A summer of growth in sunny Tuscany

"Love Falls" by Esther Freud

Ecco/HarperPerennial, 279 pp., $13.95

How someone spends a summer vacation might not seem like a fresh topic for a novel, unless of course the place is Tuscany, the neighbors are a fun-loving aristocratic bunch and the author is Esther Freud ("Hideous Kinky").

In this coming-of-age tale that begins in London, we meet Lara, 17, as she is invited by her father, Lambert, to spend a summer month in a villa near Siena, Italy. Lara lives modestly with her mother and has had a nomadic childhood. She barely knows her father, a well-funded scholar who seems preoccupied with the history book he's writing.

In Italy, they are guests of Caroline, a friend of Lambert. Caroline has wealth, style and taste. As the three spend time together, Lara rarely finds herself included in the conversation, and she becomes keenly aware of the vastly different worlds they inhabit.

Soon Caroline introduces Lara to their nearest neighbors — the glamorous and sophisticated Willoughby clan. Lara is immediately attracted to Kip, the only male child and heir to the family fortune. He seems drawn to her as well, though she can't be sure. Meantime, Lambert begins an illicit liaison with a married woman seen on occasion at the Willoughby gatherings, a woman who has other lovers as well. As Lara tries to make sense of the behavior of the adults around her, she has to put up with the unwanted attentions of a Willoughby kin.

Against the background of these complex social relationships, Freud skillfully traces Lara's journey from naive adolescence to the threshold of womanhood. At the same time, Freud entertains with lively descriptions of picnics, horse racing and the sunny ambience of rural Italy.

Unfortunately, the plot twists toward the end fail to satisfy the reader — one of the few shortcomings in an otherwise engrossing read.