The Wildflowers by Harriet Evans - A Really Enjoyable Clever Mystery

Harriet Evans is a cracking good storyteller and she had me intrigued from the very first page of The Wildflowers with the story of The Bosky, a mysterious ramshackle beach house in Dorset , and the family who owned it, the Wildes, who spent idyllic summers there in the 1970s.
I wanted to know was it really so idyllic? Why did the family suddenly stop coming and what was it that brought them back forty years later to put all their family secrets to rest?
The characters are beautifully drawn too: with Sir Anthony Wilde who first came to the Bosky as a boy in the war with strange Great Aunt Dinah, (after he'd been rescued from the rubble of his house where his mother had been killed in a bombing raid) and who became a famous Shakespearian actor, and his wife, Althea, also an actress,  on a Sunday night TV drama, and their unconventional marriage with many other partners, some of whom would visit The Bosky during those hot August holidays.
They had two children, Benedick and Cordelia, known as Ben and Cord, who used to play with a strange girl called Madeleine, who came each summer with her repressive father to stay nearby. Mads keeps a diary the happenings at The Bosky which she keeps hidden under the floorboards of the porch and takes out each year.
The story is also told from Cord's point of view when she overhears a shocking secret, and distances herself from her family to pursue a career as an opera singer.
This is one of those really enjoyable clever mysteries, you want to read again to pick out all the clues. Fabulous!

A Richard and Judy Summer Read 2018.

For a Monumental, Epic Read Try The Butterfly Summer by Harriet Evans

In my Summer Reading List, I described this book as an epic read, and it certainly is!
The Butterfly Summer by Harriet Evans tells the dual stories of Nina Parr, who inherits Keepsake, an old crumbling house in Cornwall, and of her grandmother, Thea, and the curse that has that affected all the Parr women since the first Nina Parr bore Charles II's child.

In 2011, on the second anniversary of her divorce from Sebastian, an old lady at the London Library scares Nina by seeming to recognise her. She tells her she knows her father is not dead, and she tells her about Keepsake, a house which seems vaguely familiar. This is just the beginning of a roller-coaster ride where Nina finds out the truth about her family and the legacy of Keepsake.
Seventy-three years before to the day, Thea finally leaves Keepsake for London, escaping with the help of her friend, Matty, to get away from her cruel father after her mother's death. Thea's life is told in the from of a story which she writes down, called The Butterfly Summer, telling of her life that last summer before the war.

Harriet Evans draws the characters, and describes London and Keepsake so well that I was entirely drawn into the modern story of Nina and her American mother, Delilah; George, her father, a lepidopterist (butterfly expert!); Mrs Poll, who lives upstairs and helps look after Nina as a child, and Sebastian, Nina's ex-husband, and his insufferable mother, Zinnia, and also the Thirties story of Thea, and the people she meets in London: Michael and Misha, Russian émigrés who give her a job at the Athena Press, and Al who lives upstairs in the same building.
The other element is the theme of butterflies. Apart from the butterfly garden and butterfly house at Keepsake, hidden down by the Helford River, there are the ideas of freedom, capture, and metamorphosis.

It is a monumental story, in turns: intriguing, mysterious, romantic, shocking, magical, dramatic, compulsive, frightening, violent, tragic and uplifting. In short, I couldn't wait for a minute to sit down and read some more, and I was very sad when I came to the last page and had to close the book for the very last time. I think that I might well read it again!









 

My Summer Reading List - Gorgeous books to be read this summer!

