300 Days of Sun

A mesmerizing novel that transports readers to a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past—where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes. Traveling to Faro, Portugal, journalist Joanna Millard hopes to escape an unsatisfying relationship and a stalled career; Faro is an enchanting town, and the seaside views are enhanced by the company of Nathan Emberlin, a charismatic younger man. But Joanna soon realizes that behind the crumbling facades of Moorish buildings Faro has a seedy underbelly, its economy compromised by corruption and wartime spoils. And Nathan has an ulterior motive for seeking her company: he is determined to discover the truth involving a child’s kidnapping that may have taken place on this dramatic coastline more than two decades ago. Joanna’s subsequent search leads her to Ian Rylands, an English expat who cryptically suggests she will find answers in The Alliance, a novel written by American Esta Hartford. The book recounts an American couple’s experience in Portugal during World War II, and their entanglements both personal and professional with their German enemies. Only Rylands insists the book isn’t fiction, and as Joanna reads deeper into The Alliance, she begins to suspect that Esta Hartford’s story and Nathan Emberlin’s may indeed converge in Faro—where the past not only casts a long shadow but still exerts a very present danger. Praise for 300 Days Of Sun “With its lush settings, high-stakes suspense, and novel-within-a-novel, 300 Days of Sun is a feast for fiction lovers. Lawrenson delivers a labyrinth of complex relationships the reader is both breathless to solve and eager to return to upon completion. Haunting.”—Erika Robuck, author of Hemingway’s Girl and The House of Hawthorne Praise for Deborah Lawrenson “Deborah Lawrenson’s writing is delicious. Her stories are atmospheric, intoxicating, and impossible not to get lost in.”—Sarah Jio, author of Goodnight June and Blackberry Winter “[Lawrenson has a] gift for bringing the senses to life. When she writes, ‘you could open an envelope . . . and find it contained no words at all, just a handful of lavender with a ribbon of dried grapefruit skin, or a sprinklingof vanilla seeds;’ you wish the pages were scratch-and-sniff.”—People “Offers a vivid escape to an intriguing place, with location playing as much a role as those who dwell there.”—Washington Post “Think Graham Greene with a dash of Poe.”—Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress