Love Falls - Softcover

Freud, Esther

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0002008653 ISBN 13: 9780002008655

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007

Synopsis

It is July, three months after Lara’s 17th birthday and a week before Charles and Diana’s royal wedding, and Lara is about to exchange the exhaust fumes of London for the Tuscan hillsides, as she leaves on a summer holiday with her distant, charismatic father.

At Via Campanelli they are greeted by the cool, elegant Caroline, whose sardonic composure leaves Lara tongue-tied and awkward. But as Lara’s skin begins to turn golden, she finds herself relaxing, seduced by the limpid beauty of the place. To her delight, the villa’s closest neighbours turn out to be the contagiously adventurous Willoughbys, the teenaged brood of expat British millionaire Lord Andrew Willoughby. Though thrown by the glamour and noisy ebullience of the family, Lara is drawn to Kip, a carelessly beautiful boy a couple of years older than she is. That holiday spent under the spell of the Willoughbys will leave her transformed.

Love Falls is a riveting novel about how one summer can change everything. This is a story written from inside the mind and heart of a girl, delicately carved and achingly honest in its portrayal of self-discovery. British critics have called Esther Freud “the best writer on childhood we have.”Love Falls proves them right.

About this title

About the Author:

Esther Freud is the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and the daughter of the painter Lucian Freud. She trained as an actress before writing her first novel. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages. She lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Freud, who is Sigmund Freud's great-granddaughter and Lucien Freud's daughter, echoes some of the autobiographical material that enlivened her debut and biggest success, Hideous Kinky, in this sixth novel. Lara, 17, is already a veteran of a transformative journey to the Far East with her mother as she sets out on a very different trip, from London to Italy with her reclusive father, Lambert. Lara's adolescent turns of mind, her changing relationship with Lamb and her utterly contradictory (and utterly human) desires to be both in the world and safe at home make for a surprising and convincing character study. But Freud's engaging, insightful writing is undermined by antique plot devices: is Lamb also the father of Kip Willoughby, the cute boy at the adjacent villa? Was Kip conceived in an act of sexual revenge? Did the Willoughbys' grandfather once renege on a promise to bring Lara's grandparents out of WWII Germany? Still, the soap-opera drama doesn't ruin the book: one wants to remain with Freud's lively voice and to see what Lara makes of it all. (Dec.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0002008653
• ISBN 13: 9780002008655
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288