‘This great romance reads like a thriller’ – BELLA
‘A real emotional roller-coaster of a read, and Billington expertly sustains the suspense’ – DAILY MAIL
‘A heady literary cocktail that hurtles towards its tragic denouement with this author’s characteristic flair’ – EASY LIVING
K, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession. He arrives at the English country church to find it empty and silent. The wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel – a place he’d visited many years before – opens a bottle of champagne and with it, a door to the past.
When K first saw Claudia fifteen years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love. He managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. It was a coup de foudre; he became consumed by her. But Claudia was little more than a child then, twenty-four years his junior, beautiful but unformed. Perhaps it was no surprise that their love proved to be so destructive and ultimately tragic. Now, years later, he returns to find this new bride, his old love, is on the verge of a very different future. But the past, inevitably, awaits them both – and he is determined to take her back there…
‘A real emotional roller-coaster of a read, and Billington expertly sustains the suspense’ – DAILY MAIL
‘A heady literary cocktail that hurtles towards its tragic denouement with this author’s characteristic flair’ – EASY LIVING
K, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession. He arrives at the English country church to find it empty and silent. The wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel – a place he’d visited many years before – opens a bottle of champagne and with it, a door to the past.
When K first saw Claudia fifteen years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love. He managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. It was a coup de foudre; he became consumed by her. But Claudia was little more than a child then, twenty-four years his junior, beautiful but unformed. Perhaps it was no surprise that their love proved to be so destructive and ultimately tragic. Now, years later, he returns to find this new bride, his old love, is on the verge of a very different future. But the past, inevitably, awaits them both – and he is determined to take her back there…
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Reviews
Billington handles the tension well and her main characters are well-formed... intense, brooding and self-destructive
An unusual and compelling story
Writing with grace and unflinching intensity, Billington acknowledges the complexity of cause and effect in a novel that is as much about the sufferings of expiation as the joys of passion
A heady literary cocktail that hurtles towards its tragic denouement with this author's characteristic flair
I thoroughly enjoyed this book... the characters are totally believable. The countryside and the weather are beautifully described and the evocation of the gardens of the house in masterly. I can strongly recommend this
Heightened emotionalism worthy of Iris Murdoch...prose that is supple and lyrical but never self-indulgent
This great romance reads like a thriller
ONE SUMMER is a real emotional roller-coaster of a read, and Billington expertly sustains the suspense