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Secrets of the Heart
Agnes Campion is 30 when she inherits Flagge House from her uncle. Struggling with its upkeep whilst looking after her elderly aunts, juggling her work, and nursing a bruised heart, she doesn't bank on falling for handsome property developer Julian,whose job is everything she despises. But Julian has commitments of his Kitty, his long term mistress, won't give him up without a seemingly fragile, she's really as tough as nails. Nor does Agnes imagine that stoical Andrew, whose organic farm is being wrenched away from him by a planning application, will fall for her too. Slowly, surely, a love quartet is developing, but relationships are messy things, and only two people can find happiness at the end of it all ...
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First published January 1, 2000
18 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Buchan
51 books308 followersElizabeth Buchan began her career as a blurb writer at Penguin Books after graduating from the University of Kent with a double degree in English and History. She moved on to become a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prizewinning Consider the Lily – reviewed in the Independent as ‘a gorgeously well written tale: funny, sad and sophisticated’. A subsequent novel, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman became an international bestseller and was made into a CBS Primetime Drama. Later novels included The Second Wife, Separate Beds and Daughters. Her latest, I Can’t Begin to Tell You, a story of resistance in wartime Denmark, was published by Penguin in August 2014.
Elizabeth Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She reviews for the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes, and also been a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and of The National Academy of Writing, and sits on the author committee for The Reading Agency.
Elizabeth Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She reviews for the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes, and also been a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and of The National Academy of Writing, and sits on the author committee for The Reading Agency.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 26, 2026
2.8 ⭐️
It did take me quite a while to read this one through.
This story follows Agnes who has been granted an old and very large house by her uncle where she lives with her two elderly aunts. The house is crumbling in every room and far beyond her means to repair, becoming a constant source of anxiety and indecision. Meanwhile, the story follows her involvement with two men, one of which is married and the other is in a decade situation with a woman who loves him.
The first man is Andrew, a married farmer who is at risk of losing his farm and concocts a scheme to save it by writing fabricated love letters, supposedly exchanged between a wartime farmer and his lover during the Second World War. These letters bring publicity to the farm, but the device feels underdeveloped: the letters themselves are only briefly quoted, and the emotional potential of this plotline is never fully realised.
During this period, Penny, who has been married to Andrew for twenty years, leaves him for another man. Her departure is revealed to stem from long-term emotional neglect: she is consistently undervalued, and is always the last person to whom he confides anything. However, Penny’s decision is driven less by a desire to leave than by a need to feel seen and appreciated. She soon wants too return but this is complicated by Agnes’s growing involvement with Andrew.
Agnes becomes involved through her role on a documentary film crew covering the farm and the letters. After the crew leaves, she stays on. In one of the novel’s most effective moments, Andrew mentions that Penny came by to leave food for them, along with a note labelled “Tuesday.” When the women point out that it is now Wednesday, Andrew realises he did not eat on Tuesday. Faced with no food, mounting paperwork, and neglected chores, Andrew finally recognises the invisible labour Penny had been performing all along. Crucially, however, this recognition only extends to what he has lost, not to Penny herself. This moment encapsulates one of the book’s central themes: particularly male characters wanting more than they have, while failing to appreciate what is already sustaining them.
Agnes also gets involved with Julian, a property developer who’s interested in Agnes’ house. However she learns about Kitty, who Julian has been in a situationship for a decade, they live close but in separate houses, spend every weekend together and he pays for everything for her. Kitty loves him and if it was up to her they would be married and life together all the time.
At times, the novel feels uncomfortably male-centred. Many of the women appear to view men as their primary means of securing stability or escape. Agnes’s aunts, Maud and Bea, both hope Freddie will marry them so they can leave Flagg House and begin a financially secure life. Agnes herself contemplates marrying Andrew, despite being pregnant by another man, for safety rather than love. There are also lots of references to a previous Agnes that lived in the house who had nine children before dying due to childbirth complications.
The novel’s quality shifts noticeably. Much of the first half is readable but unremarkable, before giving way to a far stronger second half. As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly feminist, offering sharp observations and striking lines particularly through Kitty’s arc. Kitty ultimately ends her relationship with Julian and for the first time, centres herself. This transformation is symbolised through her rejection of punishing beauty routines she has endured for years in an effort to battle her aging appearance and to remain desirable. She stops performing for the male gaze and begins dressing and living for her own comfort and preference.
