Hothouse Flower

Product Description

This is a heart-rending page turner which sweeps from war-torn Europe to Thailand & back again.. . As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park estate where her grandfather tended the exotic flowers. So when a family tragedy strikes Julia returns to the tranquility of Wharton Park & its hothouse... See Judys Review See Richards Review See Lucinda Riley talk about her book Reading Group Questions Read our exclusive Q&A with Lucinda Riley Write a Review for Room Judys Review This debut novel is a real saga describing the secret history of an ancient Norfolk stately home & the chequered shady pasts of its most recent inhabitants which has led to the gradual decay of the fortunes of the great Wharton Park estate. Our heroine is Julia Forrester a world-acclaimed concert pianist who has just lost her husband & little boy in an horrific car crash. They had been living in France; now she returns to her childhood roots in Norfolk to grieve alone. But once back in close proximity to Wharton Park where her grandfather worked as head gardener she meets Kit Crawford the young man who has inherited the title & the estate. Now forced to sell the grand house & land because the estate is so heavily in debt he renovates the old cottage once lived in by Julias grandparents as a humble place to stay. But there he finds a secret diary; thinking it was written by Julias grandfather he gives it to her. But what is revealed in the diary is earth-shattering. It takes Julia & the reader back in time to the story of Harry & Olivia Crawford a young couple who once seemed so in love but whose marriage was torn apart by the Second World War. Harry its revealed had a secret life in Thailand; & the exotic blooms the rare & delicate orchids for which the Wharton greenhouse is famed & which Julias grandfather devoted his life to nurturing assume a new darker meaning. Richards Review What really fascinates me about this novel is the account of how a standard upper-class English marriage especially one in which property inheritance & the responsibility of looking after an historic estate on which the livelihoods of hundreds of local people depend could be almost instantly shattered by the terrible reality of war. Young Lord Harry Crawford is married to the beautiful Olivia who is expecting his child. But he fin"