Books by Masashi Matsuie
The Summer House: A Novel
by Santa Montefiore, Masashi Matsuie
Previously published as The Woman from Paris
“Superb storyteller” (Plum Sykes) Santa Montefiore’s sweeping and sophisticated international bestseller Summer House is “a feel good story, full of exuberance and passion and threaded with hope…an exceptional find” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
When Lord Frampton dies in a skiing accident, a beautiful young woman named Phaedra appears at his funeral—claiming to be the Lord’s illegitimate daughter. In his will, Lord Frampton has left the priceless Frampton suite of sapphires to this interloper, confirming her claim and outraging his three adult sons and widow. Eventually, however, Phaedra’s sweet nature thaws the frosty relationships. She becomes the daughter that Antoinette Frampton never had and a wise and compassionate granddaughter to the formidable Dowager Lady Frampton. But an attraction grows between Phaedra and the eldest son, David. It seems an impossible love—blocked by their blood connection and by the fury of one family member who is determined to expose Phaedra as a fraud.
Filled with the luscious scenery and enchanting characters her fans adore, Santa Montefiore’s Summer House is an unforgettable story about family, forgiveness, and the power of love.
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The Summer House: A Novel
by Santa Montefiore, Masashi Matsuie
This prize-winning debut novel offers a compelling, insightful portrait of modern Japan through a group of architects competing to design a major new building in Tokyo.
Tōru Sakanishi is a recent university graduate who joins the prestigious Murai Office, a small architecture firm founded by Shunsuke Murai, former student of Frank Lloyd Wright. A sensitive and observant narrator, Sakanishi is captivated by the artistic quality and careful consideration the Murai Office shows to each of its designs.
As the sweltering summer months approach, the Murai Office migrates from Tokyo to Kita-Asama, a mountain village and artists’ colony whose heyday has passed. There, this small team of architects, including two women who Sakanishi is clumsily attracted to, set out to design the National Library of Modern Literature, competing against a rival firm that snaps up one government project after the next.
Beautifully translated by National Book Award–winner Margaret Mitsutani, The Summer House is a character-driven story with prose that highlights the natural beauty of Japan, the ingenuity of architecture, and the clashing of modernity and tradition.
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$18.99
Sinking Francis: A Novel
The touching story of a woman who finds new love and purpose in the natural beauty of northern Japan, told in evocative prose reminiscent of Murakami—from the critically acclaimed author of The Summer House.
After breaking up with her live-in boyfriend, Keiko quits her job in Tokyo and makes up her mind to move to Hokkaidō. There, she finds a job at a post office in a small village of 800 people. Now in her mid-30s, she still has vivid memories of living in Hokkaidō during junior high school—encountering deer on a mountain road or seeing baby foxes playing in the grass—and had been longing to return.
One day, while delivering mail, she meets a middle-aged man, apparently single. She takes a liking to him, and they grow closer. He works as the caretaker for “Francis”—a hydroelectric mill powered by a Francis turbine, on the riverbank behind his house, that supplies electricity to the village. Soon, however, her idyllic days of romance in these peaceful surroundings are thrown into confusion by the specters of multiple women in his past.
With a keen understanding of the human heart and an appreciation of the power of our environment, Masashi Matsuie immerses us in one woman’s journey—through crises both internal and external—to a fresh understanding of life.
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$16.99