It is 1972 in France, and Jemma, a young Australian, decides to join her French lover, Jean-Luc, who’s agreed to fill in as a drummer for the band in a casino in a charming provincial town in the Ardeche region. It was going to be a romantic and carefree summer in which to decide their future together. But they are soon plunged into the turbulent world of the Bernard family which threatens to tear them apart.
Paul Bernard holds all the strings at his Casino, creating the glamorous ambience that encourages summer visitors to spend big every night. Eliane, his elder daughter, is in thrall to her powerful father, while her younger sister, Sylvie, has escaped into a world of invisibility in an effort to avoid family expectations.
The dynamics change when Alain, an old school friend of Eliane’s arrives, and Eliane is thrust into a whirlwind of forbidden emotions and life-altering decisions. Jemma, initially a silent spectator, discovers that beneath the casino’s glossy allure lies a web of family tensions, buried secrets and unfulfilled dreams, and unwittingly becomes a lightning rod for others, while challenging her own certainties.
Against the backdrop of evening casino activity in the dance hall and the betting hall, high stakes intrigue and a tragic love shatter lives to expose the darker truths lurking beneath the surface. As ambition clashes with duty, and personal freedom comes at a price, the summer at Beaulieu unravels into broken threads of passion, heartbreak, and finally redemption.
Paperback
264 pages
Dimensions 21.6 × 14 × 1.5 cm
It is 1972 in France, and Jemma, a young Australian, decides to join her French lover, Jean-Luc, who’s agreed to fill in as a drummer for the band in a casino in a charming provincial town in the Ardeche region. It was going to be a romantic and carefree summer in which to decide their future together. But they are soon plunged into the turbulent world of the Bernard family which threatens to tear them apart.
Paul Bernard holds all the strings at his Casino, creating the glamorous ambience that encourages summer visitors to spend big every night. Eliane, his elder daughter, is in thrall to her powerful father, while her younger sister, Sylvie, has escaped into a world of invisibility in an effort to avoid family expectations.
The dynamics change when Alain, an old school friend of Eliane’s arrives, and Eliane is thrust into a whirlwind of forbidden emotions and life-altering decisions. Jemma, initially a silent spectator, discovers that beneath the casino’s glossy allure lies a web of family tensions, buried secrets and unfulfilled dreams, and unwittingly becomes a lightning rod for others, while challenging her own certainties.
Against the backdrop of evening casino activity in the dance hall and the betting hall, high stakes intrigue and a tragic love shatter lives to expose the darker truths lurking beneath the surface. As ambition clashes with duty, and personal freedom comes at a price, the summer at Beaulieu unravels into broken threads of passion, heartbreak, and finally redemption.
Paperback
264 pages
Dimensions 21.6 × 14 × 1.5 cm
