A Woman’s Flame

She could have been a servant all her life and never complain, but she chose to be different.

This novel is inspired by real events.

Vienna, 1910: A sixteen-year-old red-haired girl is banished from her home and thrown to the streets. She must find a way to survive, as the police ban those who sleep outside at night.

In her desperate search, she manages to enter a women’s hostel, but it soon becomes clear to her that this hostel is just a façade, and the girls there are being exploited to entertain the gentlemen who visit. She knows she has to escape.

Her chance will come when a famous painter enters the hostel in search of a model for his paintings. Now, she must make a life-altering decision: Will she step into the unknown world of Viennese Bohemian painters, or will she remain in a place where women have only one predetermined destiny?

This novel draws inspiration from the life story of the red-haired girl who posed for the iconic paintings of Gustav Klimt and became the lover and muse of the renowned painter Egon Schiele: Walburga Neuzil, known as Wally.