Flappy Entertains by Santa Montefiore

Paperback: 242 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2021

Source:  Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: Flappy Scott-Booth, the self-styled queen of the small but not insignificant Devon town of Badley Compton, sat on the high-backed Russian imperial chair she'd bought at auction from Christie's and scrutinized the fresh face of the young woman sitting formally and a little nervously, on the other side of the walnut desk.

Review Quote: 'Packed with wickedly funny insights and throwaway lines and written with an extra-large helping of heart, this is the perfect escape for anyone in need of of a book hug!' Lancashire Post

My Opinion: Humorous fiction is a new direction for Santa Montefiore to take her writing. She has written this novel, especially for the character of Flappy Scott-Booth who originally appeared in 'The Temptation of Gracie'. She had so many emails about her at that time. This influenced her decision to expand her role and feature her as protagonist in a series of novels, of which 'Flappy Entertains' is the first.

For me personally it was an amusing, very light hearted and a quick read. A little far fetched and incredibly lightweight compared to her other novels which have much more substance to them. Disappointing and I think only really dedicated fans of her writing will enjoy this series. Sorry not for me, but I am sure I will continue to enjoy her writing. Just not this particular series.

My reviews of other novels by Santa Montefiore:  Secrets of the Lighthouse 

 The Swallow and the Hummingbird  The Summer House  The House by the Sea

The French Gardener  The Beekeeper's Daughter  Here and Now

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

Flappy Scott-Booth is the self-appointed queen bee of Badley Compton, a picturesque Devon village. While her husband Kenneth spends his days on the golf course, she is busy overseeing her beautiful house and gardens, and organising unforgettable events, surrounded by friends who hang on to her every word.
 
Her life is a reflection of herself – impossibly perfect.
 
Until the day that Hedda Harvey-Smith and her husband Charles move into the village. Into an even grander home than hers. Taking the front seat on the social scene, quite literally.
 
That simply will not do.
 
Flappy is determined to show Hedda how things are done here in Badley Compton. But then she looks into Charles’s beautiful green eyes. And suddenly, her focus is elsewhere. She is only human, after all…

Author Profile:         

Courtesy of Goodreads

Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.   

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Authors Official Website   Instagram   Facebook Page  Goodreads Author Profile  

Amazon Author Page

Here and Now by Santa Montefiore

Hardback: 389 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2020

Source:  Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: It was snowing. Fat,fluffy flakes, as large as cotton balls, tumbled from the sky, while dawn struggled valiantly to herald the day through the canopy of dense cloud.

Review Quote: Evocative, emotional and full of life, Here and Now is the most moving book you’ll read this year – from Sunday Times bestselling author Santa Montefiore.

Favourite Quote: “He said every time you look at a sunset and feel an expansion in your chest, that’s the Divine in you recognizing the Divine in nature.”  ― Santa Montefiore, Here and Now

My Opinion: Normally you can be guaranteed a relaxing read about families and love in romantic settings if you pick up a novel by Santa Montefiore.  Well not this time, although ‘Here and Now’ is a story about enduring love, it is a far cry from any of the other novels by her that I have read.  It is not the uplifting read that I have come to expect from this author, it still has her touch of writing about characters and settings that feel real though.

The protagonist Marigold is diagnosed with Dementia after months of trying to hide the sad truth from her family. They find roles are reversed as the wife and mother that has always looked after them, now needs them to care for her.

Profoundly moving as this is a subject that will in in one way or another touch so many of us in our lives. An insight into the reality of living with Dementia, which at times reduced me to tears. Recommended, but be warned it delivers emotional truths about life.

