Fashion designer Margery Kane has been too busy climbing the career ladder to sustain a long-term relationship – until she meets the charming, charismatic Harry Wilkinson, and falls deeply in love for the first time. There’s only one problem: Harry is already married to Barbara, a stay-at-home wife who’s been content until now to devote all her energies to looking after her husband and children. The close-knit Wilkinson family unit is blown apart when Harry leaves Barbara, deserting the family home to start a new life in Spain with Margery. When Harry dies in strange circumstances, Margery does not know what to tell his family. His children want to evict her from the family home and the only weapon she has against them is the fact that she has recently discovered that, throughout their marriage, Harry and Barbara were keeping secrets from one another. Now that Margery has discovered the truth from an unexpected source, she has to decide whether to use this knowledge to save her home, knowing the devastation it would cause, or whether to let the past lie.
Joan Fallon was born in Dumfries, Scotland but spent most of her adult life in England. Teacher, management trainer and business woman, she moved to Spain at the beginning of the new millennium and became a writer. Her first published work was a social history, 'Daughters of Spain', inspired by the women she met in her adopted home. Her subsequent books too have grown out of her experiences living and working in Spain. She is especially interested in Spanish history and has set her novels in periods as distinct as the Golden Age of the Moorish conquest and the Spanish Civil War. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Alliance of Independent Authors.
Interesting story of two women and their love of a man... simply told, and an easy read although there are some inconsistencies... I’ll leave them to the reader to discover.
Two women and one man. He begins married to one, with whom he has two children, but then falls in love with another. This follows their lives and what happens after his death. An enjoyable holiday read.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book (e-book) in exchange for an honest review.
The description of the book captivated me and urged me to read it. I loved the beginning and the characters emerging. But then the story got back and slowed down. I think the main reason for this was its interruption by the stories of supporting characters. I found these side stories both intriguing and disturbing. They were good because I started sympathising with these supporting characters, and disturbing because at the back of my head I wanted to know how the main story developed and how the two women in Harry's life related to each other in the end. So I found myself jumping between the pages.
These and also occasional fast change between points of view are the reasons for three stars.
I think this book could have been extended into a trilogy or a quartet. Many of the side stories and the supportive characters do deserve a separate story and more attention. For example I simply fell in love with Harry's brother Teddy, and I hope that at some point the author will write a book with him as the protagonist.
In my opinion, the author has a talent of story telling and has many great ideas. I just think that some of these ideas need a little more time devoted to their development as well as separate book space.