Last Voyage of the Valentina
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4.5 • 13 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
FROM THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR
A tale of war, of Italy, of a beautiful young woman and a terrible tragedy from the number on bestselling author of Songs of Love and War.
Italy, 1945
The war is over but its shadow still lingers. And deep in the lush countryside an eccentric aristocrat is savagely murdered in his beautiful palazzo.
London, 1971. Years later, this unsolved crime touches the life of Alba, a hedonistic girl who lives on a houseboat in swinging Chelsea.
Between these two distinctive times runs a thread of love, decadence and betrayal that takes Alba to the olive groves of the Amalfi Coast, rich with the scent of figs, the drama of wartime and the lingering decay of tragedy.
The past unfolds revealing a secret web of partisans and Nazis, peasants and counts and in the centre of it all, an alluring woman of mystery: her mother…
***PRAISE FOR SANTA MONTEFIORE***
‘Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore’ JOJO MOYES
‘An enchanting read overflowing with deliciously poignant moments’ DINAH JEFFERIES on Songs of Love and War
‘Santa Montefiore hits the spot for my like few other writers’ SARRA MANNING
‘One of our personal favourites’ THE TIMES on The Last Secret of the Deverills
‘Accomplished and poetic’ Daily Mail
‘Santa Montefiore is a marvel’ Sunday Express
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Long-legged, lascivious Alba lives on a London houseboat, the Valentina, moored in 1971 London. She is the daughter of a WWII romance; her proper English father, Thomas Arbuckle, and stepmother ("the Buffalo") never mention her mysterious Italian mother Valentina who died when she was a baby. As a discovered sketch sparks Alba's curiosity about her mother's past, she takes up with literary agent Fitz Conroy, then breaks it off and goes to Italy to learn the truth about her past. Though this is Montefiore's U.S. debut, more than three million copies of her books are in print in the EU (the press chat notes that Charles and Camilla "made their debut as a couple" at Montefiore's wedding to historian Simon Sebag). Presumably, her EU translators were able to make lines like "Don't talk, you fool. Kiss me," sound more seductive and surprising in other languages than they do in the King's English.
