Introduction

A New York Times Bestseller
One of People Magazine's Top 10 Books of 2016
Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016 (Fiction)

A Washington Post Bestseller • A Los Angeles Times Bestseller • A USA Today Bestseller • One of Vulture’s 100 Greatest Beach Books Ever • A People Magazine Summer Reading Pick • One of Elle, InStyle, and Marie Claire’s Best of July

“Delia Ephron’s Siracusa is a stunning portrait of two marriages coming unraveled during the stress of travel abroad. Insightful and engaging. A must-read!” 
—Sue Grafton, author of X 

“Siracusa is an Italian aria, a Greek tragedy and a modern American master­piece written by Delia Ephron at the height of her powers. This is a story of two complicated marriages, one vulnerable child, and a trip to Italy that changes each of their lives forever. Secrets, lies, love raging, love dying, and the shame of unrealized potential are exposed in detail under the Sicilian sun. And, like the Moro blood oranges that grow there with abandon, the taste is both sour and sweet at once, but the bitterness that remains is not only haunting but unforgettable.” 
—Adriana Trigiani, author of The Shoemaker’s Wife 

“Siracusa is an unusually crackling, tricky journey into the distant land of other people’s marriages: their secrets, paradoxes, weaknesses, and plea­sures. Delia Ephron writes like a warm-blooded Patricia Highsmith, her sto­ry’s treachery matched by a deep and easy feel for the various human, imperfect ways that people find themselves bound together, and sometimes painstakingly unbind themselves. An absorbing, tense, and original novel.” 
—Meg Wolitzer, author of The Interestings 


An electrifying novel about marriage and deceit from bestselling author Delia Ephron that follows two couples on vacation in Siracusa, a town on the coast of Sicily, where the secrets they have hidden from one another are exposed and relationships are unraveled.

New Yorkers Michael, a famous writer, and Lizzie, a journalist, travel to Italy with their friends from Maine—Finn; his wife, Taylor; and their daughter, Snow. “From the beginning,” says Taylor, “it was a conspiracy for Lizzie and Finn to be together.” Told Rashomon-style in alternating points of view, the characters expose and stumble upon lies and infidelities past and present. Snow, ten years old and precociously drawn into a far more adult drama, becomes the catalyst for catastrophe as the novel explores collusion and betrayal in marriage.

With her inimitable psychological astute­ness and uncanny understanding of the human heart, Ephron delivers a powerful meditation on marriage, friendship, and the meaning of travel. Set on the sun-drenched coast of the Ionian Sea, Siracusa unfolds with the pacing of a psychological thriller and delivers an unexpected final act that none will see coming.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of July 2016: At the start of Delia Ephron’s slyly sinister, Siracusa, you know something has gone terribly awry in a Sicilian town where two couples have decided to vacation—one of them with their enigmatic ten-year-old in tow. Each chapter, told from different character’s points of view, teases the horror to come, but along the way, other transgressions are revealed that demonstrate just how frayed these relationships are. And then there’s the mysterious Snow; the child whose angelic appearance may, or may not, belie a diabolical side…That is one of the things that makes this propulsive novel such a pleasure, and a torment, to read--Ephron keeps you guessing. She also provides an important lesson for those of you who haven’t learned it from The Amazing Race—choose your travel companions wisely. --Erin Kodicek, The Amazon Book Review

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