The Forever Garden by Rosanna Ley

                                              

Ebook:  460 pages                                                                                 

Genre:  Historical Romantic Fiction 

Publisher:  Quercus 2020

Source: My Kindle

Review Quote: A luminous, sun-soaked delight' Woman's Weekly

First Sentences: It wouldn't be long now. Lara held on to the edge of the stone balustrade.

Setting: Puglia (Italy), Italy,  Dorset, England (United Kingdom)

My Opinion: I have read quite a few of Rosanna Ley's novels but would not say I am a regular reader, but when I do read one it is always a relaxing read. She often writes novels set in my beloved Italy which is always a bonus.

The Forever Garden is set in both Italy and the UK, a dual timeline story set in the present day and the nineteen forties, two delightful settings in Puglia and Dorset. The elderly Lara has created special gardens in both locations and she has passed on her love of gardening to her grand-daughter Bea. Lara needs to unburden herself of secrets in her past before she dies and with the help of Bea she is able to do so.

In conclusion, if gardening, Italy and some light romance are what you are looking for then you will find this a pleasure to read. 

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:   Amid the sun-soaked hills of southern Italy lies the Romano family olive grove, where Lara lives with her daughter Rose and her granddaughter Bea.

Lara has spent a lifetime trying to forget the traumatic events that led to her desperate escape from Dorset seventy years ago. But when she sees Bea - a passionate horticulturalist most at home in nature - being swept off her feet by Matteo, a handsome and charismatic restaurateur, Lara fears her granddaughter is in danger of making the same mistake she did all those years ago.

Remembering a promise she once made, Lara asks Bea to travel to Dorset to restore her family's long-lost garden. Bea is torn. She would love to find out more about the mystery of her beloved grandmother's past. But if she leaves Italy, will Matteo wait for her? And when she arrives at the house in Dorset - what will she find?

Meanwhile back in Italy, an old flame from Rose's past reappears, threatening to expose a secret that could tear the heart out of the Romano family for good.

Previous Reviews:  From Venice With Love  The Villa   Bay of Secrets

Author Profile : 

                                                 

Rosanna has written numerous articles and short stories for magazines, and her novels have been published in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Norway, Hungary, Portugal, Lithuania, Denmark, Bulgaria, Turkey, Israel and the Czech Republic. All Rosanna’s titles are also being published by Quercus in the US.

Rosanna has worked as a creative writing tutor for over 30 years. She has led courses for colleges and universities in England, and runs her own writing retreats and holidays in the UK and in stunning locations in Europe. She has worked with community groups in therapeutic settings and completed an MA in creative writing for personal development in order to support this. She has also mentored and appraised the work of new writers.

Travelling and cliff walking are two of Rosanna’s favourite things to do. She also likes tennis, swimming, reading, eating very dark chocolate and drinking Italian coffee (preferably in Italy…) She lives with her husband in West Dorset and her favourite writing place is anywhere with a sea view.

The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and her writing.

Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites: 

 Facebook - Rosanna Ley Novels  Author Official Website   Twitter Profile  

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The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

 

                                               

Hardback:   385 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Suspense, Family Mystery, 

Publisher: Michael Joseph 2024

Source:  Tywyn Library

First Sentences: Any danger has surely passed. Cycling into the unfolding Paris morning, Maggie can breathe easily again.

Review Quote: ‘Mesmerising - a book you want to race back to’ - Lisa Jewell, author of None of This is True

My Opinion: 

This is the third title by this author that I have read and she is now a favourite author whose books I will always look out for.

In this dual timeline novel set in London and Paris during 1998 and 2019 Maggie and her much younger sibling Kit find themselves home alone when their mother does not return home one evening. Difficult to say more without spoilers but the story of what happened in 198 in Notting Hill unfolds whilst in the 2019 chapters, twenty years later secrets are coming to light.

A well crafted story of family secrets and intrigue with a satisfying ending after all the mysteries. Will appeal to readers that enjoy plenty of drama in the novels they choose to read.

Previous Reviews :   The Glasshouse  The Birdcage

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

A glittering family. A Notting Hill house. Step into their secrets...

Notting Hill, 1998. Dee Delancey—loving mother, grieving widow, sometime model—heads out for the evening, blowing a kiss before vanishing down the crescent. She doesn't come home that night. Nor the one after...

