Kirjahaku

Set in the lush countryside of Provence, Deborah Lawrenson s The Lantern is an atmospheric modern gothic tale of love, suspicion, and murder, in the tradition of Daphne du Maurier'sRebecca. Drawn to a wealthy older man, Eve embarks on a whirlwind romance that soon offers a new life and a new home Les Genevriers, a charming hamlet amid the fragrant lavender fields of Provence. But Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-down old house. The more reluctant Dom is to tell her about his past, the more she is drawn to it and to the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful ex-wife. An evocative tale of romantic and psychological suspense, The Lantern masterfully melds past and present, secrets and lies, appearances and disappearances along with our age-old fear of the dark."

Interweaving three narratives, a story of love, mystery, and murder during World War II follows three courageous women--an award-winning British landscape designer, a young, blind perfumer's apprentice, and a junior British intelligence officer.

Romance, suspense, and World War II mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas--rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere--from the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.The Sea GardenOn the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden's owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian. . . .The Lavender FieldNear the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life . . . and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected.A Shadow LifeIris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime London, falls for a French agent. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, he vanishes. When France is liberated, Iris is determined to uncover the truth. Was he the man he claimed to be?Ingeniously interconnected, this spellbinding triptych weaves three parallel narratives into one unique tale of love, mystery, and murder. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war--and a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

Combining the atmosphere of Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins with the intriguing historical backstory of Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train, Deborah Lawrenson's mesmerizing novel transports readers to a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past--where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes.Traveling to Faro, Portugal, journalist Joanna Millard hopes to escape an unsatisfying relationship and a stalled career. Faro is an enchanting town, and the seaside views are enhanced by the company of Nathan Emberlin, a charismatic younger man. But behind the crumbling facades of Moorish buildings, Joanna soon realizes, Faro has a seedy underbelly, its economy compromised by corruption and wartime spoils. And Nathan has an ulterior motive for seeking her company: he is determined to discover the truth involving a child's kidnapping that may have taken place on this dramatic coastline over two decades ago.Joanna's subsequent search leads her to Ian Rylands, an English expat who cryptically insists she will find answers in The Alliance, a novel written by American Esta Hartford. The book recounts an American couple's experience in Portugal during World War II, and their entanglements both personal and professional with their German enemies. Only Rylands insists the book isn't fiction, and as Joanna reads deeper into The Alliance, she begins to suspect that Esta Hartford's story and Nathan Emberlin's may indeed converge in Faro--where the past not only casts a long shadow but still exerts a very present danger.

In 1944 Tom Wainwright, a British soldier, arrives in the small Italian town of Petriano. Fifty years later Isabel Wainwright, Tom's daughter, sets off for Petriano herself, to attend a ceremony naming a piazza in her father's honour.

In the last glimmers of lucidity, Elizabeth presents her daughter with a gift that suggests a very secret history - one that leads Melissa to Kalami, where Julian Adie, poet, traveller and novelist, once lived. But what is the connection between Adie - an alluring hedonist who discarded four wives - and Melissa's mother Elizabeth?

A brooding, contemporary novel of secrets, lost love, perfume and Provence for fans of Tracy Rees and Jenny Ashcroft'A modern day Rebecca, complete with an eerie house ... and nail-biting happenings' ESSENTIALS

Following on from her TV Book Club success with THE LANTERN, Deborah Lawrenson returns to the south of France with another captivating story of wartime love, secrets and bravery.

Moscow, 1958. At the height of the Cold War, secretary Lois Vale is on a deep-cover MI6 mission to identify a diplomatic traitor. She can trust only one man: Johann, a German journalist also working covertly for the British secret service. As the trail leads to Vienna and the Black Sea, Lois and Johann begin an affair but as love grows, so does the danger to Lois. A tense Cold War spy story told from the perspective of a bright, young, working-class woman recruited to MI6 at a time when men were in charge of making history and women were expendable.