In Love In Lucca

When her grandmother dies, Paola, the beautiful young daughter of the Earl and Countess of Berisforde is dismayed to find that the family's customary six months' mourning means that she will miss her debut in the London Season.
Instead her mother sends her to stay in the ancient and historic Italian town of Lucca with her aunt, the Contessa Raulo, who is to be her chaperone.
Paola's adventurer cousin Hugo arrives just before she leaves and asks a favour of Paola that is to prove fateful.
Having promised her mother that she will avoid him at all costs, Paola must now seek out a notorious 'ladies' man', the Marchese Vittorio di Lucca, and deliver a precious package to him.
It is a huge diamond set in a ring that had been presented some years earlier to the Marchese by the Nizam of Hyderabad, which had been stolen and which Hugo had brilliantly retrieved at great risk to his life.
Within the spectacular mediaeval ramparts of Lucca, Paola accomplishes her mission, falls in love with the beautiful town – and then, after a terrifying ordeal at the hands of murderous thugs, with its most prominent citizen as well!

Barbara Cartland was the world's most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.
She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.
Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.
She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven.
Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.
Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.
Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone's life.