My reviews of other novels by Santa Montefiore:  Secrets of the Lighthouse 

 The Swallow and the Hummingbird  The Summer House  The House by the Sea

The French Gardener  The Beekeeper's Daughter  

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:  Meet Marigold and Dennis, two happily married empty-nesters in their late sixties. They should be enjoying their golden years in the idyllic English village where they live. But when their two grown daughters, Daisy and Suze, move back into the family home, both mother and father must learn how to deal with the upheaval. Meanwhile, as Daisy and Suze soak in the familiar comforts of home, they soon discover that their mother isn’t quite the same woman she was a few years ago. Sure, she is still kind-hearted and always willing to help, but something about their mom is different, and it’s becoming harder and harder for the family to ignore. For the first time in their lives, Dennis and his daughters find themselves caring for Marigold rather than the other way around.

Author Profile:         

Courtesy of Goodreads

                                                                   Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.   

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Authors Official Website   Instagram   Facebook Page  Goodreads Author Profile  

Amazon Author Page

The Beekeeper's Daughter by Santa Montefiore

Hardback: 383 pages                                                                                               
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2014
Source: Tywyn Library
First Sentence: Of all the weathered grey-shingled buildings on Tekanasset Island, Crab Covegolf club is one of the prettiest.
Favourite Quote: We're here to learn, Gracey. To grow in love. That's all there is to it. It's not complicated. And the way to grow is through selflessness, forgiveness and compassion: love. That's all there is. Putting oneself second, not first. Looking out for one another, like the bees.'
Review Quote: ‘One of our personal favourites and bestselling authors, sweeping stories of love and families spanning continents and decades’ (The Times)
My Opinion: I have read and reviewed a number of Santa Montefiore's novels and one thing that can be guaranteed if you pick up one of her novels, is a relaxing read about families and love set in a beautiful environment. She writes in a very atmospheric style and at first I was slightly disappointed with this one, although once I got into the novel this disappeared. Having only very recently read another of her novels, it seemed to have so many similarities and I had concerns about the formulaic style of the writing. There is no doubt that there is a pattern to her novels but lets face it, there is a pattern to romance and this is how she is entertaining us. Therefore, I recommend this as another delightful read set in the English countryside and the USA.

Recommended to: Fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, especially as she is often referred to as the author who took over her place in writing contemporary fiction. By coincidence Rosamunde Pilcher retired from writing in 2000 not long before Santa Montefiore's first novel was published, she has published many titles since then, so if you have not yet discovered her writing and are a fan of contemporary romantic fiction, do give her novels a try.

My Previous Reviews:

The Swallow and The Hummingbird    The French Gardener    The Summer House

Secrets of the Lighthouse         The House by the Sea

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

England, 1932: Grace Hamblin is growing up in a rural idyll. The beekeeper's daughter, she knows her place and her future - that is until her father dies and leaves her alone. Alone, that is, except for one man who she just can't shake from her thoughts…

Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's daughter Trixie Valentine is in love with an unsuitable boy. He's wild and romantic, and in a band that might be going somewhere. But when tragedy strikes and he has to go home to England, he promises to come back to Trixie one day, if only she will wait for him.

Both mother and daughter are searching for love and happiness, unaware of the secrets that bind them. To find what they are longing for they must confront the secrets of the past, and unravel the lies told long ago…

Author Profile

Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Goodreads - Author Profile   Santa Montefiore Official Website    Wikipedia - Santa Montefiore

Twitter - Santa Montefiore    Facebook - Santa Montefiore  Amazon Author Page

The House by the Sea by Santa Montefiore

                                                 

Paperback: 480 pages                                                                                              
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2011
Source: Amazon Purchase.
First Sentence: Prologue Tuscany 1966 - The little girl stood outside the imposing black gates of Villa La Magdalena and peered up the drive.
Favourite Quote: We come down here to experience life and learn to be compassionate, loving human beings.
Review Quote: ‘One of our personal favourites and bestselling authors, sweeping stories of love and families spanning continents and decades’ (The Times)
My Opinion: I have read and reviewed a number of Santa Montefiore's novels  and one thing that can be guaranteed if you pick up one of her novels, is a relaxing read about families and love set in a beautiful environment. She writes in a very atmospheric style and this time I was whisked away from the cold November weather to Tuscany and Devon.

