Lala plays with her diamond ring, mesmerized as always by the distant world it conjures for her and the jewel's extraordinary trajectory from Tsarist Russia to twenty-first-century England. An unexpected invitation has arrived and, at last, she will be able to visit Lentvaris, her paternal grandmother's ancestral home, a splendid East European estate where princely art collections, spectacular jewellery, extravagant balls and performing dwarves, coexisted with philanthropy on a grand scale and a deep sense of noblesse oblige. The First World War irrevocably altered the family's privileged lives, Lala's great-uncle was forced to flee with the last of the Romanov dynasty and her great-grandfather auctioned off his art treasures. The Second World War lost Lentvaris for ever. Lala's grandfather died in a Soviet gulag. Her grandmother, aunt and father survived harsh imprisonment and afterwards crossed continents eventually finding precarious stability living as emigres in South America. This is an epic story of dramatic escapes, concealed treasures, a lost paradise, but especially of the courage, strength and resilience shown by the female side of Lala's family, and of the power of love, humour and hope.
Lala Wilbraham (nee Klara Mycielska) was born in Peron's Argentina in 1950 to Polish Catholic emigres. She is Brazilian by upbringing and has lived in the UK since 1972. Following a short stint as a model she obtained a BA Honours in Psychology from Manchester University after which she worked as research assistant, interpreter and translator and assisted her husband in his work in the realm of films, musicals and the West End. She lives in the Cotswolds with her dogs.
"A gorgeous and momentous epic by any standards. . . . The scope of this book is monumental. . . . The Polish way of life of those bygone ages are gone forever, and it takes some skill to conjure them up for a modern audience, but it is well worth the try, and Lala Wilbraham has succeeded massively in conveying the agonies and the ecstasies of pain and heartbreak, of life and death, but also the beauty of family love that can carry us through almost anything."-- "On: Yorkshire Magazine" "Packed full of extraordinary historical facts and delicious vignettes, it is a rollercoaster of life which makes you laugh and cry. A true gem of a family's life across centuries."--Rula Lenska, actor "Part history, part autobiography, this is an epic story of courage and survival."--Hugo Vickers, author of The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough
