The art of love - Elizabeth Edmondson

The French Riviera is the setting for this absorbing tale of family intrigue, scandal and romance, against the glamorous background of 1930s artists and aristocracy.

Polly Smith is struggling to make a living as an artist when her friend and patron, Oliver, invites her to his father's house in the South of France. Thrilled to escape cold, wet London, Polly asks for her birth certificate to get a passport. Her world changes. Her mother is in fact her aunt; her father is unknown; even her name isn't right.

Fleeing to the Riviera, Polly finds the serenity and sunshine bring her painting to life as never before. But all is not well in the grand house. Oliver's father was forced to leave England in a cloud of scandal and despite the sophisticated, cosmopolitan crowd of friends with which he has surrounded himself, his past is about to catch up with him. Yet even though Polly will find herself at the centre of a web of deception, her own future begins to take on a new and fascinating shape.