It is 1868. On a balmy autumn afternoon in Paris, young winemaker Casimir de Châteauneuf wanders into a small shop filled with curiosities from the Orient. There he spies a cache of fine miniature portraits.

Above all others, an ivory-skinned beauty captivates him. Her eyes ... one blue, the other yellow. That night they pursue Casimir in his dreams, as one burning question consumes him: Who is she?

Thus begins Alev Croutier’s lush, stirring adventure of the heart — a mesmerizing tale of forbidden passion, true love, and destiny. For Casimir will forsake his family, his vocation, and his country to find the object of his obsession.

His journey will lead him across desert and sea, from the Royal Court in Paris to a sultan’s palace in Istanbul. And there he will find the woman of his reveries, the woman with one blue eye, the other yellow.

But in this city of passion, in a Palace of Tears, Casimir is about to discover what it will mean to make a dream real ... and what awaits him when his lover is set free. “Each chapter glows like a small, precious jewel.”
— The Washington Post

“Alev Croutier’s grown-up fairy tale, with its strangely mesmerizing events, operates in a wonderful space between story and history and lures the reader into that place directly.”
— Diane Johnson, author of Le Mariage

“A beautiful little book ... like a rare perfume or an exquisite painting, it commands our complete, rapt attention.”
— Roanoke Times

“This is an enchanting tale of love: a man dreams of a woman while she dreams of a man who is dreaming of her. It reminds me of Silk by Alessandro Baricco, and One Thousand and One Nights, but Alev Croutier has a voice of her own, soft and poetic, like music in a Turkish garden.”
— Isabel Allende, author of Daughter of Fortune