The Summer House (Charnwood Large Print) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Mary Nichols (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2009 | Series: Charnwood Large Print

A secret love that will haunt a family for ever

England 1918. Lady Helen believes her parents when they say she will never find a better husband than Richard, but when he returns to the Front, she begins to wonder just who it is she has married. His letters home are cold and distant -- and Helen realises that she has made a terrible mistake. Then Oliver Donovan enters her life and they begin an affair that leaves Helen pregnant and alone -- she is forced to surrender her precious baby.

Over twenty years pass and a second war is ravaging Europe, but that is not the only echo of the past to haunt the present. Laura Drummond is caught in a tragic love affair of her own and when she is forced to leave London during the Blitz, she turns to the mother she never knew.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Delightful - an enchanting story' JUDITH LENNOX --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Charnwood Pub; Lrg edition (October 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847828450
• ISBN-13: 978-1847828453
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

More About the Author

Mary Nichols is a well-established novelist who writes in two different genres, family sagas for Allison & Busby and historical romance for Mills & Boon. She is the author of the best selling saga, The Summer House which was on the long list for the Romantic Novelists Association Romantic Novel of the Year award 2009 and is still selling strongly. Others are The Fountain and The Kirilov Star, both published in print and as ebooks.
Of the thirty-plus books she has written for Mills & Boon most are Regency, but others have backgrounds taken from the English Civil War right through to Victorian times. The most recent form a series of linked books about crime in Georgian Society and how it was dealt with by a group of aristocratic gentlemen who fall in love while doing it. They are: The Captain's Mysterious Lady, (short listed for the Romantic Novelists' Association Love Story of the Year award 2010), The Viscount's Unconventional Bride, Lord Portman's Troublesome Wife and Sir Ashley's Mettlesome Match. These, including some of her backlist, have also been published as ebooks.
Mary Nichols is also the author of The Mother of Necton, a biography of her grandmother who was a village nurse and midwife from the early years of the 20th century until the formation of the National Health Service in 1948. It is out of print in its original hardback form published by Breedon Books in 2000, but has been updated and re-issued in paperback by The Larks Press.
You can learn more about these books and more by visiting her website at www.marynichols.co.uk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and entertaining story set in WWII, October 25, 2011

By 

Susan Smith (A small rural village in the English Midlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Summer House (Charnwood Large Print) (Hardcover)

Lady Helen Drummond, daughter of an earl, marries to please her family which, during the first couple of decades of the 20th century was what well brought up, aristocratic young girls did. However, it is not a love match and Helen makes a fatal mistake during the years of the first world war when she meets a young Canadian army officer, Oliver. She is packed off to the wilds of Scotland to bear the mistake and the child is taken from her for adoption. Young Laura is adopted by a couple in the east end of London and grows up in poverty but great and abiding love. Life, though, for her adoptive mother, is full of secrets and deceptions.

The second world war breaks out and Laura falls in love with a pilot and they are soon to marry. Tragedy strikes and his best man must break the news to Laura of his death on her wedding day. The plot then really kicks off and the overshadowing character in this story is the second world war as experienced by Londoners.

This story is made up of a series of sometimes credulous plot devices but they can be overlooked because events move along at a cracking pace and the sum of the whole is better than its parts. For me there were a few too many coincidences and plotting conveniences but because the characters and their back stories are so well crafted you don't particularly care about that. Laura and her family (both adopted and natural) play out a dramatic series of events all overshadowed and shaped by the war, the bombings, the shortages, the rationing, the queuing, the deaths, the stark reality of sitting in an Anderson shelter, air sorties, land girls, chancers, wide boys, snatched moments of love in a world utterly insecure and so forth.

An enjoyable and entertaining read set well in the war years, moving along with great energy, this is a story that I recommend to those who would particularly like to read a novel set in the second world war. The author has a background as a M&B writer but she has truly transcended that and has produced a very good book.