The Olive Tree
About this ebook
A magical house. A momentous summer . . .
As a young woman, Helena spent a magical holiday at Pandora, a beautiful house in Cyprus – and fell in love for the first time. Now, twenty-four years later and following the loss of her godfather, she has inherited Pandora. And, though it is a crumbling shadow of its former self, Helena returns with her family to spend the summer there.
When, by chance, Helena meets her childhood sweetheart, her past threatens to collide with her present. She knows that the idyllic beauty of Pandora masks a web of secrets that she has kept from her husband and thirteen-year-old son. And that, once its secrets have been revealed, their lives will never be the same . . .
Praise for Lucinda Riley:
‘It will whisk you away to the glorious sunshine of Cyprus’ – Daily Express
‘A brilliant page-turner’ – Daily Mail
‘A masterclass in beautiful writing’ – The Sun
‘I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough’ – Karen Swan, author of The Last Summer
This title has been published outside the UK under the title Helena's Secret.
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About the author
Lucinda Riley was born in 1965 in Ireland and, after an early career as an actress in film, theatre and television, wrote her first novel aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and continue to strike an emotional chord with cultures all around the world. The Seven Sisters series specifically has become a global phenomenon, creating its own genre.
Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Italian Bancarella Prize, the Lovely Books Award in Germany, and the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. In 2020 she received the Dutch Platinum Award for sales over 300,000 copies for a single novel in one year – a prize last won by J. K. Rowling for Harry Potter.
In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised and wrote a series of books for children called The Guardian Angels.
Though she brought up her four children mostly in Norfolk in England, in 2015 she fulfilled her dream of buying a remote farmhouse in West Cork, Ireland, which she always felt was her spiritual home, and indeed this was where her last five books were written.
Lucinda was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and died on 11 June 2021, surrounded by her family.