Kitty’s storyline is especially powerful in its exposure of gendered expectations. For ten years she has subjected herself to painful beauty regimes for a man who refuses commitment, reframes their relationship as transactional. Her decision to leave is not triumphant but quietly radical.
The ending offers little conventional resolution. None of the characters achieve clear happiness or redemption. Yet this dissatisfaction feels deliberate: the novel ultimately suggests that people settle into lives shaped by comfort, fear and habit rather than by desire or fulfilment.
In some ways the themes reminded me of themes in Wuthering Heights in the sense that humans aren’t perfect and romantic love is mainly a social construct.
Quotes
‘She silently said goodbye to the security of their relationship.’
‘She had forgotten the feint and counter-feint of pursuit, and lust, and the exhilaration of both. The tiny little pricks of anticipation, and the responses resurrected from their semi-death.’
‘The gear shifted into the role of the wronged widow - a tole Maud had seized as one that held infinite possibilities.’
‘Bea assumed her frozen look, and Agnes knew that she was withdrawing into the still place that she had at her centre, a place where her sister failed to reach her.’
‘He knew what Penny would be thinking. You treat the cow better than you treated me. You are gentle with her, but never with me.’
‘Agnes explained that she had died in childbirth at the age of thirty-one, leaving a husband, nine children and a household.
Bel's crossness returned. 'She wasn't a woman, she was an organ. No wonder she looks like death in life’
‘Bel shrugged. I should think she was furious.
Wouldn't you have been? He did not love her enough to stop giving her children? 'Excuse me, kind husband, you have failed to impregnate me for the nth time. To your work, sir. I am ready to receive the death thrust.’
‘Thank the Lord, said Bel, reaching for her cigarettes, "that childbirth is now an option”
Yes, said Agnes, after a moment. "Thank goodness”’
‘I was brought up in a world, she told herself, where we were taught that to make our bodies pleasing to men was our prime function. I have obeyed my lessons. I am not about to change for the sake of new political theories.’
‘Sometimes, things did fall into place and it was possible to move on from mistakes. It was important, therefore, never to give up hope, or to lose grace and desire, and to try to build on what had gone before.’
‘She looked up and out of the window, exhaustion. Sometimes the effort of existence was almost too great.’
‘That barrister knew all the right words. He knew that if he chose the right ones, that would be that and the case is wrapped. If you pay enough for the best manipulator, you get your way.’
‘She expected to be out of control but, strangely, she was very much in charge and heading out towards the open sea and stagey setting sun, hair streaming out behind her in the wind. Hair that - perhaps in the most telling detail of all - had reverted to its natural colour of mouse brown.’
‘She had been solitary then, so why should she be surprised at her solitude now?’
‘'Maud, did you enjoy being married?" Agnes looked up from the shelter of her hands. Maud sighed heavily. My generation did not have any other choice?’
‘A maid might have felt a sovereign of the trug and the pannier. She might have enjoyed her sole discretion in arranging the silent vases and jars. She might have chosen this one for the blue delphiniums, another for the buttery rose, and that one for the lily. In its absolute autocracy, the house was fashioned around little kingdoms in which its slaves could rule.’
‘Occupied with work, she had missed the flow of unobtrusive existence in the background.’
‘'Unlike all those other times - those many times when, scented and sensual, she had pushed herself out of bed and run to kiss him - she made no move.’
‘In the old days, her heart would have beaten extra fast with the desire to comfort him. But tonight there was not the answering thud in her chest.’
‘She could see that he wanted her to allow him to justify himself but her curiosity had died. Or, rather, her curiosity had shifted away from Julian and was directed at herself.’
‘I have always wanted to know why I was supposed to fall in with everyone's wishes. Nobody consulted me. Merely because I wore a skirt?’
‘Of course she would manage the clutter and muddle that had been thrown into her path. A full rich life absorbed the unpredictable,
did not throw it away.’
‘Summoning his resolution, Andrew did as he was asked for it was the only thing possible, the only route left.’
‘He gestured at the object-strewn room. ‘It's all happened very quickly, ‘On the contrary. It's taken far too long’
‘A new pair of shoes lay in the cupboard. Flat and inexpensive. Kitty put them on and, treading experimen-tally, went downstairs,
Goodbye, to this part of her life. She neither wanted nor desired anything more.’
‘I came because I wanted some comfort.'
'Oh dear, said Maud, giving him one of her madder looks. "We don't have any of that.
If there was any lying around, I'd want it for myself?”’
It did take me quite a while to read this one through.
