The House by the Sea
A Novel
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4.4 • 27 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Previously published as The Mermaid Garden, the internationally bestselling author of The French Gardener presents a complex and irresistibly compelling novel that confirms the remarkable power of love to heal and transform.
Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. She likes to spy from the crumbling wall into the gardens and imagine that one day she’ll escape her meager existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendor. Then one day Dante, the son of the villa’s powerful industrialist owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden. From that moment, Floriana knows that the only destiny for her is there, in that garden, with Dante. But as they grow up and fall in love, their romance causes a crisis, jeopardizing the very thing they hold most dear.
Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beautiful old country house hotel on England’s Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is charismatic and wise and soon begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes of the hotel. However, he has his own agenda. Is it to destroy, to seduce, or to heal? Whatever his intentions, he is certain to change Marina’s life forever.
Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two stories, two generations, and two beautiful European locales are neatly gift-wrapped into one sumptuous tale of love, loss, and redemption. In 1966, feisty 10-year-old Floriana Farussi, abandoned by her mother to the custody of an alcoholic father, falls madly in love with teenage Dante Bonfanti, heir to a wealthy Tuscan family. The young man is beguiled by Floriana's spunk and indomitable spirit, and eventually they realize theirs is a bond forged in heaven. In 2009, Marina and Grey Turner struggle to keep their tiny Devon hotel afloat by hiring an Argentine painter to instruct their guests. The gallant Rafa Santori promptly falls for Grey's beautiful and obstreperous daughter, Clementine. But happy endings will not come easily to these young couples as secrets, subterfuge, and stubbornness threaten their love at every turn. Montefiore's plot lacks surprises, but her prose more than compensates with luxurious and romantic depictions of scenic Tuscany and the beautiful English coast.
Customer Reviews
House by the Sea
Great. After all that, a relatively happy ding.