Please note this book has also been published with the title The Mermaid Garden

Recommended to : Fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, especially as she is often referred to as the author who took over her place in writing contemporary fiction. By coincidence Rosamunde Pilcher retired from writing in 2000 not long before Santa Montefiore's first novel was published, she has published many titles since then, so if you have not yet discovered her writing and are a fan of contemporary romantic fiction, do give her novels a try.

My Previous Reviews:

The Swallow and The Hummingbird    The French Gardener    The Summer House

Secrets of the Lighthouse


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

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 meagre existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendour. 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, jeopardising the very thing they hold most dear.

Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beautiful 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.

Please note this book has also been published with the title The Mermaid Garden


Author Profile

Born in England in February 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

The following Biography, in her own words is Courtesy of  Santa Montefiore Official Website

Since I was a child I always wanted to be a writer. I dabbled in books throughout my youth, from children’s stories to rather naïve love stories as I got older. From the age of 12 I went to Sherborne School for Girls, which was a boarding school. There I excelled in English, which was lucky because I certainly didn’t excel at much else except for sport and music! I wrote stories for my friends, imagining romances between them and the spotty youths they fancied at Sherborne Boys’ School. I transformed them into Rhett Butlers and set them in humid, mosquito infested jungles, which I considered extremely romantic, having never been in one. This seemed to satisfy them and I was in great demand to write more. Fancying myself a bit of a novelist, especially after a writer friend of my mother’s read one and suggested I send it to a publisher, I attempted a novel. With little experience of love and life it wasn’t a surprise when it was rejected. The trouble was I hadn’t yet found a good story. That came later, when I went to live in Argentina.

I was 19. My Anglo Argentine mother arranged for me to work on an estancia on the Argentine Pampa for a year, teaching English to three young children. This turned out to be one of the best things my parents ever did for me for I fell in love. Not with a polo playing Argentine, although I did have an innocent flirtation, but with the country. I lost my heart to those flat, humid plains and still, after 5 books, I have not managed to retrieve it. You see, Argentina is intoxicating. The countryside is rich with the scents of eucalyptus and gardenia, the sound of horses snorting in the fields or thundering up the polo pitch, birdsong and crickets resounding across the park. The houses, colonial in style, are painted white and yellow with dark green shutters to keep out the stifling summer heat, and surrounded by brightly coloured flowers and red tiled terraces upon which one can sit and stare out for miles over that vast plain. It is difficult to see where the sky begins and the earth ends, the horizon is simply mist. One feels very small. I spent a lot of time on a pony, riding to the neighbouring estancia for tea with friends, cutting across the plain, through the long grasses alive with prairie hares. Little by little I began to feel that I was a part of the place.

Buenos Aires is a city heavy with the sense of nostalgia. When the immigrants arrived from all over Europe, lured by the promise of rich pickings and new lives at the end of the 19th century, they recreated in the architecture echoes of their own homelands to stave off the inevitable homesickness. Thus, the Colón theatre is reminiscent of the Scala in Milan, the plazas of Madrid, the tall roofed buildings of Paris, the palm tree lined avenues of the South of France. Cafés spill out onto pavements where the waiters are all over sixty and one can sit in the shade and listen to the melancholy notes of the tango wafting on the breeze, thick with the scent of jasmine and diesel.

I left Argentina after a year, having belonged. The following year I returned during my university holiday to find, to my dismay, that I no longer fitted in. The young people I had hung out with had either gone to the US to study or had boyfriends or girlfriends and didn’t go down to the farm so much anymore, preferring to be in the city. I didn’t have a job, I was a tourist. I had nothing to get me up in the morning and the friends I had made in shops and cafés in the streets where I lived had moved on. I felt a sharp sense of alienation as if I was watching it all through a pane of glass where the year before I had been on the other side. It was a difficult time and I cried all the way home on the plane. However, I didn’t realise it then but I had my story.

