"The House on the Beach" is a novel set in the years after the Civil War, in a Spain ruled by the military dictator Francisco Franco. It is the story of two women, Rocio and Inma, who first meet as children. Despite coming from very different social backgrounds they form a close friendship. Rocio is the daughter of an Andalusian peasant, who makes his living from the land and Inma is the daughter of a rich businessman, from Madrid. The story follows the lives of these two girls from childhood to maturity, as they share happiness, fears, disappointments, broken hearts and betrayals. This social drama of two women trying to take control of their lives, despite living under a harsh dictatorship, offers a glimpse of what life was like in an authoritarian State, with an ever watchful Catholic Church and the close strictures of society.

The House on the Beach

Literature & Fiction

Fallon DC FICCP, Joan

Literary

JOAN FALLON

In this absorbing family drama, we follow the extraordinary reversal of fortunes of two very different women who are connected by their love for the same deeply flawed man. Fashion designer Margery Kane has been too busy climbing the career ladder to sustain a long-term relationship - until she meets the charming, charismatic Harry Wilkinson, and falls deeply in love for the first time. There's only one problem: Harry is already married to Barbara, a stay-at-home wife who's been content until now to devote all her energies to looking after her husband and children. The close-knit Wilkinson family unit is blown apart when Harry leaves Barbara, deserting the family home to start a new life in Spain with Margery. We follow the fortunes of the two women over the next two decades, as a devastated Barbara eventually manages to pick up the pieces of her life, developing strengths she never knew she possessed, learning to cope as the head of a single-parent family, starting a successful chutney-making business and finally finding new love. Margery on the other hand, while successfully re-launching her fashion career in Spain, has to watch helplessly as Harry fails to kick-start his own business, gradually descending into apathy and alcoholism, while Margery is unable to conceive the child she longs for. Finally, the two women meet at Harry's funeral (which forms the opening scene of the novel) and the bitterness of the past spills over into the present. Initially, Margery is met with suspicion and rejection by Harry's extended family, and faces a costly legal battle to preserve her home. Harry's two children, Tom and Sylvia, have inherited the house in Spain and now decide, against their late father's wishes, to evict their stepmother. But it's not as simple as that: for, throughout their marriage, Harry and Barbara were keeping secrets from one another, and now that Margery has discovered the truth from an unexpected source, she has to decide whether to use this knowledge as a weapon to save her home, knowing the devastation it would cause, or whether to let the past lie.

Loving Harry

Set in the Spanish Civil War this novel is about an English woman caught up in the conflict in Malaga. It is January 1937, Elizabeth remains in Spain when the rest of her family return to England. Alone in the devastated city of Málaga she makes friends with two young men, Juan, an idealistic Spaniard and Alex, a pragmatic Englishman. They flee the city with thousands of displaced people, but she and Juan, who is by now her lover, become separated. As the danger increases, Alex persuades her that she must leave with him to return to safety in England. 70 years later her granddaughter returns to Malaga to find out what really happened to Juan.

Spanish Lavender: Love in a time of war

Genre Fiction

This is the story of Maggie and her young siblings, Grace and Billy. It is September 1940, the children are living in the East End of London with their mother. Their father has been killed at Dunkirk and their mother goes into hospital to have her fourth child, leaving the children with a neighbour. In one of the worst bombing raids of the war their home is destroyed and the neighbour is killed. Bewildered and frightened, the children wander the streets until they are taken in by some nuns. But their problems are not over; no-one can trace their mother and, labelled as orphans, they are sent as child migrants to Australia. The story traces their adventures in their new country, the homesickness, the heartbreak when Billy is separated from his sisters and the loneliness of life in a cold and unfeeling orphanage. Eventually the children make new lives for themselves, but Maggie is still convinced that her mother is alive and once she is old enough, begins to search for her.

The Only Blue Door

Daughters of Spain gives a gripping account of the hard won changes within society for the women of Spain, through the eyes and experiences of the women themselves.

Daughters of Spain

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

It is the year 1008 AD and al-Mansur, the despotic ruler of al-Andalus is dead. Without his iron grip the country is heading for civil war. Rule and order have collapsed and anarchy reigns. If Ahmad wants to keep his family safe they must leave C rdoba but before he can take action, the enemy lays siege to the city and their escape is cut off. For two years they struggle to survive in the beleaguered city, with no food, little water and no hope of escape. When he hears that C rdoba is about to surrender, Ahmad knows he must come up with a plan or his family will face certain death at the hands of the Berber mercenaries. One way or another they have to find a way out of the city, so he turns to an unlikely ally for help.

The Ring of Flames: Al-Andalus series Book 3

The Winds of Change

Fallon, Joan

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Books by JOAN FALLON