History remembers her as the mad Empress of Mexico.

This novel remembers her differently.

Born Princess Charlotte of Belgium, Carlota is brilliant, disciplined, and determined to shape history rather than merely witness it. In the idealistic Archduke Maximilian of Austria, she finds both a husband and an intellectual equal. Together they build Miramare, their white castle above the Adriatic, and dream of creating a more enlightened world.

Then Maximilian is offered the crown of Mexico.

To Carlota, it is not simply a throne—it is the chance to transform their ideals into action. But the empire awaiting them is already fractured by civil war, foreign ambition, and betrayal. As their dream begins to collapse, Carlota crosses Europe alone, pleading with emperors and kings—and finally the Pope—to save her husband and their imperiled crown.

No one will listen.

Separated from Maximilian and increasingly surrounded by those who question her sanity, Carlota must fight to preserve the truth of what happened—and the memory of the man she loves.

Richly researched and vividly imagined, Carlota restores humanity to a woman history reduced to tragedy. Moving from the royal courts of Brussels and Vienna to Miramare and Mexico, it is a sweeping historical novel of love, ambition, exile, and the terrible cost of believing that intelligence and courage can alter the course of history.