Set in a beautiful villa high in the hills above Florence, this seductive and moving novelreveals the full power of desperate love. Mary Panton ignores her desires in the clam of the villa as she contemplates her loveless marraige, but a single act of compasion begins a nightmare of violence that destroys her serenity.
She turns for help to the notorious Rowley Flint, and through him she comes to realise that to deny love, with all its passions and risks, is to deny life itself.
Editorial Reviews
"A writer of great dedication." --Graham Greene
"One of my favourite writers'." --Gabriel García Márquez
"The modern writer who has influenced me the most." --George Orwell
About the Author
W. Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He began to study medicine in London but quit to focus exclusively on writing. In 1926 he bought a house in Cap Ferrat, France, which was to become a meeting place for a number of writers, artists and politicians. He died in 1965.