Her reclusive teenage daughter Maggie refuses to accept she's gone—no one loses both parents in two years, do they? Forced to keep house and mother her maddening little brother Kit, Maggie shuns the help of Dee's chaotic small circle of friends, fearing the news reaching the tabloids and the authorities.

But she finds an unexpected ally in Wolf, an older boy with boxer's fists from the far end of Portobello, an unknown world of dark labyrinthine shops, dusty antiques, human warmth, and misrule, far from the big white villas. A place she feels safe.

But the clock is ticking. And a stranger is lurking. As dangerous forces close in, Maggie faces an impossible choice—she must protect her brother, whatever the consequences.

Twenty years later, when the mysterious new owner of the Delancey family's old house starts digging out a basement, secrets cannot stay buried for much longer...

Author Profile:         

  

Courtesy of  Author's Official Website

The following is what Eve has to say about herself on her Author's Official Website.

I work in a writing shed in my Oxford townhouse garden, with Harry, my golden retriever, dozing at my feet. All my Eve Chase books have hatched in this shed, among the piles of books, coffee cups and notebooks, and, rather less literary, but no less essential, my gardening tools. (If I hit a sticky plot point, I’ll start weeding.) 

I’ve always been a huge reader - treasured library card in hand - and started writing short stories as a child, going on to study English Literature at Manchester University, where I set up a creative writing magazine and first got published as a journalist. Many years in women’s glossies and national newspaper magazines followed, working as an editor, feature writer and celebrity interviewer, meeting many wonderful, interesting people along the way, and travelling all over the world. 

As a reader, I’ve always loved storytelling that immediately sweeps you in and locks you there with seductive, lush settings, unfolding secrets and characters that are alive on the page - as a writer, I try to do this too.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Instagram Profile  Author's Official Website  Eve Chase - Facebook Profile

Twitter - EvePollyChase   Amazon Author Page  Eve Chase - Goodreads Author Profile

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

                                                                                                                                                                               

Ebook:   288 pages      

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Thriller,                                         

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Picador 20th March 2025

Source: NetGalley

First Sentences: Half past eight in the morning, on the twenty-second of October,1895, in Granville, on the Normandy coast. Stocky, plain and twenty-one, in her collar, tie, and boxy skirt, Mado Pelletier stands across the street from the little railway station holding her lidded metal lunch bucket, watching.

Setting: Paris (France, 1895)

Review Quote: Clever, ambitious, and richly researched. A slice of 1890s Paris that makes us see that our modern problems aren’t so modern after all! The Paris Express is a smartly structured novel that ratchets up the pace until it's hurtling along as fast as the doomed train itself. -- Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam

My Opinion:

Emma Donoghue has successfully used real life events as inspiration for some of her novels in the past. So I was not surprised to discover that ‘The Paris Express’ is based on the derailment at Montparnasse Station on October 22nd 1895.

The story begins at the start of the trains journey on that fateful day. We are introduced gradually to the vast cast of characters who were passengers and workers on the Granville to Paris train that morning. The main protagonist is Mado Pelletier a young French anarchist who has boarded the train intent on devastating action. As the journey proceeds we learn something of the social and political atmosphere of the period, through the conversations of the passengers which is very interesting and informative.

As always with this author’s novels the writing is excellent and obviously well researched. The account of the people involved in this tragedy included at the end of the novel enhanced my read immensely. For anyone interested in learning a little social history whilst enjoying a novel, this is a compelling thriller. 

Links to Previous Reviews :       Room  The Wonder  The Pull of the Stars  Haven                                                   Learned By Heart

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

Author Profile:

                                           
                                                              © Una Roulston 2021. 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, she is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). She moved to England, and in 1997 received her PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, she has earned her living as a writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with Chris Roulston and their son Finn and daughter Una.


Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Emma Donoghue - Official Website   Twitter Profile.   Facebook Profile

Goodreads Profile

The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French

                                                 

Hardback: 438 pages

Genre: Crime Thriller

Publisher: Simon and Schuster 2025

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: The journey into darkness began with the move, although for Nancy North moving felt more like an ending. The wreckage of the past lay behind her and she couldn't see into the future or imagine what it would be.

