The Invitation

A glamorous love story set along the Italian Riviera about a group of Bright Young Things aboard a yacht who all have secrets and pasts they try desperately--and dangerously--to hide. Rome, 1953: Hal, an itinerant journalist, has come to the city to lose himself and to seek absolution for an accident during the war which haunts him. He lives from job to job, from story to story, until one evening he finds himself on the steps of a palazzo, walking into a world of privilege and light. Here he meets Stella, the reluctant wife of an American investor and a fellow outcast in a city far from home. Together, they escape the crowded party, and quickly find a place where they can imagine a different life, even if it's just for a night. They share their secrets, and feel a great spark of romance between them. Yet they are certain that their fates are already cast, and their paths won't cross again. But a year later they are unexpectedly thrown together, after Hal is asked by an Italian Contessa to assist on a trip of a lifetime--acting as the reporter on a tremendous yacht, skimming its way along the Italian Riviera towards Cannes film festival, the most famous movie stars and directors of the day gathered to promote a new movie funded by Stella's husband and directed by an iconic hero of the budding Art House scene. Yet not all that glitters is gold, for many secret histories lurk beneath the surface of these Bright Young Things. Stella is bound to a powerful and profoundly dangerous man, and as Hal's obsession grows, they sail towards a tragic fate. An irresistibly entertaining and evocative novel, THE FIREFLY is a sultry love story about the ways in which the secrets of the past stay with us--no matter how much we try to escape them.