A richly dark and bawdy historical thriller, whether you love this book will be complicated ultimately by how you feel about Richard and his godfather James. Shadowy, unpleasant and as manipulated as they are manipulative, if you find them rakishly intoxicating then you’ll love this lusty romp but some readers may find that there just isn’t enough that’s sympathetic in their epistolary tale.
Ellen Trawton is running away from it all - quite literally. She is due to get married to a man she doesn't love, her job is dragging her down and her interfering mother is getting on her nerves. So she escapes to the one place she know her mother won't follow her - to her aunt's house in rural Ireland. Once there, she uncovers a dark family secret - and a future she never knew she might have. Meanwhile, Caitlin Macausland is mourning the future she can never have. She died tragically in what the village thinks is suspicious circumstances, and now she is stuck in a limbo, unable to move on. And between the two of them is an old lighthouse - the scene of so much tragedy. Can each woman find the peace she so desperately longs for? And can they find the way to live again?
Santa Montefiore was born in England in 1970 to an Anglo-Argentine mother, and read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University. After a year teaching English on an Argentine estancia, she spent much of the nineties in Buenos Aires. She lives in London with her husband, the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, and their children, Lily and Sasha.