Past loves are like ghosts. They haunt you forever. The stunning new novel from the bestselling author of The Masterpiece and Tuscan Rose.

Rome 1951. Veronica Gold is in the city as the Italian correspondent for Vogue magazine. As the country tries to shake off its dark fascist past and promote itself as the most glamorous nation in Europe, so too does Veronica try to forget the horrific memories of her time as a war reporter attached to the Eighth Army at the brutal height of the conflict.

But just as she hopes to find peace, three men appear in her life. Lyle Cooper, her former husband and an American diplomat who left Veronica for her best friend, the enigmatic heiress Emerald Evergreen; Marcello Fabbri, an archaeologist and former partisan now working in the ruins of Pompeii and with whom she had a wartime tryst; and the dashing Count Carlo Durazzo, Emerald's current husband.

Things become complicated when Lyle is found murdered, allegedly by Emerald. Initially, Veronica is convinced of Emerald's guilt but when she discovers that her former friend could not have committed the murder, she begins to believe that Emerald has been set up.

In her attempt to prove Emerald's innocence, aided by Marcello and Count Durazzo, Veronica finds herself drawn into a sphere of spies and a world on the edge of nuclear war, one where nothing and nobody is quite as they seem.

An unforgettable novel that mixes passion with post-war espionage, and the shadows of destruction with the pizzazz of Italian style.