Shadows on the Ice

By Desiree Meyler

Nicolai Urosov only wanted the best for his three attractive daughters.

So when the eldest, his darling Marie, ran away with an English sea captain, the stolid and prosperous timber merchant was appalled. And Marie’s new life would indeed not be easy, bringing up her beautiful daughter Katya far from home.

Mercifully her closest sister, Laura, became a ballet dancer and formed a relationship with the rich and dashing Duke Philip. This delighted her doting father. But Nicolai was not so pleased when his youngest daughter, Anastasia married a diplomat, an attractive but cruel man, who forced her to accompany him all over the world.

The highly charged atmosphere of pre-revolutionary St Petersburg was the backdrop to these turbulent affairs of the heart. And into this precarious world came Katya, torn between the splendours of the old order and a new passion that was awakening within her…

Désirée Meyler was born into a Pembrokeshire family in west Wales. Studying at the School of Art, Cambridge with Ronald Searle in the late 1930s, she decided to change direction and became a prolific short story writer following the outbreak of World War I. Her first novel, The Quiet Rebel was published in 1970.