Fashion designer Carla 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 Carla.
When Harry dies in strange circumstances, Carla doesn't 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 Carla 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 to let the past lie.
Review by D Jenkins (editor of Native Spain)
A moving tale of love affairs, marriage, sorrow, desertion, secrets, career changes and death. The story leaves me realising that people are not just the sum of their actions and that it's easy to misjudge the real person behind the facade. With a gentle twist that reveals itself near the end, perhaps shedding some light onto Harry's self destructive behaviour, this novel leaves me with a desire to be more understanding.
Genre: Literary Fiction
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 Carla.
When Harry dies in strange circumstances, Carla doesn't 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 Carla 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 to let the past lie.
Review by D Jenkins (editor of Native Spain)
A moving tale of love affairs, marriage, sorrow, desertion, secrets, career changes and death. The story leaves me realising that people are not just the sum of their actions and that it's easy to misjudge the real person behind the facade. With a gentle twist that reveals itself near the end, perhaps shedding some light onto Harry's self destructive behaviour, this novel leaves me with a desire to be more understanding.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Joan Fallon's Loving Harry