Long-legged, lascivious Alba lives on a London houseboat, the Valentina
, moored in 1971 London. She is the daughter of a WWII romance; her proper English father, Thomas Arbuckle, and stepmother ("the Buffalo") never mention her mysterious Italian mother—Valentina—who died when she was a baby. As a discovered sketch sparks Alba's curiosity about her mother's past, she takes up with literary agent Fitz Conroy, then breaks it off and goes to Italy to learn the truth about her past. Though this is Montefiore's U.S. debut, more than three million copies of her books are in print in the EU (the press chat notes that Charles and Camilla "made their debut as a couple" at Montefiore's wedding to historian Simon Sebag). Presumably, her EU translators were able to make lines like "Don't talk, you fool. Kiss me," sound more seductive and surprising in other languages than they do in the King's English. (June)
