Love Falls
A Novel
-
-
3.6 • 10 Ratings
-
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
The highly praised author of Hideous Kinky, returns with a searing and sensuous tale young love set amid the heat and beauty of a Tuscan summer
The Independent calls Esther Freud “the best writer on childhood we have.” In Love Falls this brilliant novelist proves her power once again with an utterly charming and irresistible tale of adolescent love and self-discovery set in a foreign land.
When 17-year-old Lara accepts her father’s invitation to accompany him to Tuscany for the summer, she’s excited and trepidatious. But, her fears prove groundless, for the villa’s closest neighbors are the contagiously adventurous Willoughbys, the teenaged brood of a wealthy British lord. Caught up in their torrential good humor—and snared particularly by Kip Willoughby’s dark, flirtatious eyes—Lara sets off on a summer adventure full of danger, first love, and untold consequences that will change her life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Freud, who is Sigmund Freud's great-granddaughter and Lucien Freud's daughter, echoes some of the autobiographical material that enlivened her debut and biggest success, Hideous Kinky, in this sixth novel. Lara, 17, is already a veteran of a transformative journey to the Far East with her mother as she sets out on a very different trip, from London to Italy with her reclusive father, Lambert. Lara's adolescent turns of mind, her changing relationship with "Lamb" and her utterly contradictory (and utterly human) desires to be both in the world and safe at home make for a surprising and convincing character study. But Freud's engaging, insightful writing is undermined by antique plot devices: is Lamb also the father of Kip Willoughby, the cute boy at the adjacent villa? Was Kip conceived in an act of sexual revenge? Did the Willoughbys' grandfather once renege on a promise to bring Lara's grandparents out of WWII Germany? Still, the soap-opera drama doesn't ruin the book: one wants to remain with Freud's lively voice and to see what Lara makes of it all.
