By the Grand Canal - Tapa blanda

"'A very good novel... beautifully written' - Allan Massie, Scotsman 'Riviere has something of Lampedusa's seeming languor, his intricate probing of minds and emotions, and above all his ability to recount an intimate, family tale which also convey the sense of great historical events... [He] has a talent for lyrical descriptions of everyday events, as well as of the marvellous set pieces Venice can provide... His creations are fragile objects but a delight to observe.' - Times Literary Supplement 'Some wonderfully lyrical passages [capture] a great city and all its subtle charms' - Sunday Telegraph 'A study of gentlemanly disorientation and tender sensitivities in the vacuum between a lost pre-war Europe and the new one yet to emerge' - Sunday Times 'William Riviere weaves a wonderfully compelling tale of death and love along Venice's fabled waterway. As the devastating memories of World War I gradually fade, life stirs anew with the thrill of impending resurrection.' - Andrea di Robilant, author of A VENETIAN AFFAIR"

The entrancing and seductive new novel from the acclaimed author of ECHOES OF WAR A British diplomat living in Venice in the aftermath of WWI, Hugh Thurne is in love with a young Venetian woman when his best friend's widow, Violet Mancroft, arrives from England. Still absorbed by grief, Violet is unsure what direction her relationship with Hugh might now take, as well as anxious about her son, Robert, who has fallen in love with Gloria Venier, a young Grand Canal girl. Unlike Violet, Giacomo Venier is amused by his daughter's fledgling relationship - but he is dying, leaving his wife Valentina to maintain their dilapidated palace and face financial ruin, and to bring up their teenage children alone. From the English coast to Venice and Britain's dominions in the East, this is a novel about empires and their crises, about the desolation and the hope after the Great War, about death, time and memory, and innocent - and less innocent - love.