Love Falls: A Novel

The highly praised author of Hideous Kinky, returns with a searing and sensuous tale young love set amid the heat and beauty of a Tuscan summer

The Independent calls Esther Freud “the best writer on childhood we have.” In Love Falls this brilliant novelist proves her power once again with an utterly charming and irresistible tale of adolescent love and self-discovery set in a foreign land.

When 17-year-old Lara accepts her father’s invitation to accompany him to Tuscany for the summer, she’s excited and trepidatious. But, her fears prove groundless, for the villa’s closest neighbors are the contagiously adventurous Willoughbys, the teenaged brood of a wealthy British lord. Caught up in their torrential good humor—and snared particularly by Kip Willoughby’s dark, flirtatious eyes—Lara sets off on a summer adventure full of danger, first love, and untold consequences that will change her life.

FOR HIDEOUS KINKY: “Hideous Kinky has a delightful lightness of being. . . . It is written with the art that conceals art.” - Times Literary Supplement (London)

“In her new novel, Love Falls, British author Esther Freud adroitly explores the turbulent emotional life of a teenage girl…what begins as a pleasant adventure for the novel’s nubile protagonist ends as a long journey filled with disillusioning experiences and dark revelations about the human psyche…Freud deftly creates Lara with a perfect mix of trepidation, physical pride, devil-may-care attitude and buried longing to be her father’s little girl. Love Falls lingers with the reader like the bittersweet memories of a final summer vacation.” - San Francisco Chronicle

"Freud’s depiction of Lara is so charming and observant, her writing so dynamic, that all the clichés of a youthful summer of self-discovery are transcended.” - New York Times Book Review

For SEA HOUSE: “Esther Freud’s best book yet.” - Louis de Bernieres, author of Corelli's Mandolin