Miranda, her husband Louis, and their infant daughter are set to spend the summer in a rented villa in Tuscany. He’s a self-assured young American actor; she, a well-educated, well-bred English ingenue. But when Louis is called away to a shoot, Miranda is left alone with her baby in the remote Italian countryside until a young Italian named Oreste arrives, claiming to have been invited by her now-absent husband. Miranda quickly falls under the interloper’s spell and into his arms launching into a feverish affair that threatens to dissolve her already fragile, fracturing sense of self. As events spiral further out of her control, the novel hurtles headlong toward its horrifying conclusion.
