Alchemy — Serena Fairfax

Set against sun-drenched Lake Garda, church mouse Tamsin Heriot, an English rose, pairs off with privileged Luca Leopoldo di Monte Valli, who's half Italian, half Somali. But Luca isn't what he seems... Orphaned at seven when his childhood in Mogadishu is brutally destroyed, Luca is left emotionally broken. Ragged and starving he seeks refuge in Italy where kindly aristocrats adopt him. Ever since she was fifteen, Tamsin has had a crush on Luca and the summer before she goes to university, she's determined to lose her virginity to him. It's eight years before their paths reconverge. Tamsin, still lusting after Luca, receives devastating news that triggers her return to the dilapidated family casa, and fate steps in when an unexpected bond develops between her and Luca's widowed, adoptive mother. But a strange inheritance alters what started as a dalliance. There's no shortcut to love, and with everything to lose, the relationship between two wounded people, Luca and Tamsin, is pushed to the breaking point.