The Women's House - Hardcover

The name on the gate was Shangri-la, but everyone in the neighborhood knew it as "the women's house" because the rambling, turreted and crumbling building was always rented to women who looked after each other. Currently living there in fusty grandeur are Evangeline, a stately octogenarian novelist; Anna, a 40-ish free spirit working as a theatrical mime; and Holly, a teenage runaway from a Liverpudlian hovel. The women's status as renters is imperiled when their dwelling is bought by prosperous Maximo Tonelli, ethnically flashy owner of Villa Neapolitana, the mansion across the road, originally a mirror image of Shangri-la. Tonelli invades their lives, carries on a mutually gratifying sensual love affair with Anna, and threatens to convert the old house into a casino after he has evicted them. The two households become entwined, but not in the way Tonelli envisaged. Lingard ( Sisters by Rite ), who lives in Scotland, illuminates the theme of sisterhood with quiet authority.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.