David is a wealthy a wealthy investment banker living in London ; Elizabeth, his wife, is a woman of peerless beauty and refinement. They have two children; their marriage seems perfect. Why does she want him to retire and move home to America ? One summer evening David, alone in their empty mansion, receives phone call from a long-lost friend. So begins a tale about friendship, marriage, and betrayal that is filled with unexpected reversals.

Canarino is a portrait of intimate relationships set in a world of privilege and achievement. Its characters possess personal gifts in dazzling abundance, yet their appetite to succeed, be exceptional, tempt them to risk everything. How can recognize love and friendship? Which are the bonds that bind people longest? What is the cost for the heart of seeking perfection?

In Katherine Bucknell's first novel, beauty and passion are stalked by desolation. Like the drink of the title – boiling water over a twist of lemon peel – the prose has a sharp, delicate clarity. Beneath its polished surface lie psychological depths both uncanny and haunting. Canarino is a novel that lingers in the mind, a remarkable debut.

 

Katherine Bucnell is the editor of Juvenilia: Poems 1922-1928 by W.H. Auden, Diaries Volme One, 1939-1960 and Lost Years: A Memoir 1945-1951 both by Christopher Isherwoo, and co-editor of Auden Studies. She lives in London with her husband three children.