This story follows Agnes who has been granted an old and very large house by her uncle where she lives with her two elderly aunts. The house is crumbling in every room and far beyond her means to repair, becoming a constant source of anxiety and indecision. Meanwhile, the story follows her involvement with two men, one of which is married and the other is in a decade situation with a woman who loves him.
The first man is Andrew, a married farmer who is at risk of losing his farm and concocts a scheme to save it by writing fabricated love letters, supposedly exchanged between a wartime farmer and his lover during the Second World War. These letters bring publicity to the farm, but the device feels underdeveloped: the letters themselves are only briefly quoted, and the emotional potential of this plotline is never fully realised.
During this period, Penny, who has been married to Andrew for twenty years, leaves him for another man. Her departure is revealed to stem from long-term emotional neglect: she is consistently undervalued, and is always the last person to whom he confides anything. However, Penny’s decision is driven less by a desire to leave than by a need to feel seen and appreciated. She soon wants too return but this is complicated by Agnes’s growing involvement with Andrew.
Agnes becomes involved through her role on a documentary film crew covering the farm and the letters. After the crew leaves, she stays on. In one of the novel’s most effective moments, Andrew mentions that Penny came by to leave food for them, along with a note labelled “Tuesday.” When the women point out that it is now Wednesday, Andrew realises he did not eat on Tuesday. Faced with no food, mounting paperwork, and neglected chores, Andrew finally recognises the invisible labour Penny had been performing all along. Crucially, however, this recognition only extends to what he has lost, not to Penny herself. This moment encapsulates one of the book’s central themes: particularly male characters wanting more than they have, while failing to appreciate what is already sustaining them.
Agnes also gets involved with Julian, a property developer who’s interested in Agnes’ house. However she learns about Kitty, who Julian has been in a situationship for a decade, they live close but in separate houses, spend every weekend together and he pays for everything for her. Kitty loves him and if it was up to her they would be married and life together all the time.
At times, the novel feels uncomfortably male-centred. Many of the women appear to view men as their primary means of securing stability or escape. Agnes’s aunts, Maud and Bea, both hope Freddie will marry them so they can leave Flagg House and begin a financially secure life. Agnes herself contemplates marrying Andrew, despite being pregnant by another man, for safety rather than love. There are also lots of references to a previous Agnes that lived in the house who had nine children before dying due to childbirth complications.
The novel’s quality shifts noticeably. Much of the first half is readable but unremarkable, before giving way to a far stronger second half. As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly feminist, offering sharp observations and striking lines particularly through Kitty’s arc. Kitty ultimately ends her relationship with Julian and for the first time, centres herself. This transformation is symbolised through her rejection of punishing beauty routines she has endured for years in an effort to battle her aging appearance and to remain desirable. She stops performing for the male gaze and begins dressing and living for her own comfort and preference.
Kitty’s storyline is especially powerful in its exposure of gendered expectations. For ten years she has subjected herself to painful beauty regimes for a man who refuses commitment, reframes their relationship as transactional. Her decision to leave is not triumphant but quietly radical.
The ending offers little conventional resolution. None of the characters achieve clear happiness or redemption. Yet this dissatisfaction feels deliberate: the novel ultimately suggests that people settle into lives shaped by comfort, fear and habit rather than by desire or fulfilment.
In some ways the themes reminded me of themes in Wuthering Heights in the sense that humans aren’t perfect and romantic love is mainly a social construct.
Quotes
‘She silently said goodbye to the security of their relationship.’
‘She had forgotten the feint and counter-feint of pursuit, and lust, and the exhilaration of both. The tiny little pricks of anticipation, and the responses resurrected from their semi-death.’
‘The gear shifted into the role of the wronged widow - a tole Maud had seized as one that held infinite possibilities.’
‘Bea assumed her frozen look, and Agnes knew that she was withdrawing into the still place that she had at her centre, a place where her sister failed to reach her.’
‘He knew what Penny would be thinking. You treat the cow better than you treated me. You are gentle with her, but never with me.’
‘Agnes explained that she had died in childbirth at the age of thirty-one, leaving a husband, nine children and a household.
Bel's crossness returned. 'She wasn't a woman, she was an organ. No wonder she looks like death in life’
‘Bel shrugged. I should think she was furious.
Wouldn't you have been? He did not love her enough to stop giving her children? 'Excuse me, kind husband, you have failed to impregnate me for the nth time. To your work, sir. I am ready to receive the death thrust.’
