The Rocks cover art

The Rocks

A Novel

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About this listen

“Irresistibly sunny…  Set in the brightly lit Mediterranean amid old olive trees and sexual intrigue, music and wine and beautiful women... Propulsive.” –The New York Times Book Review

“The perfect book for pretending it's already beach season.” –O, The Oprah Magazine

A romantic page-turner propelled by the sixty-year secret that has shaped two families, four lovers, and one seaside resort community.


Set against dramatic Mediterranean Sea views and lush olive groves, The Rocks opens with a confrontation and a secret: What was the mysterious, catastrophic event that drove two honeymooners apart so suddenly and absolutely in 1948 that they never spoke again despite living on the same island for sixty more years? And how did their history shape the Romeo and Juliet–like romance of their (unrelated) children decades later? Centered around a popular seaside resort club and its community, The Rocks is a double love story that begins with a mystery, then moves backward in time, era by era, to unravel what really happened decades earlier.

Peter Nichols writes with a pervading, soulful wisdom and self-knowing humor, and captures perfectly this world of glamorous, complicated, misbehaving types with all their sophisticated flaws and genuine longing. The result is a bittersweet, intelligent, and romantic novel about how powerful the perceived truth can be—as a bond, and as a barrier—even if it’s not really the whole story; and how one misunderstanding can echo irreparably through decades.
Coming of Age Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Witty

Critic Reviews

Praise for The Rocks

“A wondrous novel. The Rocks is clearly the odyssey Peter Nichols was born to undertake.” —Richard Russo

“A Mediterranean idyll, a family saga, a mystery. A love story that’s as weird as real life, as rich and surprising and tender and affecting. The Rocks is all these things. Like Beautiful Ruins, it reminds me of all the reasons I read novels.”—Jennifer Haigh, Pen/Hemmingway Award-winning author of Faith

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