VIENNA PASSION by Lilian Faschinger

Vienna Passion is the autobiography of Rosa, a chambermaid, royal mistress and murderess, whose life mirrors all the sordid glamour of Vienna at the turn of the century. It is interleaved with the story of a tentative romance: that of Magnolia, a young New Yorker, and her singing-teacher in Vienna. Despite her lover's hypochondria and mother-fixation, however, Magnolia is just as much her own woman as Rosa ever was. More so, indeed, than either woman could ever have imagined.