Set in the lush countryside of Provence,Deborah Lawrenson'sThe Lantern is an atmospheric modern gothic tale of love,suspicion, and murder, in the tradition of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.Drawn to a wealthy older man, Eve embarks on a whirlwind romance that soonoffers a new life and a new home—Les GenÉvriers, acharming hamlet amid the fragrant lavender fields of Provence. But Eve finds itimpossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-downold house. The more reluctant Dom is to tell her about his past, the more sheis drawn to it—and to the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful ex-wife. Anevocative tale of romantic and psychological suspense, The Lantern masterfullymelds past and present, secrets and lies, appearances and disappearances—alongwith our age-old fear of the dark.

Three stories rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere are linked by a single mystery in this spellbinding novel of love and loss in the fog of war.The Sea GardenOn the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden's owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian. . . . The Lavender FieldNear the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected. . . .A Shadow LifeIris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime...

Combining the atmosphere of Jess Walters' Beautiful Ruins with the intriguing historical backstory of Christina Baker Kline's The Orphan Train, Deborah Lawrenson's mesmerizing novel transports readers to a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past—where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes.Traveling to Faro, Portugal, journalist Joanna Millard hopes to escape an unsatisfying relationship and a stalled career. Faro is an enchanting town, and the seaside views are enhanced by the company of Nathan Emberlin, a charismatic younger man. But behind the crumbling facades of Moorish buildings, Joanna soon realizes, Faro has a seedy underbelly, its economy compromised by corruption and wartime spoils. And Nathan has an ulterior motive for seeking her company: he is determined to discover the truth involving a child's kidnapping that may have taken place on this dramatic coastline over two decades...

Sometimes the key to the future lies in the past . . . In the horseshoe bay of Kalami in Corfu, a tumultuous love affair begins between a renowned novelist and a woman escaping scandal. Years later, her daughter Melissa, running from her own past, returns to the island ... Melissa's life in England is in disarray. There are cracks in her perfect marriage, and her elderly mother, Elizabeth, is losing her memory and slowly drifting away. In the last glimmers of lucidity, Elizabeth presents her daughter with a gift that suggests a very secret history -- one that leads Melissa to Kalami, where Julian Adie, poet, traveller and novelist, once lived. But what is the connection between Adie -- an alluring hedonist who discarded four wives -- and Melissa's mother Elizabeth? As Melissa chases Adie's shadow across the golden places he loved, she finds her mother may not have been the person she thought. Forced to question morality, loyalty and her own unwillingness to let love in,...