The House by the Sea: A Novel
May 2011 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
Ebook
432
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About this ebook
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.
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.
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 Tu...
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About the author
Santa Montefiore is the number one bestselling author of more than thirty novels and has sold over eight million copies worldwide. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages, and she won a Romantic Novelists’ Association Award for The Temptation of Gracie in 2019, which is currently in development for film. Born in England in 1970, she grew up in Hampshire and now lives in London with her husband, writer Simon Sebag Montefiore, their daughter Lilochka, son Sasha, and dog Simba. Shadows in the Moonlight is the first novel of a planned trilogy following the character Pixie Tate. Visit her at SantaMontefiore.co.uk and connect with her on Facebook @SantaMontefioreBooks or on Instagram @SantaMontefioreOfficial.
Santa Montefiore is the number one bestselling author of more than thirty novels and has sold over eight million copies worldwide. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages, and she won a Romantic Novelists’ Association Award for The Temptation of Gracie in 2019, which is currentl...
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