“Some people say you’ll fall in love, and that’s the person you’ll spend forever with; the person who’ll know your deepest and darkest secrets and still love you even then, the person who’ll know exactly the right thing to say to make you laugh or smile or feel better.” ~The Kissing Booth
Fourteen-year-old English girl Betsy Balcombe and her family have an unusual houseguest: Napoleon Bonaparte, former emperor of France and the most feared man on earth. Once lord and master to eighty-two million souls, now, in 1815, Napoleon is a captive of the British people. Stripped of his empire and robbed of his young family and freedom, he is confined to the forbidding, rat-infested island of St. Helena.
The one bright star in Napoleon’s black sky is Betsy, a blazingly rebellious teenager whose family is reluctantly housing the notorious prisoner. Betsy is the only foreigner Napoleon’s ever met who is not impressed by him — and Napoleon is more than intrigued.
An unexpected alliance is formed. And a remarkable friendship between emperor and girl spawns gossip, and inspires Betsy to hatch a daring and dangerous scheme that could threaten both their lives and shake entire empires to their foundations.
