It is May, 1944 - a time of international tension where nothing is certain. Two weeks before D-Day, the French Resistance attack a chateau containing a telephone exchange vital to German communications - but the building is heavily guarded and the attack fails disastrously.

A new edition of one of the bestselling and best-loved books of recent years, with a new introduction by the author.

Set before and during the great war, this work captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as instruments of murder.

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable.

Captain Gault has decided that his family must leave Lahardane. They are after all Protestants living in the big house in rural Cork, and the country is in turmoil. It is 1921. But 8-year-old Lucy can't bear to leave the seashore, the old house, the woods - so she hatches a plan. It is then that the calamity happens.