Our Own Set [A Whisky Priest Book]

“The set of the title is a group of Austrian nobles living in Rome on long-term holidays, escaping the provincialism of Viennese society–only to create their own form of it. The harmony of the scene is disrupted when the secretary of the Austrian embassy–not much of a diplomat, but a fine waltzer–is sent off to London and replaced by Cecil Sterzl. The set instantly takes a dislike to Sterzl, who fails to play its game... His situation is not aided by his seating on a relatively low rung on the ladder of Austrian nobility, earned only by virtue of his mother’s slim claim to title... very much in the spirit of [Jane Austen’s] work: wise, comic, hyper-attuned to the subtleties of social hierarchies, and full of the business of love and courtship.” —The Neglected Books Page