A family struggles for redemption after a funeral brings dark secrets to the surface in this novel from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea, The Sea. For the first time in years, Edmund Narraway has returned to his childhood home—for the funeral of his mother. The visit rekindles feelings of affection and nostalgia—but also triggers a resurgence of the tensions that caused him to leave in the first place. As Edmund once again becomes entangled in his family’s web of corrosive secrets, his homecoming tips a precariously balanced dynamic into sudden chaos, in this compelling story of reunion and coming apart from Iris Murdoch, “one of the most significant novelists of her generation” (The Guardian).

An in-depth look at the author's childhood and adulthood including her travel through heartache, divorce and the loss of her parents. It grabs you right from the beginning and doesn't let go

When Isabella, a beautiful but lazy young woman, agrees to marry an equally lazy prince, the sorceress who raised her gives her the head of a goat in hopes that she will learn to do things for herself.

Immigrant girls are disappearing across fin de siècle Paris in a mystery that “shines a light on both the glamor and the grime of” the City of Light (Publishers Weekly). On a sultry night in June 1897, Pyotr Ivanovich Balenov, a young Russian, and two young women transport a dead man through the narrow streets of a working class neighborhood in northeastern Paris. They throw the body into the canal and the girls flee to the Latin Quarter to hide with one of the Russian’s anarchist “comrades.” They do not realize they, too, are being watched. Their subsequent disappearance and the violent acts that follow will set Clarie Martin, a teacher and mother of a toddler, and her husband, magistrate Bernard Martin (last seen in Cezanne’s Quarry and The Blood of Lorraine) on a dangerous quest to rescue them from a vicious killer.

She began to turn the pages of the paper more quickly, searching for the details about the war, the scandal, the trial... She thought back to those days at the end, when trust in Italy was in short supply. Betrayal was everywhere and the world went mad. Italy, 2019: Each morning Livia Moretti sits in her favorite café in Florence, drinking espresso and reading the newspaper. To the tourists who pass by she is simply an old lady. They walk on without knowing the part she played in saving this beautiful city. To Livia too the dark days of war feel very far away. But one morning she sees the name Isabella Bellucci and is jolted right back to the past. To a time when Nazi troops marched through the city and you could trust no one. Italy, 1942: As a member of the Italian resistance, Livia monitors British radio transmissions from the secrecy of her little attic room, dedicating her time to decoding mystery messages that could have the power to save the lives of those she loves the most. Until the day her life intersects with Isabella Bellucci. And, in a strange twist of fate, a terrible misunderstanding will change the course of the war for both of them. One woman will never forgive herself. And the other will find herself betrayed...

Set against a memorable backdrop of Lucinda Riley's trademark evocative locations, The Italian Girl unfolds into a poignant and unforgettable tale of love, betrayal and self-discovery. Nothing sings as sweetly as love, or burns quite like betrayal. Rosanna Menici is just a girl when she meets Roberto Rossini, the man who will change her life. In the years to come, their destinies are bound together by their extraordinary talents as opera singers and by their enduring but obsessive love for each other – a love that will ultimately affect the lives of all those closest to them. For, as Rosanna slowly discovers, their union is haunted by irreversible events from the past . . . Rosanna's journey takes her from humble beginnings in the back streets of Naples to the glittering stages of the world's most prestigious opera houses. *First published as Aria under the name Lucinda Edmonds, now extensively rewritten*