I just finished reading this book and found it a lighted hearted romance but yet sad and heart warming. A story of family, love, friendship, family history.
Laura Valiant and Claire Benson are best friends from childhood and have remained exceptionally close through the turmoil of adult life. They have much to celebrate: Laura is a partner in a challenging and successful art dealership in New York, and her marriage to the handsome and always amiable Doug seems to come right from a storyboook. Though divorced from her French husband, Philippe Lavillard, Claire delights in her precocious daughter, Natasha. But the two friends' lives do not follow the paths we imagine they will, and when Claire is confronted with sudden tragedy, she naturally turns to Laura for help. When the long-hidden history of the Lavillard family intersects with Laura's investigation into artwork stolen by the Nazi's during the war, Barbara Taylor Bradford's gripping tale reaches a dramatic and unexpected crecendo.
This was a good book, but I expected it to be great. Neither the plot or the characters were as deep or rich as they could have been.
I always enjoy reading Barbara Taylor Bradford. Suspense, romance -- what more can you ask for?
Another good story by Barbara Taylor Bradford.
A mystery involving old friends, secrets and stolen Natzi art work.
A woman finds a new life when her old one shatters.
Laura has what she thinks is a storybook marriage, and her closest childhood friend, Claire Benson, now publisher and editor-in-chief of a French interior design and art magazine, offers contrast as a bitter, divorced woman who dotes on her teenage daughter. Bradford's exploration of the relationship between the two women depicts a series of heartbreaks and scandals, most with more surface than substance. Claire's hidden past of childhood abuse, foreshadowed early in the book, makes the other characters appear obtuse for missing obvious clues. Meanwhile, Laura's "perfect" husband turns out to be bisexual, Claire's difficult ex-husband reappears in her daughter's life and Claire ends up confronting advanced breast cancer and battling for her life with Laura's loving support.
