"When Allegra discovers her husband's infidelity. Her world crashes down around her. It is the ramblings of her elderly grandfather that awaken her interest in historic, interior architecture. On a trip to Florence she is visits her grandfather's birth village in Tuscany. Ready to meet someone new, Allegra ends up beguiled by a handsome Italian man and involved in a dangerous situation that becomes the catalyst for an unexpected discovery. Allegra returns to London only to be confronted with bad news. In the wake of her grandfather's demise she commits to the promise she gave him to solve a family mystery. Sammezzano Castle reveals the perfect historic backdrop to stimulate Allegra's love of architecture, to discover her true heritage and to indulge in a passionate love affair"--Back cover.

En gennemgang af Smithsonian Institutions Peacock Room, indrettet af J.A.M. Whistler (1834-1903)

The peacock room in Sammezzano Castle is an actual place in Tuscany, Italy. This story is a liberating, romantic read - an absolute page turner. It will take you to magical places, both in the past and the present; you will never want the story to end.

From “one of the most perceptive, compassionate writers of fiction in America...immensely talented and brave” (Michael Schaub, NPR), a historical saga about love, class, and the past we never escape. The Peacock Feast opens on a June day in 1916 when Louis C. Tiffany, the eccentric glass genius, dynamites the breakwater at Laurelton Hall—his fantastical Oyster Bay mansion, with columns capped by brilliant ceramic blossoms and a smokestack hidden in a blue-banded minaret—so as to foil the town from reclaiming the beach for public use. The explosion shakes both the apple crate where Prudence, the daughter of Tiffany’s prized gardener, is sleeping and the rocks where Randall, her seven-year-old brother, is playing. Nearly a century later, Prudence receives an unexpected visit at her New York apartment from Grace, a hospice nurse and the granddaughter of Randall, who Prudence never saw again after he left at age fourteen for California. The mementos Grace carries from her grandfather’s house stir Prudence’s long-repressed memories and bring her to a new understanding of the choices she made in work and love, and what she faces now in her final days. Spanning the twentieth century and three continents, The Peacock Feast ricochets from Manhattan to San Francisco, from the decadent mansions of the Tiffany family to the death row of a Texas prison, and from the London consultation room of Anna Freud to a Mendocino commune. With psychological acuity and aching eloquence, Lisa Gornick has written a sweeping family drama, an exploration of the meaning of art and the art of dying, and an illuminating portrait of how our decisions reverberate across time and space.

A princess in a portrait by the famous American painter, James McNeill Whistler, tells how he transforms the dreary room where she hangs in his wealthy patron's house in London into the spectacular Peacock Room.

Take a dilapidated castle in the Scottish Highlands; add a peacock gone rogue, a group of bankers on a teambuilding trip, an overwhelmed psychologist, a housekeeper with a broken arm, and an ingenious cook; get Lord and Lady McIntosh to try and keep it all together; and top it off with all sorts of animals – soon no one will know exactly what's going on. Selling 500,000 copies, Isabel Bogdan's book is a big hitter in Germany – and now it's coming home to roost.

From internationally bestselling author Hannah Richell comes a compelling story of hidden secrets, forbidden love, and a mysterious old house. Two women who long for more, and a house that holds the key to their freedom… 1955: At twenty-six-years old, Lillian Oberon is young, beautiful, and married to the wealthy and handsome Charles Oberon. She is also the mistress of Cloudesley, a lavish estate. But not long after her nuptials, she begins to feel her marriage is a sham. Like the exquisite objets d'art, curiosities, and treasures her husband collects, she is just another possession captured within the walls of the grand countryside manor. With a sister and young stepson in her care, Lillian has made peace with her unfulfilling marriage and fate—until a charismatic artist visits for the summer and makes Lillian re-examine the choices she’s made. The present day: Having abruptly broken off her engagement, Maggie Oberon escapes to Australia, hoping that the distance will make her forget the mess she’s made of her life. But when her beloved grandmother, Lillian, becomes ill, she must return to England and confront the past she ran away from. When she arrives at Cloudesley, she is dismayed to find the once opulent estate crumbling into decay. As Maggie scrambles to find a way to save the old property, she is unprepared to learn the dark secrets that have remained hidden behind the dark halls of Cloudesley. But within these walls also lies the key that could change its legacy—and Maggie’s life—forever.