Santa Montefiore's "The Mermaid Garden"

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Santa Montefiore's novels have been translated into twenty languages and have sold more than three million copies in England and Europe. Montefiore, who studied Spanish and Italian at Exeter University, now lives in London with her husband, historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore, and their two children.

Here she shares some ideas for casting a big screen adaptation of her latest novel, The Mermaid Garden:

If The Mermaid Garden was adapted into a movie I would give Javier Bardem the lead role of hero – Rafael is Argentine and Javier is Spanish, so that’s perfect, and although my hero is blond, Javier is quite simply the most attractive man on the planet. I’d change the colour of Rafael’s hair just to suit Javier!! And Javier has a wise, craggy face just like Rafael. I think he’d be perfect. I found the most beautiful Italian villa in a coffee table book of my mother’s. It peeped out at the end of a long avenue of cypress trees and I wanted to walk up to it and see what it was like. I wonder whether they’d let me film my movie there? The Devon coast is easy, I have a friend who owns a beautiful house there by the sea, I’m sure she could be persuaded to lend it to me for filming – certainly if she got the chance to meet Javier!! Meryl Streep would be a very good Marina – frankly, Meryl is just very good all the time, so she could play any of the characters, even the men, if she put her mind to it. That woman is just genius!! But she’d be a compelling Marina and I’d love to meet her! As for the other characters, I’m really not sure. I don’t have actors is mind when I write…but now I’ve mentioned Javier I might just create a character in my next book especially for him….

Learn more about the book and author at Santa Montefiore's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Happiness.

The Page 69 Test: The Mermaid Garden.

--Marshal Zeringue