Under the Mandarin Tree

When Beatrice Curcurace returns to her Sicilian childhood home with her English husband and young child, she starts to see it through new eyes. Seized with the desire to know more about her family s troubled past, she embarks on a slow and painful journey to discover the truth about her peculiar heritage. How had her difficult father, Ciccio, born into abject poverty, ended up living like a king in Villa Sole, an ancient, opulent house set in its own sprawling grounds in the heart of Taormina?Nothing prepares Beatrice for the shocking discoveries that she makes when she returns home to Lancashire and begins delving into the history of the sun-drenched mansion. Starting with the self-exiled English aristocrat who once lived there, she unearths ever more of the secrets Villa Sole holds, nestled within the Roman walls that surround it, finding uncomfortable answers to questions she d ignored all her life. In doing so, she reaches one important conclusion: you cannot accurately judge events of the past through the eyes of the present.