Why a Booktrail?
WW1 – A thriller set in Vienna at the start of the first world war – where wartime intelligence weaves a dangerous web indeed..
Waiting for Sunrise
What you need to know before your trail
Vienna 1913
Lysander Rief is a young English actor, receiving treatment from Dr Bensimon an eminent psychiatrist. This is his first appointment and as he sits and thinks about what might be wrong with him, a woman bursts in to the waiting room clearly in distress. It turns out that this woman is Hettie Bull, an artist and sculptor and the two are soon drawn together in an affair both destructive and dangerous.
London 1914
Events in Vienna have caught up with Lysander and he’s now heavily entangled in war time intelligence, What a dangerous web it all weaves – where scandal follows him everywhere and spies hide in the shadows.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
From Vienna to London, the battlefields of France and hotel rooms in Geneva, the web of political intrigue is getting tighter and tighter.
Vienna
Starting off in Vienna, Lysander is getting treatment for a personal problem from an eminent x, a disciple of Sigmund Freud’s no less who offers a talking cure for his issues. Lysander’s name is also that of the character from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who is the victim of a badly though out love affair with Hermia. In this case, the Hermia comes in the form of Hettie
But Shakespeare’s words ring true as in both cases Lysander is drawn into a world he knows little if anything about. Something which causes him a lot of grief. The trap around him is starting to close in.
However this master of disguise escapes and joins the war effort where he is tracked down and recruited by the Secret Service who take him on as a spy. His first posting sees him sent the front in France, then Switzerland then finally back to England. For Lysander, the journey is a web with no end –
“My life seems to be running on a track I have nothing to do with–I’m a passenger on a train but I have no idea of the route it’s taking or its final destination.”
And with 1930s Vienna as the starting point, the novel forms a picture of a world in flux, a changing world and one fraught with danger. This city is on the cusp of something and not just war. The world is spinning, time is fleeting and Lysander caught in a web of Shakespearean drama – on the world stage.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Waiting for Sunrise
Destination: Geneva Vienna, London Departure Time: WW1
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