Having caught her own fiancé in bed with her best friend just weeks before they were due to marry, she’s fled London for the comfort of the Suffolk countryside. The story is set in the summer of 1981 when the country was gripped by Royal Wedding fever, and also in the 1920’s moving forwards. We see the action in both the first and third person from alternating points of view.

A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Waterstones A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Waterstones

Although I enjoyed the characters and their stories, it did take me awhile to get into the plot and found it to be a little meandering - in the first third of the book I wasn't quite sure what the main story line was supposed to be about. I also had to keep reminding myself that Libby's story was set in the 1980s and not 2020s - for me there was not quite enough historical detail other than the reference to Charles and Diana to have that 80s feel to it!

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Running to Larkspur House, where Bess works, and a place filled with happy memories for Libby, she tries to make life easier for the two older women who mean so much to her but unearths truths and secrets she had no idea about.

A Secret Garden Affair | Jan 28 2023 - event.gives A Secret Garden Affair | Jan 28 2023 - event.gives

July 1981. As the country prepares to celebrate Prince Charles’ wedding to Lady Diana, Libby flees London – and her cheating fiancé Marcus – for the Suffolk countryside. From the Sunday Times bestselling author Erica James comes a captivating story that sweeps through sixty years of history, love, and family drama. Readers love A Secret Garden Affair: You really get a sense with these women that they're having to deal with losing trust in people and are fearful of being deceived again, which makes it very difficult to move on and trust new people that come into their lives. I really loved the setting as the house and gardens are very much part of them as people and a place where they feel safe to start the trust process and dealing with the personal tragedies that they have faced. James floods this story with regret and aching loss, exploring how grief and misplaced guilt can divide families, and you feel every heart-wrenching moment with real force - especially the impact of these emotions on mental health. There is a lot of pain being carried around by these characters, and my heartstrings were well and truly tugged, but there is also romance, glamour, friendship and warmth - and over the course of the story the threads come together in forgiveness and hope. A story of friendship, classism, forbidden love, disappointments and celebrations, losing and finding precious memories and forgiveness.

July, 1981. The country is working itself into a frenzy in the run-up to the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, but the last thing Libby wants to think about is weddings. Having just discovered, three weeks before their wedding, that her fiancé Marcus has been sleeping with her best friend Selina, Libby heads for the comforting presence of Larkspur House, the home of famous garden designer Elfrida Ambrose and Libby's great-aunt Bess - the only place where she has ever felt truly at home. Tragedy , loves and secrets accumulate over the years and when Libby arrives from London in a vulnerable state it seems a good time to try to confront the issues of the past. Larkspur House felt like a character to me. It wrapped its magic around me (much like it did to Libby and Daniel) and I felt sad when I had to say goodbye.

A Secret Garden Affair: From the Sunday Times bestselling A Secret Garden Affair: From the Sunday Times bestselling

Staying with her aunt Bess and Alfreda, she starts to mend her broken heart, deciding what to do with the rest of her life. Libby has discovered her soon to be husband has been sleeping with her best friend and flees to Larkspur House to stay with her great aunt Bess and her aunt’s friend Elfrida. Libby has gone to decide what to do with her life, but ends up finding out more than she expected.Appearances were everything. In the past an unmarried mother would be frowned upon. There were some hard choices to be made. Elfrida is certainly a character who didn’t conform to society’s expectations but carved her own path, whether in the parts of the book set in the past or the relatively more modern 1980s. I thought she was a terrific creation and I loved her feistiness and refusal to do what others expected of her. I particularly liked her friendship with Bess who worked for Elfrida originally as a ladies’ maid. The women had shared many life events and were the keepers of each others secrets. They had become so much more than employer and employee over the years and were a huge support for each other. Bess herself lives with Elfirda the woman she became a maid to when she was a teenager, although now it is more of a friendship, than master and servant. Though Liby may be running from the present she may find a lot more about their past and how it affects her. In the present, Libby is learning to rebuild her life and to trust her heart to someone else. More than that, though, she is discovering the family she thought she knew isn’t what is seems.