Sharp, elegant, pure' Mail on Sunday
After the collapse of 'Aquazure', his swimming pool construction business, Larry and Miriam Kendall have exiled themselves to a sleepy French village. When Miriam is summoned to her mother's deathbed in Oxford, Larry begins to formulate a dazzling new idea: the creation of the most beautiful, the most artistic swimming pool of all. Around them, Rose Tremain weaves the intricate fabric of the lives of two communities: Miriam's mother, Leni, clever, beautiful and arrogant. Polish Nadia, tortured by the passions of her sad and guilty past. Gervaise the peasant woman - content with her boisterous German lover and confused husband. And the young tearaway Xavier, in love with the virginal Agn-s.
Author ProfileRose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes.
Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the
Sunday Express Book of the Year.
Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film;
The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the
Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection,
The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Two of her books (
The Colour and
The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.
ReviewsA love story in the very best sense of the phrase-a very good novel as well as an enjoyable one,A tense and steamy narrative,A patchwork of pain and longing stitched into a satisfying pattern by Rose Tremain's humour and depth of sympathy
