The Spring

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Christine arrives at her family's farmhouse near Florence, in need of respite from personal sorrow and the quiet to work, only to find the cistern dry. Without water, she will be unable to stay. Determined, she embarks upon a search that will lead to a town's deep-held secrets. Her search draws her into the patchwork community of locals and foreigners, who know more than they admit. Human dramas emerge from the seemingly tranquil landscape-the journey to find water reveals the connectivity of lives and entanglements as complex as the water system. With a sleuth's eye for details, sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the novel offers an almost anthropologically precise portrait of a time and place that makes for addictive reading.