The Catalan House is a passionate love story that spans three generations. Set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and a beautiful vineyard in Catalonia, three very different women strive to survive and to fight for the men they love. Avia, is the elegant matriarch of an ancient family but she harbours a dark secret that will haunt her to her dying day. Single handedly she kept her vineyard going during the war and memories of that time affect her still. Her granddaugher Sigi, though beautiful and wild, is tormented by mental illness and is obssessed with a man she grew up with. Her story is told from the psychiatric ward of a hospital in Chile where she is undergoing rehab from a heroin overdose. Isabel, Avia's other granddaughter, is the Spanish-English heroine of the novel. Orphaned as a child and educated in England, she has spent all her school holidays in Spain and is in awe of her glamorous Spanish cousins. From the age of six, she has been in love with her cousin Ricardo. Now a grown woman and working as a successful design consultant and engaged to be married, she is suddenly forced to confront her past, her own demons and to reconcile her childhood dreams with the reality of the future. All three women nurture an unrequited love which determines everything they do. It is Isabel's story however, that brings about reconciliation and makes sense of the years of self- denial and sacrifice.