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Rosetta
Rosetta: A Scandalous True Story | Alexandra Joel
4 posts | 3 read | 2 to read
The scandalous Australian woman who enchanted British society Headstrong and beautiful, in 1905 Rosetta escaped her safe Melbourne life, deserting her respectable husband and five-year-old daughter to run away with Zeno the Magnificent, a half-Chinese fortune teller and seducer of souls. The pair reinvented themselves in London, where they beguiled European society and risked everything for a life of glamour and desire. Rosetta said she was American; Zeno claimed to be a brilliant Japanese professor. Together they attracted the patronage of famous writers, inventors and scientists, lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses. Empress Eugenie, the widow of Napoleon III, and Princess Charlotte, sister of Germany's last Kaiser, were among their greatest devotees. Rosetta revelled in a life few women of her time would have dared to embrace, yet all the while she hid her secret shame: the daughter she had left behind. This is the compelling story of Alexandra Joel's quest to uncover the truth about her scandalous great-grandmother, and the shocking century-old secret she would discover at the heart of her family.
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Teresereading
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My next read from the TBR pile (mountain). Uncovering a family history /mystery

BookishMarginalia What a cool cover! 6y
10 likes1 stack add1 comment
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emmanoble
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Train reading! We're off to Cambridge for the day 😍

Reviewsbylola Breathtaking cover. 7y
emmanoble Agreed..it's gorg @Reviewsbylola 7y
37 likes2 comments
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BookloverBookReviews
Pickpick

What I found most successful was the sense of time and place, grandeur and possibility Joel evokes in her conjured glimpses into the lives and minds of Rosetta and Zeno.

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Heather_Reads
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This is the latest addition to my book collection. The cover is sooooo beautiful and it has the word 'scandalous' on it. How could I not buy it?