The internationally bestselling author of The Wedding Officer delivers a stunning blend of exotic adventure and erotic passion that seduces from the very first page--and intoxicates until the last . . . a novel whose mystery begins with a single coffee bean. A cup of coffee changed Robert Wallis's life--and a cup of very bad coffee at that. The impoverished poet is offered the last thing a struggling young artiste in fin de siècle England could possibly want: a job. But the job Wallis accepts--employing his palate and talent for words to compose a "vocabulary of coffee" based on its many elusive flavors--is the beginning of an extraordinary adventure. It's an adventure that will lead Wallis across the continent and into the arms of two breathtaking women: Emily, the spirited daughter of his employer, and Fikre, the defiant, seductive slave of a powerful coffee merchant, who, in one unforgettable gesture, invites Wallis to partake of both the mysteries of coffee and a forbidden passion--a passion that will change the way he thinks about life, about fate, and especially about love. . . .