In the spring of 1922, young Austrian Princess Theresa-Maria – known to her ancient aunts as ‘Putzerl’ – abandons her crumbling castle and her royal duties. This year (thanks to a recommendation by Ella Risbridger on Instagram, of all places) I have binged on Eva Ibbotson, not her children’s books, but her elegantly written, witty and well-observed if (after a few) formulaic fables of emigrées with beautiful burnished hair fallen on hard times. THE RELUCTANT HEIRESS is a (retitled) re-issue of Ibbotson's Magic Flutes, which was originally published in 1982.

This was typical Eva Ibbotson fare: a story that's just predictable enough to make it feel cosy and well-loved without feeling boring or clichéd.The opera and it's inhabitants once again form a tidy little group of childlike adults, each more eccentric than the last and as a whole a not entirely unadorable little troup. So yes, there is a formulaic quality and these books could be as overly sweet as the Kaffe mit Schlag people drink in this one (set in Austria) and just as frothy.

All of it makes you want to put down the book and grab the first tickets to Austria that very moment.

When the woman he's loved since he was a young student at Oxford is suddenly widowed and back on the market, he lays out an alarmingly elaborate plan to woo and win her back and gift her with the life he believes she deserves.

Some we receive from the authors, some we receive from the publisher, and some we receive through a third party service like Net Galley. Stories about princesses and castles might be expected to appeal to younger children, but it's not written as children's fiction; there are a few sexual references, albeit subtle enough that a younger child might not notice them. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, from which she graduated with a diploma in education in 1965. Tessa, meanwhile, has left Schloss Pfaffenstein to serve art in Vienna as the under wardrobe mistress in a third-rate opera company full of comical characters, many of whom I have met in New York music circles. Tessa (who just happens to be an Italian princess) has dedicated herself as a maid of all work in the service of opera.But after the 4th or 5th time he becomes instantly, coldly enraged at something he imagines Tessa has done and ready to think the worst of her, I wanted to smack him. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Journey to the River Sea, and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature. She is charming, unassuming and generous and has earned the love and loyalty of the eccentric characters for whom she works. The yolks left over from the meringue are combined with the poaching liquid to form a thin custard sauce. Tessa is a beautiful, tiny, dark-eyed princess – who's given up her duties to follow her heart, working for nothing backstage at the Viennese opera.