The Perfect Happiness: A Novel - Softcover

Montefiore, Santa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439183465 ISBN 13: 9781439183465

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2010

Synopsis

Previously published as The Perfect Happiness

Wonderfully wise Santa Montefiore will capture your heart with this "bittersweet and thought-provoking"* novel about a modern wife who must ask herself, Would I risk everything for love?

A wife who has forgotten her own beauty and allure. A distant, distracted husband. A smart, candlelit dinner party, witty conversation, and a charmingly rugged vineyard owner from South Africa. So begins Santa Montefiore’s powerful and poignant new novel in which a woman who finds herself in a common predicament must confront the most unlikely aspects of herself.

"I hope you don’t mind my writing to you," begins the first e-mail bestselling children’s book author Angelica receives from Jack. Surely it can’t do any harm to indulge in a mild flirtation. After all, she wouldn’t risk her stable marriage and the happiness of her treasured children. But things don’t stop at an e-mail, and when Angelica goes to Cape Town for a book tour, her affair with Jack begins in earnest. On their last day together, he makes a stunning confession, and now everything Angelica thought she knew about love and passion, safety and experience, right and wrong are entirely upended once again.

A tender book about the true meaning of love and happily ever after, The Affair is for any woman who has ever looked up from her steady, secure life and secretly wondered "what if . . ."

About this title

About the Author:

Santa Montefiore’s books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and have sold more than six million copies in England and Europe. She is married to writer Simon Sebag Montefiore. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha, in London. Visit her at SantaMontefioreauthor.com.

From Booklist:

Montefiore (The French Gardener, 2009) sets her latest love story among a group of privileged Londoners. Angelica, a best-selling author, is married to a handsome French banker, has two adorable children, a coterie of well-heeled friends that does Sex and the City one better with five fabulous women instead of four, and a closet full of Prada, Gucci, and Ralph Lauren. And yet she's dissatisfied. Enter Jack, a dashing South African. The two begin a flirtation over dinner that quickly escalates from suggestive emails to a full-blown affair. The pair's bliss is short-lived, however, but Angelica settles back into life with her family having learned from Jack the value of finding happiness in the moment. Throughout, Montefiore's prose is as fizzy as the Bellinis her heroine favors, and the author's sensual style wonderfully conjures the sights, sounds, and smells of settings that range from upscale restaurants to shantytowns. While some readers may find Montefiore's cataloging of conspicuous consumption slightly tone-deaf, most will enjoy this romp as escapism of the highest order. --Patty Wetli

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1439183465
• ISBN 13: 9781439183465
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 399