A heart-rending page turner which sweeps from war-torn Europe to Thailand and back again... As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park estate, where her grandfather tended the exotic flowers. So when a family tragedy strikes, Julia returns to the tranquility of Wharton Park and its hothouse.
Recently inherited by charismatic Kit Crawford, the estate is undergoing renovation. This leads to the discovery of an old diary, prompting the pair to seek out Julia's grandmother to learn the truth behind a love affair that almost destroyed Wharton Park.
Julia is taken back to the 1940s where the fortunes of young couple Olivia and Harry Crawford will have terrible consequences on generations to come. For as war breaks out Olivia and Harry are cruelly separated...
First of all, doesn't this cover positively SCREAM Kate Morton? I don't mind one bit as I think it's a gorgeous cover, but still a liiiittle obvious. The summary sounds quite a bit like a Kate Morton story too, which is brilliant if you're a fan of Ms Morton and you need a quick fix when you're waiting for her next book (speaking of which, where is it?????). And the best news? Unlike some other books I've read that appeared to have tried to match Ms Morton's level of storytelling and not quite managed, this one can actually compare! The story was great and I couldn't put the book down...
As the story opens, we meet Julia, a young woman who is still recovering from a horrible personal tragedy and she has travelled back to England from France to hopefully heal her wounds. She becomes involved with Wharton Park again, once magnificent but now a crumbling property that has recently been inherited by Kit. They came across a diary and Julia's grandmother Elsie, who was a maid at Wharton Park....