One Summer — Rachel Billington

An intense, moving novel about obsessive love.

K, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession. He arrives at the English country church to find it empty and silent. The wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel - a place he'd visited many years before - opens a bottle of champagne and with it, a door to the past.

When K first saw Claudia fifteen years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love. He managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. It was a coup de foudre; he became consumed by her. But Claudia was little more than a child then, twenty-four years his junior, beautiful but unformed. Perhaps it was no surprise that their love proved to be so destructive and ultimately tragic. Now, years later, he returns to find this new bride, his old love, is on the verge of a very different future. But the past, inevitably, awaits them both - and he is determined to take her back there¿