Contessa

by Helene Mansfield

Book Overview

1 HARDCOVER BOOK This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385173008
• ISBN13: 9780385173001
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 494 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

My Favorite Heroine

I love Contessa. This is my favorite story, and has been since it was given to me when I was 17. Like every man that has been in her company I have fallen in love with Valentina Ivanova Nikolayeva. She is a model of strength and grace in every situation. Her life takes us in vivid detail from the ball rooms of France to the ice hallways of a Russian palace to a small estate in Spain and many other beautiful and even terrifying places. I recommend this book to every young women coming of age and anyone who loves history.

I ALWAYS have this book on my mind, 15 years later....

OMG!! Finally, I have found it! This book has been in my heart and mind since I was 16 years old. I remember being so obsessed with it, and I got to a part that I was crying and couldn't stop and my grandma called me, and she said, honey whats wrong. And (I am laughing today, but very serious), I cound not breathe, and I tried to tell her it was the book I was reading. She was shocked that it was a book that had me so upset. She did laugh for a few days afterwards, and every time I think of her, and a good book that I've read, I always seem to think of Contessa for some reason.

Wonderful Book - Read It Many Times!!

Contessa is a great book which I've been reading since the early eighties, when I was a child, and which I finished again today. It never disappoints and, like the other reviewer, it is difficult to imagine that the characters are not real when history is brought alive so vividly. This is a book which I have grown up with and will, I imagine, be re-reading for years to come.

What a great book!

This is an excellent book; I have been re-checking it out of the local library for the past thirteen years. History comes alive in the hands of the gifted author Mansfield, who carries the reader from the pre-Revolutionary years in Russia through World II in France and beyond. Her Russian heroine, Valentina, is by far one of the most interesting characters to read about, and one can almost believe that she was a real person who lived through all these world events. An excellent book for anyone who is fascinated with world history and romance, highly recommended. I loved it because I could not put it down. If you loved Danielle Steel's ZOYA, you will love this just as well.