Here are my gorgeous books to be read this summer!
And here's why I've chosen them (in no particular order!).
1. The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies
I've chosen this because I love the sweeping romantic novels set in exotic places that Rosanna Ley writes so well, and I'm hoping that this one set in Ceylon in the 1920s and 1930s with its powerful themes of love, loss, and secrets revealed will do the trick.
2. The Lake House by Kate Morton
I've already enjoyed two books by this author, The Secret Keeper and The House at Riverton, so I'm looking forward to reading it. The blurb states: A missing child; an abandoned house and an unsolved mystery. Perfect! I can't wait!
3. Last Dance in Havana by Rosanna Ley
If you've been following my blog, you'll know how much I love Rosanna Ley's novels; I've read four in the past year! So I'm looking forward to reading this one set in Cuba and England from the 1950s to the present day, and enjoying Rosanna's skill at combining place and the action of the story. This one should be Hot! Hot! Hot!
4. The Heroes' Welcome by Louisa Young
I read My Dear I wanted to tell you four years ago, and was moved by the story set in the First World War about how the war affected the soldiers fighting in it and how it affected those at home.
This one is the sequel, and looks at the life of the couples after the soldiers have returned. I am especially interested because my father was a soldier who returned, but whose life was never the same.
Louisa Young is the granddaughter of Kathleen Scott, the widow of Captain Scott of the Antarctic, and her first book, A Great Task of Happiness, was a biography of her grandmother's colourful life which I'm looking forward to reading as well.
5. Songs of Love and War by Santa Montefiore
This is another of my favourite authors, and I have read nearly all of her books. Songs of Love and War is another sweeping story set in Ireland and is the first of a trilogy, so that will be wonderful to see what happens next. It follows three girls whose lives are affected by the First World War and the Irish Uprising. I'm looking forward to it because Santa Montefiore is another writer who can combine setting, characters and story to produce a really absorbing novel.
6. The Butterfly Summer by Harriet Evans
Another favourite author! I remember her telling the story at the London Book Fair a few years ago how, working at a publishers, she submitted her first novel, Going Home, under a pseudonym and was delighted that it was accepted!
This book is about Keepsake House in Cornwall and the romantic and dangerous secrets that is holds. Another epic read!

I hope that you might find something here to try too. Happy Summer Reading!

Snuggle Down with Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans

As I've said before on my blog, my claim to fame with Harriet Evans was meeting her one year at The London Book Fair Get Published seminar. She was there as a publisher and an author promoting her first novel, Going Home and when she signed it for me, I told her that my first novel was called Going Away!
She had originally submitted hers under a pseudonym so no one would know it was her, but it was accepted and so successful that so far she has written five more.
 (Going Away was reborn as Gipsy Moth when I found out about Haldon Aerodrome near Teignmouth and Amy Johnson flying to Australia in 1930.)
I enjoyed Happily Ever After. The story is about about Eleanor, or Elle, Bee and her career in publishing (which I guess was based on Harriet's own experiences in the industry); Elle's love life, i.e. a succession of gorgeous men; and her dysfunctional family. It also deals with the problem of alcoholism, and the troubles caused by trying to ignore it in yourself and in other people.
Harriet draws a vivid picture of the traditional publishing house where Elle goes for her first job, and the characters who work there, especially Felicity Sassoon, who owns it, and her son, Rory.
Elle so wants her life to turn out 'happily ever after' like in the romances she reads, especially the books which Harriet explains in her Note from the Author are her own favourites e.g. Georgette Heyer and Dodie Smith.
I thought it was altogether a well-written, great read, and I was rooting for Elle to sort out her life all the way.
Which is your favourite Harriet Evans book?

Books on my shelf waiting to be read in 2013!

It's so easy to buy books from Amazon or just in Sainsbury's, and I have now got four paperbacks that are waiting to be read, not to mention the others on my Kindle!
Firstly, Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans. I met Harriet one year at The London Book Fair, and have since enjoyed all her books, so I was pleased to see this one. It's about a girl called Eleanor Bee who doesn't believe in love. Well, I hope that with this title, everything turns out all right in the end!
Next, When I Fall in Love by Miranda Dickinson. I have loved all her books since I read her first,  Fairytale of New York. In the latest, in contrast to Harriet Evans' novel, Elsie's happily ever after is taken away from her and she has to build a whole new life, and see if she's ready to fall in love again. Oh, I can hear Nat King Cole singing the song now!
The third book is The Time of My Life by Cecelia Ahern, which reminds me of the song from Dirty Dancing! Cecelia is another favourite writer of mine, and you may remember that I read The Gift again this Christmas. According to a friend, if I liked that, I would like this one too, as it's about busy Lucy Silchester who's life's in a rut,  being helped by a 'kindly, rather run-down man in an old suit', rather than a businessman being helped by an angel.
My last choice is Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes.  It's a shame that it's not avaiable on Kindle, but I got mine for a amazing £2.99 from Sainsbury's, only 33% of the recommended retail price! It is actually her first novel, which has been brought out to, I expect, satisfy the demand for her books, and I, for one am looking forward to reading it!
What books have you got waiting to be read?