Patrice Chaplin

It is 1955 and a 15-year-old girl, seeking adventure, escapes the greyness of post-war London for the cobbles, sunshine and romance of an ancient Catalan city.

As the years pass and the girl becomes a woman, she returns again and again to Girona and to her lover, the enigmatic José Tarres. She meets captivating characters and hears about visions, a strangely wealthy priest, a fabulous garden owned by a Frenchwoman...

The rich priest was none other than the Abbé Saunière of Rennes-le-Château, and the mysteries surrounding him are at the very heart of the modern Grail legend. The people she has known for so many years, including José, belong to a secret society that guards Saunière's legacy. Now they ask her to be their messenger. It is time, they say, to present some of their closely guarded secrets to the world.

Primrose Hill, London. Once the domain of railway workers, now teeming with an eclectic mix of characters and history, old money and new.

And now home to an author who, deeply hurt by the rejection of her latest book, has fled to a small flat to lick her wounds.

Broke and hopeless, she destroys and buries the manuscript, and throws herself into the mundanities of day-to-day life.

Then she meets the charming Charlie Le Bon, a handyman whose working-class family have lived in Primrose Hill for generations, and, as she slowly but surely integrates into the local community, begins to feel herself coming back to life.

And as hope returns so, too, does her mysterious manuscript, which has begun to speak to her from its resting place...

Three women arrive in Girona, North East Spain, to attend a New Age workshop based on the mysteries of that ancient city. They have never met before. What do they have in common? They discover that they are all grandmothers who know little about psychic or spiritual worlds.

What do they want? To keep a good face on things; 'things' being quite a lot of difficult issues... What do they really want? Life change? Reclaiming their dreams? What do they get? The Holy Grail. And all they were looking for was a way out of sudden old age...

Following her classic Girona trilogy, Patrice Chaplin returns to the enchanted city for a new adventure.