Lucinda is to marry Waldo, but runs away on the day of her wedding. Later, we find out why. We follow her over the course of a couple years after WWI through the first-person narrator. Central to the story is the enmity between Lucinda and Nina Frost, Waldo's neighbor and the third wheel to their courtship. (Goodreads)
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope (9 February 1863 – 8 July 1933), was an English novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works, "minor classics" of English literature, are set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania and spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance, works set in fictional European locales similar to the novels. Zenda has inspired many adaptations, most notably the 1937 Hollywood movie of the same name. (Wikipedia)