Years ago I featured it in my novel Gardens of Delight and, with its “roomed areas” I’ve always regarded it as one of the most perfectly structured gardens I’ve ever visited. ONE “He could have someone out there,” the man said, pulling back the front-window curtains a tentative inch.

A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Goodreads

Elfrida is also a tribute to famous female gardeners from past and present such as Gertrude Jekyll and Norah Lindsay.Part of her recovery is trying to create an archive, a legacy of Elfrida’s work in gardens over the years.

A Secret Garden Affair : Erica James : 9780008413774 A Secret Garden Affair : Erica James : 9780008413774

As the country prepares to celebrate Prince Charles' wedding to Lady Diana, Libby flees London - and her cheating fiancé Marcus - for the Suffolk countryside. This was an atmospheric and entrancing read that I was totally smitten with, and the characters are 3 women that are unforgettable! Our features are original articles from our print magazines (these will say where they were originally published) or original articles commissioned for this site. It's written in an old-fashioned way, and I say this because it contains characters who are privileged and 'other' to what we might consider to be 'everyday'.James does a sterling job of dropping little hints about the secrets that Elfirda and Bess have been keeping over the years, but does not reveal the full truth until almost the end of the story. For me, and I appreciate that Erica James has a massive following, this whole novel came perilously close to cliche, and the layer upon layer of stereotypical characters and situations were too distracting for me to enjoy it for what it is. Although I enjoyed the characters and their stories, it did take me awhile to get into the plot and found it to be a little meandering - in the first third of the book I wasn't quite sure what the main story line was supposed to be about.

A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Waterstones A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James | Waterstones

Libby has discovered her soon to be husband has been sleeping with her best friend and flees to Larkspur House to stay with her great aunt Bess and her aunt’s friend Elfrida. They have all suffered in their own ways but grow from their experiences – a lesson we can all learn from.Erica James does this by having the main story take place during the Summer of 1981 at a time when the then Prince Charles was marrying his first wife Lady Diana Spencer, which gave the novel a fixed period in time. Libby, a woman whose wedding plans are cancelled when she finds out her fiance is cheating on her, and her great aunt, Bess, who has worked for the third main character, Elfrida, for the best part of her life.

A Secret Garden Affair - Erica James: author

Suffolk, 1981: whilst the entire country seems gripped by Royal Wedding fever, Libby, the heroine of James’s 25th novel, wants to get as far away from it as possible, for on the brink of marrying her fiancé, she has discovered him in flagrante with her best friend. The majority of the key characters are female and, as the action covers about 60 years up to 1981, we see the prejudices and constraints they had to deal with in the earlier parts of the last century. Having caught her own fiancé in bed with her best friend just weeks before they were due to marry, she’s fled London for the comfort of the Suffolk countryside. Libbys' great aunt Bess works at the house, along with socialite Elfrida, and these women can sense all is not well with Libby and that stirs up their own troubled pasts and we are introduced to their timelines of back to the 1920's - and their stories are equally as dramatic and enthralling as Libbys'!

A sumptuous tale set over 2 timelines in history and centring around female characters and I became totally swept up in their lives and struggles and adored it! My only disappointment was that the book ended as I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Elfrida, Bess and Libby! A Secret Garden Affair is a story of friendship and commitment spanning sixty years with Elfrida and Bess coming from different social backgrounds, but the author skillfully captivates the events of their past to mould them into the characters they become in later life.