We have all had moments that we would give anything to live again. However much we try, time cannot be reversed. It changes us and those we were once close to. My first novel, published in 2001, 12 years after my first trip to Argentina, was a wander down memory lane for me and hence very cathartic. I was able to channel all my feelings of nostalgia, regret and longing into a novel that seems to have struck a chord with many people. I get wonderful letters. I am grateful for every single one and thrilled that through that book I have managed to give people something special.


Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Goodreads - Author Profile   Santa Montefiore Official Website    Wikipedia - Santa Montefiore

Twitter - Santa Montefiore    Facebook - Santa Montefiore  Amazon Author Page

Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montefiore.

Paperback: 453 pages

Genre: Contemporary Romantic Fiction
Publisher:Simon and Schuster Paperback 2014 
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentences: It is autumn and yet it feels more like summer.
Favourite Quotes: It matters not that they have known each other little more than a few days,for love is not of the earth, but of the eternal present that cannot be measured. It is timeless. If their love is true, they might as well have known each other forever. (Page 226)
But I realise at this moment that our earthly sojourn is a learning experience and that we are always evolving, always moving towards a greater love. (Page 430)
Review Quote: 'As well as hot men, her books are full of ghosts too. Secrets of the Lighthouse has a strong supernatural story-line' --Belfast Telegraph
Literary Award: Specsavers National Book Award Nominee for Specsavers Popular Fiction Book of the Year (2014)
My Opinion: Families, love and a beautiful setting.


As is always the case when I pick up a Santa Montefiore novel to read I was guaranteed to have a relaxing read. Families love and a beautiful setting, with a touch of the supernatural that took me away from the winter weather for a few hours. The author writes in a very atmospheric style and I soon became immersed in rural Ireland. In her now I feel signature style Santa has written, another enjoyable novel.
There is a strong spiritual leaning to the storyline as of the two main protagonists one is already dead. Ellie Trwaton is very much alive but at thirty three running away from a privileged lifestyle and an impending marriage that she has suddenly found claustrophobic.
Retreating to Ireland, to find herself amongst her Mother's Irish relations, she meets a mysterious widower and of course they suddenly finds themselves in love. Yes it is rather predictable, apart from the interesting device that there are chapters narrated by Connor's dead wife Caitlin. 

Recommended to fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, especially as she is often referred to as the author who took over her place in writing contemporary fiction. By coincidence Rosamunde Pilcher retired from writing in 2000 not long before Santa Montefiore's first novel was published. She has just published her 14th so plenty to read if you have not yet discovered her writing and are a fan of contemporary romantic fiction. The storyline may be seen as somewhat clichéd but to be honest this is what I think the author is aiming to achieve. She is writing for the mass market and her novels are not going to appeal to those of you looking for a great literary read. 

My Previous Reviews:

The Swallow and The Hummingbird    The French Gardener    The Summer House


Author Profile

Santa Montefiore was born Santa Palmer Tomkinson in 1970, either in January or February, the websites I used for research differ on this point! Growing up on farm in Hampshire and educated at Sherborne School for Girls, she went on to study Spanish and Italian at Exeter University. She later spent time in Argentina where her mother grew up, giving her inspiration for her early novels.  She now lives in London with her husband, writer and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore and their two daughters.

She has fourteen published novels to date, the first one published in 2001 and the most recent was published on July 17th 2014.

• Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree(2001)
• The Butterfly Box (2002)
• The Forget-me-not Sonata (2003)
• The Swallow and the Hummingbird (2004)
• The Last Voyage of the Valentina (2005)
• The Gypsy Madonna (2006)
• Sea of Lost Love (2007)
• The French Gardener (2008)
• The Italian Matchmaker (2009)
• The Affair (2010)
•  The House By The Sea. (2011)
•  The Summer House (2012)
•  Secrets of the Lighthouse (2013)
•  The Beekeeper's Daughter (2014)

The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and her writing.

