It all appears innocent enough: a handsome couple in their thirties - she an actress, he a successful graphic designer - revisiting Sestri Levante on the Italian Riviera where they once spent their honeymoon. But it is not at all innocent.

The couple have been driven here by paranoia - by a slow dread of what will happen to the two of them and to their daughters if anyone finds out about their baby Amadeo, whose identity, and even whose existence, is at the heart of the schizophrenic illness from which Rosalind has long suffered. Two people hiding the world from each other, Rosalind and William cannot escape the chilling truth that lies at the centre of Lisa St Aubin de Terán's compelling novel.

The resort of Sestri Levante has twin, Janus-facing bays: one which Hans Christian Andersen called the Bay of Fairytales and another which the local people have long called the Bay of Silence. It is to the Bay of Silence that Rosalind now retraces her steps - to the spot where she first encountered the exotic golden stranger Angelo who was to play such a seductive and haunting role on her honeymoon and in her marriage.

Both she and her husband independently try to make sense of the tragic events which have engulfed their lives. They each try to analyse the pressure placed on their marriage - which has allowed distressing events to be forgotten and self-delusion to herald the unthinkable.

In her fourth novel, Lisa St Aubin de Terán creates an atmosphere which is profoundly unsettling. She weaves an escalating story of tension and human drama, combining the depth of character alaysis which was so admired in The Tiger, with a striking new sense of pace and menace.

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