The Sea Garden: A Novel - Brossura

Deborah Lawrenson

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0062357336 ISBN 13: 9780062357335

Casa editrice: Harper, 2014

Riassunto

Romance, suspense, and WWII mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas from Deborah Lawrenson, the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.

THE SEA GARDEN
On the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, award-winning British landscape designer Ellie Brooke has accepted a commission to restore an abandoned garden. The beautiful estate overlooks the glittering sea, but Ellie begins to sense a lingering evil there. When the owner's very elderly mother, Madame de Fayols, begins telling stories of the Domaine's dark past, it gradually becomes clear that she has a very personal reason for wanting to destroy Ellie's peace of mind. Meanwhile, who is the mysterious war historian Gabriel who comes to her aid?

THE LAVENDER FIELD
When Marthe Lincel leaves the school for the blind in Manosque for an apprenticeship at the local perfume factory during the Second World War, she has no idea that the Distillerie Musset is at the heart of a Resistance cell operating in Nazi-occupied Provence. In the last desperate months of occupation, the Maquis resistants have gathered in the hills to launch their attacks. But as time runs out for the Germans, their reprisals become ever more brutal. When tragedy strikes, Marthe discovers she would do anything to help her new friends, even if it means putting her own life at risk.

A SHADOW LIFE
Iris Nightingale is a junior intelligence officer for SOE in London, the secret network operating in occupied France. When Xavier Descours, a French agent who organizes the liaison between the Moondrop flights and the Resistance, arrives in England, he and Iris begin a passionate affair. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, Xavier goes missing and Iris determines to discover what happened to her lover-and it is not long before harsh accusations are made. Was Xavier who he claimed to be, or was he a double agent with Allied blood on his hands?

The connection between these narratives an underground passage of sorts, visible only to the reader lends this book an unexpected, additional layer of intrigue. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war, a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

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Recensione:

“Lawrenson writes compassionately and convincingly of the war’s horrors and the ways in which ordinary people become heroes, continuously building the tension toward a never-saw-it-coming convergence of the trio of tales.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“Spellbinding...sumptuous.” (Publishers Weekly)

“The Sea Garden weaves a double spell: Lawrenson steeps her story of the invisible heroes of the French Resistance crossing borders-and here, crossing time-deep in the eerie beauty of the South of France. The result is a marvelous strange fruit: think Graham Greene with a dash of Poe.” (Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress)

“Sensuous.... Lawrenson’s poetic prose vibrantly conjures up both the beauty of southern France and the ghosts, real or imagined, from different eras.” (Entertainment Weekly on The Lantern)

“Deborah Lawrenson’s writing is delicious. Her stories are atmospheric, intoxicating and impossible not to get lost in.” (Sarah Jio, author of Goodnight June and Blackberry Winter)

L'autore:

Deborah Lawrenson grew up in Kuwait, China, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Singapore. She studied English at Cambridge University and has worked as a journalist for various publications in England, including the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, and Woman s Journal magazine. She lives in Kent, England, and she and her family spend as much time as possible at a crumbling hamlet in Provence, France, the setting for The Lantern.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Harper
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0062357336
• ISBN 13: 9780062357335
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 320