‘Thank the Lord, said Bel, reaching for her cigarettes, "that childbirth is now an option”
Yes, said Agnes, after a moment. "Thank goodness”’
‘I was brought up in a world, she told herself, where we were taught that to make our bodies pleasing to men was our prime function. I have obeyed my lessons. I am not about to change for the sake of new political theories.’
‘Sometimes, things did fall into place and it was possible to move on from mistakes. It was important, therefore, never to give up hope, or to lose grace and desire, and to try to build on what had gone before.’
‘She looked up and out of the window, exhaustion. Sometimes the effort of existence was almost too great.’
‘That barrister knew all the right words. He knew that if he chose the right ones, that would be that and the case is wrapped. If you pay enough for the best manipulator, you get your way.’
‘She expected to be out of control but, strangely, she was very much in charge and heading out towards the open sea and stagey setting sun, hair streaming out behind her in the wind. Hair that - perhaps in the most telling detail of all - had reverted to its natural colour of mouse brown.’
‘She had been solitary then, so why should she be surprised at her solitude now?’
‘'Maud, did you enjoy being married?" Agnes looked up from the shelter of her hands. Maud sighed heavily. My generation did not have any other choice?’
‘A maid might have felt a sovereign of the trug and the pannier. She might have enjoyed her sole discretion in arranging the silent vases and jars. She might have chosen this one for the blue delphiniums, another for the buttery rose, and that one for the lily. In its absolute autocracy, the house was fashioned around little kingdoms in which its slaves could rule.’
‘Occupied with work, she had missed the flow of unobtrusive existence in the background.’
‘'Unlike all those other times - those many times when, scented and sensual, she had pushed herself out of bed and run to kiss him - she made no move.’
‘In the old days, her heart would have beaten extra fast with the desire to comfort him. But tonight there was not the answering thud in her chest.’
‘She could see that he wanted her to allow him to justify himself but her curiosity had died. Or, rather, her curiosity had shifted away from Julian and was directed at herself.’
‘I have always wanted to know why I was supposed to fall in with everyone's wishes. Nobody consulted me. Merely because I wore a skirt?’
‘Of course she would manage the clutter and muddle that had been thrown into her path. A full rich life absorbed the unpredictable,
did not throw it away.’
‘Summoning his resolution, Andrew did as he was asked for it was the only thing possible, the only route left.’
‘He gestured at the object-strewn room. ‘It's all happened very quickly, ‘On the contrary. It's taken far too long’
‘A new pair of shoes lay in the cupboard. Flat and inexpensive. Kitty put them on and, treading experimen-tally, went downstairs,
Goodbye, to this part of her life. She neither wanted nor desired anything more.’
‘I came because I wanted some comfort.'
'Oh dear, said Maud, giving him one of her madder looks. "We don't have any of that.
If there was any lying around, I'd want it for myself?”’
January 25, 2015
It took me very long time to get into this book - it's characters and the setting. The main characters: Agnes, Julian, Andrew, Katie and Agnes' aunties were vey shallow and weak.
Overall the story had a very sad feel to it from the beginning to the end. All of the main characters were unhappy, and also in the end settled for something that they did not really want.
The relationship between Agnes and her aunts was draining. All 3 were very selfish and narrow minded. There was no love between them at all.
I liked the struggle and fight that Andrew had to go through just to keep his farm, but the issue of the 'old letters" was very weak and the fact the Agnes took them against him, just proved how selfish and self centred she was.
Katie's obsession with keeping young was driving me crazy. But I was glad that in the end she made the decision to change her life, and in my opinion for the better. She was the only one in this story, who had any back bone at all.
Julian was a great example of a weak, very selfish man, full if his own importance. I was glad when his business venture did not succeed!
Agnes was for ever miserable. She could not be happy whatever happened to her. Even at the end of the story, when she had her own family unit, she was still not happy.
I didn't like this book very much. It was written well enough with nice descriptions of the country side and country life. But it left me depressed and sad. No one in this story was capable of true love and no one knew how to be happy for anyone else!
Overall the story had a very sad feel to it from the beginning to the end. All of the main characters were unhappy, and also in the end settled for something that they did not really want.
The relationship between Agnes and her aunts was draining. All 3 were very selfish and narrow minded. There was no love between them at all.
I liked the struggle and fight that Andrew had to go through just to keep his farm, but the issue of the 'old letters" was very weak and the fact the Agnes took them against him, just proved how selfish and self centred she was.
