Susanna Weber is renowned for producing the most elegant, exquisite couture in Vienna. As all of fashionable society passes through her fitting room, Susanna touches numerous lives as matchmaker, comforter, confidante...and passionate lover.

From the improverished yet proud Countess von Metz, to Nini the volatile Hungarian anarchist; from Sigismund Kraszinsky, the young musical prodigy, to Susanna's hidden lover himself, Eva Ibbotson conjures up a perfect miniature of a vanished society. But while the world hurtles towards war, the secrets and sorrows which lie behind Susanna's bewitching charm emerge as she and her friends live out the last, glittering days of Imperial Vienna in the idyllic surroundings of Madensky Square.