Cover of The Lemon Grove

The Lemon Grove

Set on the rugged, mountainous west coast of Mallorca, this taut, sultry, brilliantly paced novel is an urgent meditation on female desire, the vicissitudes of marriage and the allure of youth.

Read more

Taking place over the course of one week, The Lemon Grovelands in the heat of Deia, a village on an island off the southeast coast of Spain. Jenn and Greg are on their annual holiday to enjoy languorous, close afternoons by the pool, and relaxed dinners overlooking the rocks. But the equilibrium is upset by the arrival of their teenage daughter, Emma, and her boyfriend, Nathan. Jenn, in her early forties, loves her (older) husband and her (step)daughter and is content with her life, she thinks. But when this beautiful, reckless young man comes into her world, she is caught by a sexual compulsion that she's seldom felt before. As the lines hotly blur between attraction, desire and obsession, Jenn's world is thrown into tumult—by Nathan's side, she could be young and carefree once again, and at this stage in her life, the promise of youth is every bit as seductive as the promise of passion. Jenn struggles between the conflicting pulls of resistance and release, and the events of the next few days have the potential to put lives in jeopardy as the players carry out their roles in this unstoppably sexy and unputdownable novel from a brilliant observer of the human condition.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 288 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Lemon Grove? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Lemon Grove. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Vacationers Shares fiction, contemporary, summer reads
  2. A Christmas to Remember Shares fiction, romance
  3. The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip Shares chick lit, fiction, romance
  4. Invincible Summer Shares fiction, contemporary, summer reads

“People who read The Lemon Grove tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Second Time I Saw You
  2. Some Kind of Wonderful
  3. Christmas is Cancelled
  4. Sex, Lies, and Cruising

“If you want more of the same (romance about dysfunctional family), start with these.”

  1. The Rocks
  2. Wife by Contract, Mistress by Demand
  3. A Stormy Spanish Summer
  4. This Too Shall Pass

“If it was the contemporary that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Summer at Hideaway Key
  2. The Versions of Us
  3. The Shark Club
  4. The Forever Summer

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Shadows
  2. Asa, as I Knew Him
  3. Margot Fonteyn: Autobiography
  4. Beach Trip