Sea of Lost Love - Santa Montefiore

     An English estate, family secrets, a trip to Italy to solve a mystery, and romance - they're all contained in Sea of Lost Love by Santa Montefiore.  The novel begins in Cornwall in 1958 at Pendrift Hall, the estate of the Montague family.  The extended family spend their summers at the seaside estate but this year tragedy strikes when Robert Montague, Monty, vanishes on the night of his fiftieth birthday party.  He disappears leaving a drifting motorboat containing his gold pocket watch and a note in a champagne bottle reading, "Forgive me."  Although he was loved by all and always seemed to be very happy, when Monty's shoes float up on shore and his lawyer reveals that he was bankrupt and all his money was gone, only his twenty-one year old daughter, Celestria, refuses to accept the apparent suicide.
     Celestria returns to London to search his papers and then follows a trail of bank statements to Puglia, Italy and a Italian convent converted into a family-run hotel where her father had apparently spent a great deal of time.  There she meets Hamish McCloud, a brooding Scotsman, who hated her father and several women who loved him, including one who is trying to unravel the mystery, too.  As the plot unfolds, she discovers that her father kept many secrets from her family.
     While the plot did hold my attention, I found the characters to be rather flat, and the romance that develops between Celestria and Hamish to be tacked on and a bit unbelievable.  The exception to this, for me, was the character of Monty.  I found the discovery of his secrets and motivations fascinating and the ending intriguing. This novel of family secrets and hidden lives makes a nice, light summer read.

- Frances