NEW RELEASE
The First Wife - Emily Barr (2011)
Lily Button has been caring for her grandparents for years. Now they have both passed on, and she has to sell up their cottage. With no idea how to get on in the world by herself, she heads to the local Citizens' Advice Bureau, where she meets Al. He becomes a friend and Lily ends up moving in with a lovely family, and getting work as a cleaner. One of her clients is former TV star Harry Summer and his wife Sarah. They seem to have the perfect life but Harry returns from their holiday to Barcelona alone - Sarah ended it all by throwing herself into the sea. Lily's relationship with the grieving widower deepens but before she marries him she wants to find out what really happened to the first wife. This is a gripping read with wonderfully drawn characters in Lily - the naive girl who has been sheltered from life for years - and Jack, the New Zealander who has always wanted to travel to Spain. But many of the mysteries were too clearly signposted along the way, making most of the twists anti-climatic.
Emily Barr's The First Wife is about a woman who falls under the spell of a widower - but what if he isn't the man she thinks he is? The summary says: "Lily is adrift and penniless after the death of the grandparents who brought her up. She gradually makes a life for herself in Cornwall, and when she finds a cleaning job, she becomes preoccupied with the glamorous couple she never sees, but whose house she looks after every week. When tragedy strikes, she suddenly finds herself getting close to dashing widower Harry. Yet she feels that things are not quite as they seem. Lily adores Harry but cannot plan her future with him until she finds out more about his first wife. This quest takes her to Barcelona, where events take a course she could never have predicted." The First Wife is out in May.