The Potter’s House

The Potter’s House
Rosie Thomas

From the bestselling author of The Kashmir Shawl. Available on ebook for the first time.Olivia Giorgiadis has left her English roots behind. She lives on a tiny Greek island, married to a local man, mother to two small sons. Year on year, island life has followed a peaceful unchanging rhythm.Until now. An earthquake ravages the coast, its force devastating the island. In the aftermath comes a stranger: an Englishwoman, destitute but for the clothes she wears.Olivia welcomes the stranger into her home, the potter's house. But as Kitty melts into the family and the village community, so Olivia begins to sense that her mysterious visitor threatens all she holds dear…

The Potter’s House

BY ROSIE THOMAS

Copyright (#uc5fb50be-85bc-5b9a-ae6c-5df99e1d21a1)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Random House

Copyright © Rosie Thomas 2001

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2014

Cover images © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Rosie Thomas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © FEB 2014 ISBN: 9780007560547

Version: 2016-07-12

Contents

Cover (#uce8557cd-fb9e-590e-bbe1-85a7c8391514)

Title Page (#uce7abcce-7914-5732-bd76-59c5a6514761)

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Rosie Thomas

About the Publisher

One (#uc5fb50be-85bc-5b9a-ae6c-5df99e1d21a1)

The first time I saw the woman who later ran off with my husband she was giving directions to two removals men. They were struggling to lift a sofa round an awkward bend in the communal stairs and I was waiting to pass.

There were two flats per floor in Dunollie Mansions and this was evidently the new owner of the one directly above ours. Old widowed Mrs Bobinski had lived up there for twenty years in a fug of simmering soup fumes and mothballs, and then she died in hospital after a very brief illness and her heirs put the flat up for sale. It was on the market for months, partly because mansion flats like ours were no longer fashionable, if they ever had been, but mostly because the two nephews were asking too much money for it. I had heard from the Frasers on the top floor that the place was finally sold, but no one had any idea who our new neighbour would be.

‘Some nice, unremarkable couple just like us,’ Graham Fraser cheerfully assumed.

‘And us,’ I added, more thoughtfully.