- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Penguin (29 May 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140290079
- ISBN-13: 978-0140290073
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 317,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Secrets of the Heart
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Secrets of the Heart has all the impressive observation of Elizabeth Buchan's earlier books, allied to a warm and nuanced sympathy for her characters that is completely unforced. The finest romance titles nowadays have all the requisite elements but are written by authors who are real stylists, with an intelligence and grasp of character that was a rarity 10 years ago. Readers of romantic fiction have every right to expect the very best these days and it is writers like Elizabeth Buchan who have wrought this change. Gone are the days when the genre could get away with slapdash writing and a parade of clichés.
In Secrets of the Heart, Agnes Campion has reached the age of 30 when she takes on the squabbling aunts and decaying splendour of Flagge House, which has been left to her. Just maintaining this troublesome property is keeping her more than occupied but she is also dealing with two distinctively different suitors, both involved with other women. Julian is a property developer, suave and handsome, but a man who sets all kinds of ideological alarm bells ringing in Agnes's mind. Andrew, an organic farmer struggling with both a marriage and a business that are falling apart, is an even more tricky prospect. Completing an emotional quartet, Kitty, Julian's deceptively fragile mistress, has Agnes in her sights as an enemy. All four characters are beautifully fleshed out by Buchan with the subtle touches that her admirers have come to know well, and even the slightly predictable schematic of the book (it's clear early on that two characters will find happiness, while two will not) actually adds to the pleasurable juggling with the genre conventions that Buchan does so well. Take the vengeful Kitty's examination of her own motives:
The anger never seen by others stirred in Kitty's soul. She knew, from experience, that anger tightened the ligaments in her neck and hardened her features. Oh, Kitty, Kitty, what a sham you are. If she was truthful, and Kitty tried hard to be so, her anger was really a form of grief and impotence, not the strong, cleansing emotion that psychotherapists advised it should be.The author's first book, Daughters of the Storm marked Buchan out as an impressive writer, and when her third novel Consider the Lily won the 1994 Romantic Novel of the Year Award, expectations were very high for subsequent work. If Perfect Love lost a little of the momentum, it is triumphantly regained here. --Barry Forshaw
Product Description
Agnes Campion is 30 when she inherits Flagge House from her uncle. Struggling with its upkeep whilst looking after her elderly aunts, juggling her work, and nursing a bruised heart, she doesn't bank on falling for handsome property developer Julian,whose job is everything she despises. But Julian has commitments of his own: Kitty, his long term mistress, won't give him up without a fight: seemingly fragile, she's really as tough as nails. Nor does Agnes imagine that stoical Andrew, whose organic farm is being wrenched away from him by a planning application, will fall for her too. Slowly, surely, a love quartet is developing, but relationships are messy things, and only two people can find happiness at the end of it all ...
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
When he was alive, Agnes told her uncle more than once that if he had been a different sort of man it would not have been the same story at all. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When he was alive, Agnes told her uncle more than once that if he had been a different sort of man it would not have been the same story at all. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a fantastic writer she is!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Secrets of the Heart (Paperback)
I picked up this book expecting an "anaemic" romantic tale; I couldn't have been more wrong. Buchan has the ability to get inside her characters' hearts and to identify with the feelings of very different types of women. I am now going to read everything she has ever written.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You must read this novel!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Secrets of the Heart (Paperback)
If you want to be gripped and moved read this portrait of three women at different stages of their lives. Tender, truthful and wise, this is about England, its changing countryside and the choices life today poses.Can't be bettered.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genuine dilemmas, page turning quality,
This review is from: Secrets of the Heart (Paperback)
In most fiction you can spot which couple is going to end up together by about page 7. Here, you genuinely don't know how it's going to end until it does. In this story about the delicate balance between conservation and progress, Elizabeth Buchan shows that you can be both a fine writer and also a good read for those who don't want intellectual pretension.
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