The house by the sea : a novel

Summary: Ten-year-old Floriana dreams of a better life. Abandoned by her mother and living with her alcoholic father, she finds solace in the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. When Dante, the son of the town's most powerful businessman, catches her spying from the crumbling wall surrounding the estate, he invites her inside the garden. Even though the two of them are from opposite worlds, they form a fast friendship that blossoms into romance. But what they don't realize is that there are other forces working to keep them apart. Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a charming old country hotel on England's Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Desperate to bring in business, Marina, the hotel's owner, advertises for an artist to say the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is handsome and charismatic and soon begins to transform the fortunes of the hotel. But as the summer wears on, his presence brings up secrets long buried in the past.

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