"If you knew you were going to be put to death in the morning, how would you spend your last night?" Olivia Victoria George poses the question when she spins a spellbinding story of compelling characters bursting with life as she steps over the threshold of World War II. She delves into the heart of emotions when, as an old woman, she relates from her diary, a life-altering tale of prophecy, destiny, love, and lust. She tells of a sightseeing holiday, when as an adventurous young woman, she rode a bicycle in Eastern Europe into a land of which very little was known in the helter-skelter, chaotic summer of 1938. Her story is set against stunning vistas in Poland, Ukraine, and Romania as she climbed majestic mountains infested with marauders, was feted by capricious royalty in fairy tale castles, and witnessed the beginning of senseless destruction and unimaginable madness wrought by German Nazis along her perilous journey. She divulges with amazing alacrity, how her world and everything in it was transformed from sheltered innocence to the heights of sensual pleasure and blinding love, to the depths of disaster and doom when she encountered the irrepressible: His Romani Excellency, Gypsy King John Smith.