The Rocks
A Novel
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3.8 • 148 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Irresistibly sunny… Set in the brightly lit Mediterranean amid old olive trees and sexual intrigue, music and wine and beautiful women... Propulsive.” –The New York Times Book Review
“The perfect book for pretending it's already beach season.” –O, The Oprah Magazine
A romantic page-turner propelled by the sixty-year secret that has shaped two families, four lovers, and one seaside resort community.
Set against dramatic Mediterranean Sea views and lush olive groves, The Rocks opens with a confrontation and a secret: What was the mysterious, catastrophic event that drove two honeymooners apart so suddenly and absolutely in 1948 that they never spoke again despite living on the same island for sixty more years? And how did their history shape the Romeo and Juliet–like romance of their (unrelated) children decades later? Centered around a popular seaside resort club and its community, The Rocks is a double love story that begins with a mystery, then moves backward in time, era by era, to unravel what really happened decades earlier.
Peter Nichols writes with a pervading, soulful wisdom and self-knowing humor, and captures perfectly this world of glamorous, complicated, misbehaving types with all their sophisticated flaws and genuine longing. The result is a bittersweet, intelligent, and romantic novel about how powerful the perceived truth can be—as a bond, and as a barrier—even if it’s not really the whole story; and how one misunderstanding can echo irreparably through decades.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nichols (Voyage to the North Star) has conjured the perfect beach read: a romantic story set in a rich beach town on Mallorca called Cala Marsopa. Though you may not get sand between its easy-to-turn pages, you'll feel as though you have. Lulu Davenport, a lithe and headstrong beauty, is the doyenne of Villa Los Roques, a resort dubbed The Rocks by the English expatriate layabouts who return annually each summer. The book opens in 2005, in Lulu's "ninth decade," when a surprise encounter with her estranged first husband, Gerald Rutledge, awakens "a flame of old anger." Gerald gave up his sailing life and made a permanent home in Cala Marsopa following their brief marriage, though they have managed to avoid each other almost completely for nearly 60 years. Nichols crafts the story in reverse, moving back through time and revealing that even though these former lovers have had little contact, they have left deep imprints on each other. Meanwhile, another story of love, separation, and the "horrible, stunting gap between dream and desire and practicality" is revealed through the deeply intertwined lives of Lulu's and Gerald's respective children: Luc Franklin, the son of an American father and raised in Paris, himself a summer-only resident of The Rocks, and Aegina, the dark-eyed daughter of Gerald and a local. The two central stories engage the readers' sympathies and emotions, while Nichols colors in the background with the indelible imagery of the wind-swept Mediterranean, and the louche exploits of the careless adults and the tanned teenagers who can slip effortlessly from English to Spanish to French, but have a harder time growing up beyond the endless summer.
Customer Reviews
The Rocks
Written in an interesting format and sequence. Very enjoyable reading and loved the story and how it unfolded! LSR
The Rocks
Terrible, boring. Not worth the hype.
Mallorca
A good beach read, love story and mystery situated on the lovely Spanish island.