Book Review: The Mermaid Garden

The Mermaid Garden
Author: Santa Montefiore
Pages: 400 pgs
Reading Level: Adult
Release Date: May 3rd 2011
Review Source: Simon & Schuster
Available: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Borders

Summary: (from Simon & Schuster) The internationally bestselling author of The French Gardener presents a complex and irresistibly compelling novel that confirms the remarkable power of love to heal and transform.

Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. She likes to spy from the crumbling wall into the gardens and imagine that one day she'll escape her meager existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendor. Then one day Dante, the son of the villa's powerful industrialist owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden. From that moment, Floriana knows that the only destiny for her is there, in that garden, with Dante. But as they grow up and fall in love, their romance causes a crisis, jeopardizing the very thing they hold most dear.

Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beau-tiful old country house hotel on England's Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is charismatic and wise and soon begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes of the hotel. However, he has his own agenda. Is it to destroy, to seduce, or to heal? Whatever his intentions, he is certain to change Marina's life forever.

Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed.

A compelling romance novel where the author weaves the past and present to keep you at the edge of your seat as you follow the developments. This resilient young girl that was abandoned by her mother and left with an alcoholic father is smitten by an upper class young man. Their love can’t keep things from getting complicated and with the help of family and friends the unexpected happens.

It is hard to get into a more detail account of the plot without spoiling the novel, but there is romance, true love, pain and secrets. The author gives you a heart wrenching sense of their great love and their loss and keeps your expecting and guessing to the very satisfying end. Feelings transgress the pages to make you experience the sorrow and happiness, a most read for the romance enthusiasts.