chapbook of some of her stories, UNKISS ME, can be found here
Author Links:
Welcome to the world of Liz and Sisi, two heroines caught in
different centuries, but bound by magical lockets, a time traveling diary, the
truth, and the chance to save the Habsburg Empire. But by ensuring that history
stays the same, will they be able to change their own?
She who has the locket has the power.
Quotes:
“You can choose love, or you can choose control. Not both.”
“You are elected by Heaven to reconcile the prince to his
people, and link forever the parted lovers.”
“I have the third locket, Sisi. It holds the truth. The
truth in your heart. You must find it and hold it dear.”
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1 comments:
Thanks so much for the mention!
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