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What do a champagne socialist opera director, an albino diva, a one-eyed journalist, a professor of economics, and two Jewish Hungarian sisters — one a cancan dancer with ties to the French Resistance — have in common? They are all searching for Clara.
In 1992 opera singer Clara vanished from an airport in Cape Town. Her husband, Gareth, declared her dead in absentia eight years later. But when an anonymous opera manuscript arrives at a struggling punk opera company in Berlin, it seems to hold cryptic clues to Clara’s fate.
As unlikely allies unite to uncover the mystery, they must confront a difficult question: If they find Clara, how will it change their fragile lives? More importantly, how can they put her story on the stage?
The Lost Queen is a gripping tale of love lost, hope renewed, and the search for truth that will leave you questioning what it means to be truly found.
A wonderful, deep, touching, beautifully crafted book. Heidi von Palleske is a master storyteller.
Heidi von Palleske writes with a kind of quiet magic — the kind that sneaks up on you, the kind that makes ordinary moments shimmer. Von Palleske sees the world through both a camera lens and a poet’s eye, every frame alive, every line rich with feeling. She doesn’t just tell a story; she immerses you in one — guiding you through the dark toward something warm, luminous, and deeply human. It’s a book to fall into, get lost in, and come out the other side changed.
An operatic ensemble cast, vibrant colours, a mystery to solve and… cakes. Heidi von Palleske serves a novel like a slice of apfelkuchen, layered with sights and scents, twining memory and introspection. A fairy tale and modern romance, The Lost Queen is mythic and sometimes witchy.
Heidi von Palleske’s long-awaited sequel to Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack arrives with all the invention, mystery, and emotional charge of the first book—and then some. The Lost Queen picks up the threads of her unforgettable characters and the wild, uncanny world she created, carrying them forward with wit, beauty, and a deepening sense of intrigue. Told with energy and soul, the story opens up each character in ways that make whole sections fly by, pulling the reader onward with the irresistible need to know: Where, oh where, is the lost White Queen? A richly imagined, compulsively readable novel. Highly recommended.
In the mesmerizing second novel of her trilogy, Von Palleske plunges her extraordinary characters ever deeper into a cauldron of pain, suffering and unbearable loss, yet always with abundant charm, wit, and abiding tenderness for their hardships and longings. In lesser hands the proceedings risk collapsing under their own weight, but the author’s love, admiration, even awe for her flawed creations is so genuine, and her hopes for their forbearance and transcendence held so dear, that we can’t help but take these people into our hearts, hold them tight, share their struggles and cheer their victories as our own. What a stellar writer. What a moving read. This book ripped my guts out in the very best way.
A shimmering odyssey, Heidi von Palleske’s novel grabs the reader by the heart and never lets go. A cast of audacious and unforgettable characters, each grappling with a profound loss, joins forces on an epic international search for their beloved Lost Queen. Exquisitely written, heart-rending, and at times deliciously funny, this story evokes all the senses as it explores what it means to fully love and live.
Heidi von Palleske’s The Lost Queen is darkly funny, heart-rending, occasionally disturbing, and ultimately uplifting — a novel filled with richly drawn, almost Dickensian characters whom I found myself missing long after the final page.
A haunting meditation on love, loss, and the fierce power of art — The Lost Queen illuminates the architecture of longing with rare grace.
A really, really good book - a real page turner. I loved it!