Castles, hidden rooms, families, World War II, and history coming alive as past and present blend together for an incredible, marvelously detailed read. The thing is, I read it very quickly, and it's not a short book, but it was sort of a couldn't-put-down book. No habiendo leído aún “Hothouse Flower”, me decidí por conocer a Lucinda Riley a través de esta novela, de la que también había escuchado buenas referencias.

She is the daughter of an aristocratic family, whose socialite mother was totally uninterested in her.

From the Sunday Times best-selling author of the Seven Sisters series, Lucinda Riley's The Light Behind the Window is a breathtaking and intense story of love, war and, above all, forgiveness. In general I don’t have issues when books delve into rape and sexual assault but the problem here is that the author doesn’t dive into it.

There were lots of sub-plots in this book I'd have liked under other circumstances, but I just couldn't get past Emilie. La resolución final, que une por fin a las dos familias protagonistas, aunque bien narrada, quizás haya sido demasiado previsible (O tal vez es que yo haya leído demasiadas novelas de temática similar). It felt like I read the same conversation over and over again, there was no differentiating between characters; they all seem to posses the same speech pattern and the same way of articulation, even a 13 year old compared with an 80+ year old. Dar per total povestea m-a cucerit, personajele au fost interesante, acțiunea și suspansul nu au lipsit.

From the multi-million copy international bestseller Lucinda Riley Note to Readers: This book is also published under the title The Lavender Garden Unlocking the past is the key to the future The present: Emilie de la Martinieres has always fought against her aristocratic background, but after the death of her glamorous, distant mother, she finds herself alone in the world and sole inheritor of her grand childhood home in the south of France. What woman intelligent enough to be a veterinarian and who has made a practice of being independent is going to open her home and heart to the first handsome man who walks up to her after she very publicly inherits a fortune?

As the end comes, Emilie realises what a task she now has to face, as the sole remaining heir she has to sort a flat in Paris, her mother's jewels and other remnants of her famous and glamorous life as well as the Chateau in the south of France, which her mother hated, but Emilie loved as a child when her father was alive. The way Emilie throws in at the very end that she can’t have kids feels rushed and makes zero sense.I know I’ve focused on Emilie’s side of the story but much of the complaints I have for her storyline carry over to Constance’s.

We then travel back to war-torn London where Connie is enrolled as a Special Operations Executive and dropped into occupied France to assist the Allies and the Resistance. The problem was that the reason I couldn't put it down was not really because I wanted to know what would happen, it was to find out whether what I was right in what I predicted would happen right from the start.

The present: Emilie de la Martiniéres has always fought against her aristocratic background, but after the death of her glamorous, distant mother, she finds herself alone in the world and sole inheritor of her grand childhood home in the south of France. However, something about Constance stands out and she is one of the few selected to the SOE (Special Operations Executive) and after fierce and extraordinary training she is landed in France, and has to make it to Paris to help the Resistance in Vichy France. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic whether a fan of Lucinda Riley's or not. If you don't care what life was like in wartime France, the hardships and dangers, why bother to set your story there?