I wasn’t too fussed on Martha to start with, but she grew on me – Willow was a delight, although she let herself be walked over. Erica James does have an uncanny knack of making the places she describes feel real, and the house was almost as much a character in the story as the human ones.

Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). Each chapter is written from the perspective of an individual character and this allows the reader to get to know, and understand, the dilemmas they are each facing and their opinions on the unfolding dramas. Willow’s conflict is less explicit – she lacks confidence in herself and the ability to stick with anything. Martha is in a stable satisfying marriage and Willow is finally with a man that is viewed as perfect boyfriend material by the rest of the family. It sends some significant messages to readers about acceptance of life choices and I appreciate this moral message that James is trying to convey.

They loved each other dearly and balanced one another out, with Martha being pedantic, sensible, prone to organizing everything, and Tom happy to cook and care for her when she needed it.

She tries to enlist Willows help who is not so sure and feels her mum should stay in their family home. You’ll be swept away then brought gently back to harbour in this beautiful portrait of a family and its multigenerational secrets. She’ll want her mum around when her planned-for baby arrives – though Martha is not actually pregnant yet!

Naomi meets her new neighbour, Ellis, who is actually an old acquaintance, and thinks that now is the time to move past the death of her husband, Colin, and have Ellis by her side. Naomi is a widow, settled into a peaceful life and enjoying a fledgling relationship with her next-door neighbour, divorced Ellis.

One of those stories when you're sad to leave the characters as you immediately feel at ease with them and want to carry on watching over them as they come to terms with the loss in their lives, but begin to move on. As Libby tries to piece her life back together, Bess and Elfrida find themselves reliving the past with all its secrets and tragedies.

Martha is a most abrasive personality but she is far from the most obnoxious character in this story. As a woman the same age as Naomi, it’s she I feel the greatest empathy for, and I must admit that at first I did not take to Martha at all. Although the story is slow to begin with, it picks up and becomes a page turning family drama with a very satisfying ending. Biography: Erica James is the author of twenty-three internationally bestselling novels, with recent Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers including Swallowtail Summer, Coming Home to Island House and, most recently the hardback bestseller, Letters from the Past. For as mothers, daughters and sisters, they must always consider the effects of their plans and actions on each other.