Country house Secrets & settings

Hothouse Flower by Lucinda Riley. A good long read, another upstairs-downstairs past-present book set around a country house in Norfolk (popular county at the moment), plus well described visits to Thailand. Timelines: 1939 and present day. I liked the historical part very much. Was sometimes distracted by the convoluted plot twists at the end, and by the way the Thai women said Ka in the middle of an English sentence, which seemed unlikely to me. But that’s too picky and not many readers will know Thai language customs, or indeed maybe customs have changed. Also I’ve used one of the plot twists myself in a past novel so am not in a position to question. Was also confused by the fact that Jasmine never knew she was adopted but if, as we are told, she was the image of her mother then she must have been conspicuous in a gardener’s cottage in Norfolk. But let’s not worry about a few minor details. As I said, it is a good undemanding holiday read and as it is in Sainsbury’s it should sell well. Obviously the publishers are marketing it as Kate-Mortonesque as the covers are similar. As far as I can gather, the author used to write under the name of Lucinda Edmonds and before that she was a successful actress.

Here we have a 'new' cover genre, it would appear. CountryhouseSecrets-Lit Revisited? Must say, I rather like it. Last night I dreamed I went to Thornfield Hall again...