Love Falls

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.