Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the beauty of the magnificent Tuscan villa just outside her small village & dreams of living there someday. When Dante the son of the villas owner invites her inside she knows that her destiny is there with him. But as they grow up they cross an unseen line jeopardizing the very thing they hold most dear... Decades later & hundreds of miles away a beautiful old country house hotel on Englands Devon coast has fallen on hard times. Its owner Marina hires an artist-in-residence to stay the summer & teach the guests how to paint. The man she finds is charismatic & wise & begins to pacify the discord in her family & transform the fortunes of the hotel. However it soon becomes clear that he is not who he seems... From the Italian countryside to the English coast The House by the Sea is a moving & mysterious tale of love forgiveness & the past revealed.