The Frozen Heart: A sweeping epic that will grip you from the first page

Description

Julio Carrion Gonzalez, a man of tremendous wealth and influence in Madrid, has come home to be buried. But as the family stand by the graveside, his son Alvaro notices the arrival of a stranger - a young and attractive woman. No one appears to know who she is, or why she is there. Alvaro's questions only deepen when the family inherits an enormous amount of money that is a surprise even to them. In his father's study Alvaro discovers an old folder with letters sent to his father in Russia between 1941 and 1943, faded photos of people he never met and a locked grey metal box. The woman is Raquel Fernandez Perea, the daughter of Spaniards who fled during the Civil War. One episode in her past has marked her forever - the only time she saw her grandfather cry. Her fate and that of the family, now hangs on the secrets of Julio's past.

Almudena Grandes is one of Spain's top-selling authors. Her first book, The Ages of Lulu, sold over a million copies worldwide and was translated in 21 languages. Two of her books have been made into films and two more films have been contracted.

Almudena Grandes is one of the most entertaining and powerful literary novelists now writing in Spanish. The Frozen Heart is a great book - one of the most fully engaged and compelling stories I've ever read -- Peter Florence, Director, Hay on Wye Festival One of the great writers of our time -- Mario Vargas Llosa More Iberian ardour ... focusing on the high passions an easterly wind provokes in the inhabitants of a small cooastal town * Financial Times on The Wind from the East * Most of this story is set in the past, as the events of the present are refracted through continual flashbacks of Juan and Sara's earlier lives ... steadily filled in with intense psychological detail ... the dexterity with which Grandes is able to unpick psychological states makes for a convincing and moving book * The Times on The Wind from the East * Into the rich mix Grandes throws some classic ingredients of fairy-tales and fables ... Grandes never lets the pace slacken, combining a cracking story with convincing characterisation and good detail * Daily Telegraph on The Wind from the East * This novel confirms Almudena Grandes as one of Spain's leading writers ... this is a hugely intelligent, wise novel. It also tells a gripping story * Sunday Telegraph on The Wind from the East *