The Rocks

Three generations, two families and the dangerous delights of a Mediterranean island, The Rocks is a bittersweet chronicle of unresolved feuds.

Set on the island of Mallorca, The Rocks is a double love story told in reverse. Opening in 2005 with a dramatic event that seems to seal the mystery of two lives, the story moves backwards in time, unravelling over sixty years, amid the olive groves and bars, the boats and poolside parties, the lives and relationships of two intertwined families within an expat community of endearing and flawed characters. As one story is revealed, another, sweeter one, a love story of a couple from the younger generation, arises in the wake of their elder's failures.

The Rocks is a darkly comic, bittersweet, finally heartbreaking novel, that slips back in time to reveal the shocking incident that marked and altered these lives for ever.

“'Peter Nichols's wondrous novel The Rocks is clearly the odyssey he was born to undertake, the book he was destined to write' Richard Russo.”

Peter Nichols's wondrous novel The Rocks is clearly the odyssey he was born to undertake, the book he was destined to write. - Richard Russo

A fiercely eventful novel . . . Combines a powerful sense of elemental place with a keen

awareness of the elemental human flaws. - New York Times

Combines powerful psychological drama with an impressive sense of period. - Mail on Sunday

An utterly gripping read, a tale that says a great deal about the mystique of men and the sea

even as it entertains. - Publisher s Weekly

Peter Nichols is the author of the international bestsellers A Voyage for Madmen (finalist for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year), Evolution's Captain, and three other books of fiction, memoir, and non-fiction, which have been translated into many languages. His non-fiction has been nominated for an American Pushcart Prize; his novel Lodestar was a Book Of The Month Club Main Selection and nominated for the Dublin IMPAC literary award. He has written for the New York Times, London Review of Books, The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Gourmet and GQ. He has taught creative writing at Georgetown University, New York University in Paris, and elsewhere. Before turning to writing full time he worked as a shepherd in Wales, a screenwriter, and spent ten years at sea as a professional yacht captain, during which time he sailed alone in a small leaky boat across the Atlantic, the subject of his first book, Sea Change. He divides his time between Europe and the USA.

Three generations, two families and the dangerous delights of a Mediterranean island, The Rocks is a bittersweet chronicle of unresolved feuds. Set on the island of Mallorca, The Rocks is a double love story told in reverse. Opening in 2005 with a dramatic event that seems to seal the mystery of two lives, the story moves backwards in time, unravelling over sixty years, amid the olive groves and bars, the boats and poolside parties, the lives and relationships of two intertwined families within an expat community of endearing and flawed characters. As one story is revealed, another, sweeter one, a love story of a couple from the younger generation, arises in the wake of their elder's failures. The Rocks is a darkly comic, bittersweet, finally heartbreaking novel, that slips back in time to reveal the shocking incident that marked and altered these lives for ever.

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