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A Spanish Lover
A Spanish Lover
Nov 28, 2025 7:44 PM

Author:Joanna Trollope

A Spanish Lover

'A hugely enjoyable book' The Sunday Times

'Profoundly satisfying [and] acutely querying... A perceptive chronicler of our times' Sunday Express

'Her novels, like family life itself, are built on the tensions between the illusions of permanence and the reality of charm' Observer

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TWO LIVES INTERTWINED AND SEEMINGLY HARMONIOUS. ONE DECISION THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Lizzie and Frances are twins, together forming part of a unit. Or at least that's the way Lizzie sees things. Lizzie is the twin who has everything: husband, children, a flourishing career and a beautiful house. She worries about Frances, who seems to lead a solitary life in London, ricocheting from one disastrous man to the next. Lizzie just wants Frances to have a complete and satisfying life, just like hers.

Then one day Frances announces she isn't coming to Lizzie's for Christmas as usual - she's going to Spain instead. Suddenly and equally unexpectedly, Lizzie's world begins to tilt. Frances's Christmas defection seems overwhelmingly threatening to their unity.

As Frances's future begins to change into something exciting and Lizzie's deteriorates as financial pressures eat into her ideal lifestyle, long held assumptions are called into question.

Which twin really is the one with everything?

_____________________

What readers are saying:

'Beautifully written'

'Incredible'

'Couldn't put this book down 100% excellent'

Reviews

Some people are beginning to measure out their lives in terms of the next Joanna Trollope... her novels, like family life itself, are built on the tensions between the illusions of permanence and the reality of charm

—— Observer

A hugely enjoyable book

—— The Sunday Times

I love her wit, her benevolence, her resolve that in even the darkest hour a little light will shine

—— Irish Press

Wise and warm, profoundly satisfying as well as acutely querying...A perceptive chronicler of our times

—— Sunday Express

Its questions about marriage and eroticism, grief and the frightening blankness of nature, have made it one of our century's most popular novels

—— Financial Times

Absorbing, uplifting and truly impressive

—— Daily Express

This is a great story...Malouf's beautiful language puts fresh flesh on to these ancient characters

—— Claire Allfree , Metro

Few writers possess the natural lyric grace of Malouf

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

Malouf's poetic yet muscular prose is wonderful

—— Ronald Wright , Times Literary Supplement

A marvel- beautifully written, surprisingly moving, quietly rather brilliant

—— Harry Ritchie , Daily Mail

While Malouf's chief interest is in the human impulses that lie behind the epic deeds, he remains faithful to the beliefs and values of the ancient world

—— Edmund Gordon , Times Literary Supplement

immensely moving, modern novel

—— Elizabeth Speller , Independent

A dignified performance ... in writing this novel Malouf is honouring a great work and also making a great work of his own ... his graceful fiction deals in truth and is always beautiful

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

Beautifully written and very moving, Ransom is a reimagining that respects Homer's original while expanding expertly on its themes.

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

Malouf captures the moving humanity of Priam's grief

—— Robert Collins , Sunday Times

Lyrical reworking of the final scenes of The Iliad

—— Metro

This superb novel goes by in a heartbeat, so smooth and engrossing is David Malouf's prose...It is a touching tale, full of pain, but rendered beautifully by Malouf's humanity

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

An audacious reworking of Homer's Iliad.

—— Holly Kyte , Sunday Telegraph

David Malouf...has given Homer's epic fresh life in this haunting mood piece...a graceful, eloquent text dominated by rage and sorrow

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

This novel explores the timeless motifs of epic, in miniature

—— The Times

You know it ends in death, and so do Malouf's haunted protagonists, but this telling, at once unfussy and wonderfully poetic, breathes warm life into a great epic

—— James Smart , Guardian

Breathtaking skill...an extraordinary emotional charge.

—— Colm Toibin , Guardian, Christmas round up

A finely honed, writerly and wise revisiting of one of the most famous episodes in The Iliad, when Priam the King of Troy goes to bring home the body of his dead son Hector. No-one in prose has managed to better Malouf's imaginative recreation of the Homeric world.

—— Robert Crawford , Sunday Herald, Christmas round up

a potent new yarn... Beautifully written in simple language freighted with meaning, Ransom explores a king's impulse to act as a mourning father.

—— James Urquhart , Financial Times
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