About the book

The Empress Chronicles: The Keepsake is a fantastical account of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s teenage years, in which she is gifted a magical locket that has the ability to turn back time and predict true love. But there is evil afoot, a wicked enchantress who wishes to use the power of the locket to her own end, and the Empress finds out that love and freedom both come with a price. Read a recent interview with Suzy about this book here.

Excerpt

Innsbruck, June, 1852

The first time I laid eyes on the woman who would eventually ruin my life, she disappointed me. In the flesh, the legendary Archduchess for whom we’d practiced hours curtseying was nothing more than a fluffed up matron. Gray hair roughly pulled off a deeply lined forehead revealed tired, dull eyes. Her many necklaces tiered heavily round a wrinkled, white neck, accentuating an overly ample bosom that spilled, angry and powdered, out her busked trunk.

Mummi introduced us, and we curtsied and kissed the woman’s rings, which tasted of cold metal. Her fingers were gnarled and deformed. The Archduchess turned to Mummi, and I whispered in my sister’s ear, “She’s like a witch.”

Of the two of us, Nené had always been the calm one, slower to laugh or show excitement, much more like Mummi, but this time she whacked me a hard one to the arm. She whispered harshly back, “Do not ruin my chance to be the Archduchess’s daughter-in-law.”

The Archduchess herself didn’t hear a word, because her mouth was whispering into her own sister’s ear. They couldn’t wait to go at it about their disappointments and their troubles–their jealousies of the other sisters in the family, the worry over tarts and harlots who seemed all too eager to take over the hearts and fortunes of their men. I had heard it all, and wished no part of that life. My crinolines were itchy, and I looked around the drawing room for biscuits.

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“Suzy Vitello is one of the smartest writers I know.  She’s taught me probably 40 percent of everything I know about writing fiction.  I still write mainly to please her.”  -Chelsea Cain, NYT bestselling thriller author

“Suzy Vitello Soulé writes like the sweet, smart, sassy person I aspire to be. Her stories are full of mystery and longing and the endless and varied complexities of ten thousand kinds of love. She’s never written a page that didn’t make me ache for another one. Her work is sheer must-gobble-it-up.” -Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Torch