A treat for you on Women’s Day!  Austrian author Stefan Zweig  (The Post Office Girl, Beware of Pity and many novellas) was once the world’s most translated author. No wonder. This steaming hot novella about a woman and her whirlwind 24 hour affair with a much younger man is absolutely spellbinding, even more so when you know it was written by a man and almost 90 years ago!

Set in the 1930s in a posh French riviera hotel, guests are scandalised when a fellow female guest elopes with a young man. Our narrator is more forgiving and attracts the attention of  Mrs C, a ‘white-haired, distinguished old English lady’, who has a story of her own. Be prepared for passion guised as compassion and the most beautiful observation of hands that you’ll ever read.

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig is published by Pushkin Press, 92 pages.