Goodreads - Santa Montefiore    Santa Montefiore Official Website     Wikipedia - Santa Montefiore

Twitter - Santa Montefiore    Facebook - Santa Sebag-Montefiore   Amazon - Author Profile

The Summer House by Santa Montefiore

Paperback: 473 pages
Genre: Contemporary Romantic Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2012
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentences: The beginning of March had been glorious. The earth had shaken off the early-morning frosts and little buds had emerged through the hardened bark to reveal lime-green shoots and pale-pink blossom.
Favourite Quote: It's very hard to accept that he's gone and will no longer be part of my life. However, I have no choice but to accept it. Fighting it won't bring him back, nor will it make me feel better; it'll just make me miserable and fill me with resentment.
Review Quote: 'A gripping romance... It is as believable as the writing is beautiful' (Daily Telegraph) 
My Opinion: A perfect summer read.

I first took an interest in this author’s writing in 2001 when her first novel Meet Me Under The Umbo Tree was published. I went on to read the next two as they were released The Butterfly Box and The Forget Me Not Sonata.  It was another five years before any more of her books came my way when in 2008 I read two more of her novels  Last Voyage of the Valentina and The Gypsy Madonna. It was to be another three years before I read two more of her novels, The Swallow and The Hummingbird and The French Gardener


 With this latest one it seems I am still only half way through her novels.  I have two more on my TBR bookshelf and do not think it will be long before I read them as they are the perfect type of novels for summer afternoons reading in the shade. Character driven contemporary fiction with story lines that are feasible if not always totally believable, but that is the joy of losing oneself in a good book. As expected I found the characters and the setting much more engaging  than the story which is really just a gentle ramble to a happy ending.  

Fairfield Park, a country estate that has been in the same family for generations is the setting. Think Downton Abbey but in a modern setting and you have the Frampton family, whom the author does an excellent job of describing to the reader with all their quirks and foibles. There are those you will hate instantly and those that you will love, but keep an open mind because all is not as it seems. Lady Frampton's husband has just died in a tragic accident and the day the family gathers together for his funeral, the family get a very unexpected shock!  Put your disbelief aside and let the story unfold whilst you enjoy the beautiful landscapes and well portrayed characters.
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Recommended to fans of Rosamunde Pilcher, especially as she is often referred to as the author who took over her place in writing contemporary fiction. By coincidence Rosamunde Pilcher retired from writing in 2000 not long before Santa Montefiore's first novel was published. She has just published her 14th so plenty to read if you have not yet discovered her writing and are a fan of contemporary romantic fiction.

The Woman from Paris' is the American title of 'The Summer House' 

My Previous Reviews:

The Swallow and The Hummingbird    The French Gardener


Author Profile

Santa Montefiore was born Santa Palmer Tomkinson in 1970, either in January or February, the websites I used for research differ on this point! Growing up on farm in Hampshire and educated at Sherborne School for Girls, she went on to study Spanish and Italian at Exeter University. She later spent time in Argentina where her mother grew up, giving her inspiration for her early novels.  She now lives in London with her husband, writer and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore and their two daughters.

She has fourteen published novels to date, the first one published in 2001 and the most recent was published on July 17th 2014.

• Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree(2001)
• The Butterfly Box (2002)
• The Forget-me-not Sonata (2003)
• The Swallow and the Hummingbird (2004)
• The Last Voyage of the Valentina (2005)
• The Gypsy Madonna (2006)
• Sea of Lost Love (2007)
• The French Gardener (2008)
• The Italian Matchmaker (2009)
• The Affair (2010)
•  The House By The Sea. (2011)
•  The Summer House (2012)
•  Secrets of the Lighthouse (2013)
•  The Beekeeper's Daughter (2014)

The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and her writing.

Goodreads - Santa Montefiore    Santa Montefiore Official Website     Wikipedia - Santa Montefiore

Twitter - Santa Montefiore    Facebook - Santa Sebag-Montefiore   Amazon - Author Profile