At 21 Annabelle Driscoll was the acknowledged beauty, but it was her sister Audrey — four years older — who had the spine and spirit. She had talent — a lot of talent — as a photographer; she had the restless urge of a born wanderer.

Inevitably it was Annabelle who was the first to marry, leaving Audrey to wonder it life were passing her by.
Sometimes she would dream of a man like her father, someone with adventure in his soul and exotic places in his heart.

The men she met in California were dull. Even in New York they failed to spark her. Only when she took ship for Europe aboard the Mauretania did she begin to mingle with her own kind. Only when she boarded the Orient Express did she realise she was beginning a journey that would take her farther than she had ever dreamed possible ... deep into China, Tibet, the magic of the Orient and later North Africa and Europe. Her life was never to be the same again.