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Up At The Villa
Up At The Villa
Dec 18, 2025 9:13 PM

Author:W. Somerset Maugham

Up At The Villa

Mary Panton walls up her desires in a beautiful villa high up in the hills above Florence, as she calmly contemplates her disastrous marriage. But a single act of compassion begins a nightmare of violence that shatters her serenity. She turns for help to the notorious Rowley Flint, and through him comes to realise that to deny love, with all its passions and risks, is to deny life itself.

Reviews

A writer of great dedication

—— Graham Greene

One of my favourite writers

—— Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pacy, racy and enormous fun!

—— TASMINA PERRY

A right corker! Very much in the Jilly Cooper vein... fast, sexy, fun, and we think you'll love it - a lot

—— Closer

I read Country Pursuits in one sitting - it was a real hoot and unputdownable!

—— LORRAINE KELLY , GMTV

We love a steamy read we do, especially when it's set in the country. Scandal-a-plenty. Kind of like Emmerdale but with sex, champagne and hot men

—— More

As sinfully English as a hot buttered crumpet!

—— TILLY BAGSHAWE

A fantastic read! I couldn't put it down from beginning to end!

—— TARA PALMER-TOMKINSON

Lose yourself in a good old bonk-buster... there's something for all tastes

—— Daily Mirror

You just know it's going to be a tongue-in-cheek masterpiece... high class romping and underhanded business. Think Desperate Housewives meets posh totty

—— U magazine

Jo Carnegie... will make even the rudest of readers blush with her saucy bonkbuster of a debut novel

—— Heat

This exquisite tour de force explores the dark roots of polygamy and its modern-day fruit in a renegade cult... compelling... essential reading

—— Publishers Weekly (starred/'Pick of theWeek')

Wonderful... like A.S.Byatt, whose brilliant novel Possession also split the narrative between time periods, Ebershoff uses a series of fictionalized documents to add depth and perspective to his tale... thought-provoking

—— Sacramento News & Review

Fascinating... demonstrates abundant virtuosity, as he convincingly inhabits the voices of both a nineteenth-century Mormon and a contemporary gay youth excommunicated from the church, while also managing to say something about the mysterious power of faith

—— New Yorker

Both strands of the novel come together to form a fascinating overview of "Mormondom". The day-to-day realities of polygamy are brought home in the small domestic detail

—— Independent

Weaves a surprising amount of information into the dual narratives... [teaches] about Mormonism and the cancer of polygamy at its heart...well crafted to maintain suspense... at its best when he describes the Utah desert and mountains, where he finds brutality, violence and bucolic beauty

—— TLS

A great, compulsive read... the combination of faith, murder, sex, salvation and ultimately, love, is a heady mix

—— Saga

Although disturbing and heart-wrenching in parts, this book is an informative, and engaging whodunnit thriller

—— Yorkshire Evening Post

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in

—— Evelyn Waugh
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