Spanish Lavender

Author(s): Joan Fallon

Location(s): Málaga

Genre(s): Historical, Fiction

Era(s): 1937 Spanish Civil War

Location

Content

‘Spanish Lavender’ is a love story set in the Spanish Civil War.

The war has been raging for months and now Elizabeth and her parents have been ordered to leave Spain and return to Britain. The young English woman is frightened but excited and she has no intention of running away. This is her opportunity to make a name for herself as a photojournalist.

Slipping away from her sleeping parents she joins a procession of devastated old men, women and children fleeing from the advancing Nationalist army. However, when she arrives in the ruined city of Málaga she realises she is now quite alone in a place she no longer recognises.

She makes her way through the rubble and wreckage until she encounters two young men, Juan, an idealistic Spaniard and Alex, a pragmatic Englishman. And there, amongst the death and carnage, for the first time in her life, she falls in love.

But the enemy are growing closer to the war-torn city and she and Juan have no choice but to make their escape along the coast to Almería, joining the exodus of desperate civilians fleeing to safety. But their troubles are not over and Juan is badly injured in a mortar attack from cruising battle ships and cannot walk. He gets a lift in a converted ambulance while Elizabeth and Alex continue on foot, but when they arrive in Almería they are unable to find him. Broken hearted and believing he is dead Elizabeth returns to England with Alex, whom she eventually marries.

Seventy years later, Kate, Elizabeth’s granddaughter, is left a legacy following the death of her grandfather, a legacy that opens a Pandora’s box of secrets and lies which Kate can only unravel by returning to Spain.

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