Katie's obsession with keeping young was driving me crazy. But I was glad that in the end she made the decision to change her life, and in my opinion for the better. She was the only one in this story, who had any back bone at all.
Julian was a great example of a weak, very selfish man, full if his own importance. I was glad when his business venture did not succeed!
Agnes was for ever miserable. She could not be happy whatever happened to her. Even at the end of the story, when she had her own family unit, she was still not happy.
I didn't like this book very much. It was written well enough with nice descriptions of the country side and country life. But it left me depressed and sad. No one in this story was capable of true love and no one knew how to be happy for anyone else!
April 23, 2023
Alright but the end was a pile of twaddle which made you look back and realise it was in fact terrible .
April 21, 2022
What I really like about Elizabeth Buchan's books is that, although there are love stories involved, they are not 'romances' per se. Instead, her novels involve real people having to make decisions and living with the consequences. They are also about far more than romantically attached couples, but involve whole families, looking at the way the characters all relate to each other.
'Secrets of the Heart' is no exception, and as well as a cast of believable characters it features a dilapidated historic house, a farm under threat from developers and some beautifully observed descriptions. The plot was not at all predictable but the conclusion was good and felt right.
'Secrets of the Heart' is no exception, and as well as a cast of believable characters it features a dilapidated historic house, a farm under threat from developers and some beautifully observed descriptions. The plot was not at all predictable but the conclusion was good and felt right.
September 10, 2017
This story was okay.
May 20, 2018
It was ok, but I somehow feel that it could have been more.
November 16, 2018
I must admit I'm always pleasantly surprised by the quality of Buchan's writing, and my her reflections on the human condition.
June 13, 2023
Could not finish it!
October 7, 2023
Another great story
For readers who love a love story with obstacles all the way.
Historical details and a modern storyline.
Fabulous gripping to the end.
For readers who love a love story with obstacles all the way.
Historical details and a modern storyline.
Fabulous gripping to the end.
March 1, 2024
I had this on my book shelf for a while thought I have a read, wasn’t for me… very slow book to get into and no one was happy
June 1, 2025
Easy read however I felt the ending was a bit rushed and some loose strings remained
February 2, 2015
Finished reading: “Secrets of the Heart” by Elizabeth Buchan
ISBN 0140290079 ; 9780140290073
January 30, 2015
I've read a few by Elizabeth Buchan, but not for a while. I was first attracted by her “Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman” :-)
This was OK rather than one of her better ones. My appreciation was probably dulled by not having too much sympathy for a heroine whose “bruised heart” is the result of a prolonged, futile affair with a married man. I'm old-fashioned enough to think an affair with a married man isn't on. And even if you do take him from his wife, could you ever trust him not to be taken from you by another woman. Both immoral and stupid in my view.
But if you're OK with the morality, the heroine got a pretty self-centred man as her hero in the end.
The problems with and issues around fighting property developers were done realistically.
I wouldn't say don't bother but you could probably find plenty better to read if you're in a “trashy romance” mood.
ISBN 0140290079 ; 9780140290073
January 30, 2015
I've read a few by Elizabeth Buchan, but not for a while. I was first attracted by her “Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman” :-)
This was OK rather than one of her better ones. My appreciation was probably dulled by not having too much sympathy for a heroine whose “bruised heart” is the result of a prolonged, futile affair with a married man. I'm old-fashioned enough to think an affair with a married man isn't on. And even if you do take him from his wife, could you ever trust him not to be taken from you by another woman. Both immoral and stupid in my view.
But if you're OK with the morality, the heroine got a pretty self-centred man as her hero in the end.
The problems with and issues around fighting property developers were done realistically.
I wouldn't say don't bother but you could probably find plenty better to read if you're in a “trashy romance” mood.
March 11, 2015
From a technical point of view this was a well written book. All the ingredients were there, but something just didn't quite work. I wasn't as absorbed in the story as I thought I would be. I even preferred to have an afternoon nap than slog through another chapter. But the problem is I couldn't tell you what it is that I didn't like.
September 16, 2019
Enjoyed this much more than I thought I wqs going ton at the beginning. Elizabeth Buchan is in a class on her own. Her characters are truly memorable.
November 21, 2015
Listened to a couple of chapters, but that's it for me. Weak characters, like the interminable cups of milky tea, so boring.
January 14, 2016
A lovely, uncomplicated easy read. Perfect for a holiday read or a cold afternoon by the fire with a cuppa.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews