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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.
A Secret Garden Affair – HarperCollins A Secret Garden Affair – HarperCollins
We are introduced to three strong women whose stories are all entwined, we have Libby who was a bride to be until just before the wedding she walked in on her fiancé and bestfriend. Libby needed to escape and she knew the one place she could find comfort and support would be at Larkspur House with her great aunt Bess and Elfrida. Secondly, I think I missed the magic that other stories from James have given. I really appreciated the Italian setting but wondered if this could have been expanded further. A lot happens at Larkspur House in Suffolk, but I think I craved something more exotic at times, to reflect how colourful Bess and Elfrida’s lives have been. I felt a bit trapped in Suffolk, a bit like Bess does when she falls ill. For me, this meant the story was not as immersive as I had hoped, even though it is still a strong narrative. Set in the 1970s in the summer of Charles and Diana’s wedding, I found it unusual that the ‘present day’ was still fifty years in the past. On reflection, I think this is intended to highlight the limited choices that women still faced with employment. Attending secretarial school and being office assistants was still an accepted role with the men usually in more dominant careers. Being a woman in the 1970s still meant being there for the husband and creating the perfect family home. Therefore, when Libby’s engagement ends along with her self-employed business share with her ex-best friend, she finds herself drawn to Bess and Elfrida, the constants in her life. 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 for me is the type of novel that I enjoy reading as it allows you to see Elfrida and Bess as two old ladies which Libby sees them as now, Then Allows both the reader and other characters to find out about their lives and the decisions they made during events and the repercussions that comes down the generations.
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When Libby finds her fiance Marcus in bed with her best friend Selina three weeks before her wedding, she flees London for the sanctuary of Larkspur House in Suffolk where her Great Aunt Bess lives with her friend Elfrida. 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. But for lifelong friends Bess and Elfrida, Libby's arrival has stirred up the ghosts of the past. And before they can help her rebuild her shattered future, they must confront their own secrets, lost loves, and tragedies…
A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Waterstones A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Waterstones
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. Suffolk, 1981: whilst the entire country seems gripped by Royal Wedding fever, Libby, the heroine of James’s 25th novel, wants to get as far away from it as possible, for on the brink of marrying her fiancé, she has discovered him in flagrante with her best friend. Libby takes refuge with two eccentric old ladies one can imagine on screen played by Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. One is her great-aunt Bess, a former lady’s maid, and the other Elfrida, a society beauty in the 1920s but a deeply unconventional one, who eschewed marriage to build a satisfying career as a garden designer, in the footsteps of Norah Lindsay and Gertrude Jekyll. Its blurb describes the novel as a ‘love story from long ago’, referring doubtless to Elfrida’s clandestine relationship with a glamorous White Russian – for this novel is really her story, entwined with that of the loyal Bess, who being of a different social class has had to face threats of another kind. However, it could equally well refer to Libby’s emotional troubles. Seeing these women grow together and Libby’s healing was quite therapeutic to read. Coupled with this, the writer’s descriptions of the gardens sounded amazing and I actually found myself having green-fingered envy! Yet, whilst the grounds that Elfrida has designed seem perfect, life has become the juxtaposition to this. But for lifelong friends Bess and Elfrida, Libby’s arrival has stirred up the ghosts of the past. And before they can help her rebuild her shattered future, they must confront their own secrets, lost loves, and tragedies… A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James is an enchanting dual timeline novel about love and life, guilt and grief, and memories that keep us warm at night.
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For me as one of those readers I felt that after a little difficulty at the start Erica James’s writing style did allow me to get into working out where in the story the novel was both in time frame and whose perspective it was being seen through.
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