Holiday reads

Deep Blue Sea by Tasmina Perry.

Fans of Tasmina Perry will enjoy this escapist blockbuster mystery/thriller.

Beneath the shimmering surface lies a dark secret... Diana and super-rich businessman Julian Denver have the world at their feet. With grand houses in London and the country, Diana's life, to the outside world, is perfect. But nothing is as it seems...
When Julian dies suddenly and tragically, Diana is convinced there is more to it than meets the eye. She calls on the one person she had never wanted to see again - her sister, Rachel.
A former tabloid reporter, Rachel appears to be living the dream as a diving instructor on a Thai island. The truth is she's in exile, estranged from her family and driven from her career by Fleet Street's phone-hacking scandal.
Rachel is determined to make amends for the past, and embarks on a treacherous journey to uncover the truth - wherever it may lead...
This extra-long novel starts slowly and Diana’s reaction to Julian’s death, and the funeral arrangements in general didn’t strike me as entirely convincing (but maybe that was to keep us all guessing) However, gradually the plot thickened and, while the characters jet-setted around the world, I became drawn in.  An undemanding blockbuster holiday read with good descriptions of all the many luxury locations:  not that much sex’n’shopping - more of a glamorous whodunwhat as it eventually develops into a complex plot.

 

The House by the Sea by Santa Montefiore, another pleasant holiday read.  I loved the Italian story, though sometimes the English characters annoyed me.
Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa just outside her small village and dreams of living there someday. Then one hot afternoon, Dante, the son of the villa’s owner, invites her inside and from that moment on Floriana knows that her destiny is there, with him.
Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beautiful old country house hotel on England’s Devon coast has fallen on hard times. Its owner, Mariana, hires an artist-in-residence to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she finds is charismatic and wise and begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes o the hotel. However, it soon becomes clear that he is not who he seems…
From the Italian countryside to the English coast, The House by the Sea is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness and the past revealed.