Setting:  London, England

Review Quote: Alison Flood for the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jan/21/and-thrillers-of-the-month-review-nicci-french-last-days-of-kira-mullan-

My Opinion:  I have been aware of the married couple Nicci Gerard and Sean French who write together as Nicci French for a long time. However this is only the second novel of theirs I have read. Probably because crime thrillers are not a genre I read very often, but having enjoyed the last one I read, decided to give it a go.

'The Last Days of Kira Mullan' is the heart-rending story of Nancy North, who having recently suffered a nervous breakdown is being cared for by her over solicitous boyfriend Felix. He has even decided that they should move to a new home to aid her recovery. Within days of their arrival one of the neighbours Kira, whom Nancy had met briefly, is found dead in her flat. The police quickly declare the death to be suicide. Nancy does not believe this to be the case, however absolutely no one else believes her. There is pressure on her from all directions as her life unravels as she battles against the odds to try and prove Kira was murdered.

Another emotional and complex thriller, that certainly kept me guessing and not correctly. Recommended to all fans of crime thrillers. 

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

From international bestselling master of suspense Nicci French comes a chilling new psychological thriller about a woman determined to get justice for a murder no one else believes happened.

Nancy North is ready to put her life back together. After suffering a psychotic break that ruined friendships, stalled her fledgling restaurant, and forced her to move out of her comfortable flat, she’ll do anything to get back to normal. She and her partner Felix—who has been a saint through her recent troubles—move into a new flat for a fresh start.

Nancy is taking her pills, seeing her therapist, and avoiding unnecessary stress. She’s doing absolutely everything right, but something is still very, very wrong. On the first day in the new flat, she hears them again; the mysterious voices that triggered her first episode. It could just be the unfamiliar sounds of water in the pipes, or the screaming baby across the hall, but deep down she knows something more sinister is going on. Her fears are confirmed when the young woman in the downstairs flat, Kira, is found dead. Felix, her neighbors, and even the police insist it’s a tragic suicide, but the pieces aren’t adding up for Nancy. Can she trust her own instincts, or is it all in her head?

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor has misgivings about her colleagues’ investigation of Kira’s death. The boys club at the top seems intent on closing the case as quickly as possible, especially since the only person who thinks it could be anything other than suicide is known to be unreliable. But Maud knows what it’s like to be dismissed as an overemotional woman and isn’t so quick to discount Nancy’s claims. As tensions reach an explosive breaking point, the line between fact and delusion becomes dangerously blurred, but Maud will stop at nothing to ensure that the truth comes to light.

Previous Review:    Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter

Author Profile:

                                

                                             Photo Courtesy of Amazon                                                                                                                                               

Note: (Nicci Gerrard and Sean French also write separately.)

Nicci Gerrard was born in June 1958 in Worcestershire. After graduating with a first class honours degree in English Literature from Oxford University, she began her first job, working with emotionally disturbed children in Sheffield. In that same year she married journalist Colin Hughes.

In the early eighties she taught English Literature in Sheffield, London and Los Angeles, but moved into publishing in 1985 with the launch of Women's Review, a magazine for women on art, literature and female issues. In 1987 Nicci had a son, Edgar, followed by a daughter, Anna, in 1988, but a year later her marriage to Colin Hughes broke down.

In 1989 she became acting literary editor at the New Statesman, before moving to the Observer, where she was deputy literary editor for five years, and then a feature writer and executive editor. It was while she was at the New Statesman that she met Sean French.

Sean French was born in May 1959 in Bristol, to a British father and Swedish mother. He too studied English Literature at Oxford University at the same time as Nicci, also graduating with a first class degree, but their paths didn't cross until 1990. In 1981 he won Vogue magazine's Writing Talent Contest, and from 1981 to 1986 he was their theatre critic. During that time he also worked at the Sunday Times as deputy literary editor and television critic, and was the film critic for Marie Claire and deputy editor of New Society.

Sean and Nicci were married in Hackney in October 1990. Their daughters, Hadley and Molly, were born in 1991 and 1993.

In 1995 Nicci and Sean began work on their first joint novel and adopted the pseudonym of Nicci French. 

Photographs, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Amazon Author Profile.   Goodreads Author Profile.   Twitter Profile