Ouida 
In a Winter City (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) [EPUB ebook] 

This 1876 novel is set in the fictional Italian city of Floralia—a transparent stand-in for Florence.  Ouida was a sometime resident of the city, and her knowledge of that peculiar Italy (home to English expatriates) gives her potboiler plot a distinct authenticity—and a storyline which features the beautiful but emotionally austere heroine Lady Hilda.

عن المؤلف

Ouida (1839-1908), born Maria Louise Ramé, was a prolific English writer of novels for adults and children.  A self-proclaimed “serious artist, ” her works combined social commentary with swashbuckling adventure plots that often veered into melodrama.  After a life as extravagant as her fiction, she died in poverty in Italy.