The House on the Beach

"The House on the Beach" is a novel set in the years after the Civil War, in a Spain ruled by the military dictator Francisco Franco.  It is the story of two women, Rocio and Inma, who first meet as children.  Despite coming from very different social backgrounds they form a close friendship.   Rocio is the daughter of an Andalusian peasant, who makes his living from the land and Inma is the daughter of a rich businessman, from Madrid.
The story follows the lives of these two girls from childhood to maturity, as they share happiness, fears, disappointments, broken hearts and betrayals. This social drama of two women trying to take control of their lives, despite living under a harsh dictatorship, offers a glimpse of what life was like in an authoritarian State, with an ever watchful Catholic Church and the close strictures of society.