Flaxmere Library Book Chat Reads Santa Montefiore

One of the most popular authors read by the members of Flaxmere Library Book Chat is Santa Montefiore. Packed with atmospheric settings, romance and family secrets – these are the kind of stories that just sweep you away. While you can pick up any book by this author and soon be completely engrossed, here’s a look at one particular series that had us all entranced: The Deverill Chronicles.

Who doesn’t like a good family saga, with intergenerational plot twists, characters buffeted by the ups and downs of history, plus the emotional pull of home? The first book in the Deverill Chronicles, Songs of Love and War, takes us to Ireland in the years before WWI. Kitty Deverill grows up in Castle Deverill, falling in love with Jack O’Leary, who enlists to fight as the Irish and British battle it out in Southern Ireland. Meanwhile Kitty’s friend, Bridie, the cook’s daughter, dreams of a better life.

In Daughters of Castle Deverill, we pick up the story in 1925, the castle is a ruin but young Celia Deverill is determined to restore it to its former glory. She has married well and has the necessary wealth behind her. But another battle is looming – the financial crunch that led to the Great Depression, just as things seem to be picking up.

The Last Secret of the Deverills is the third book in the saga, bringing us to 1939, with Martha Wallace arriving from America to search for her birth mother in Dublin. She’s soon charmed by JP Deverill, but what is his connection to her mother? We also catch up with Bridie and Kitty from the first book, with some interesting discoveries about how their lives have changed.

In The Secret Hours, the story revolves around Faye, who visits Ireland at the death of her mother, knowing nothing about her Irish family. Why did her mother want her ashes scattered on the hills near Ballinakelly when it seems she has no Irish family left there? And why did she leave a large inheritance to a secret benefactor?

Finally, in The Distant Shores, JP Deverill is the current Lord Deverill, a recluse, isolated and vulnerable. Into his world, Margot Hart arrives to write a biography of the Deverill family. Her mission takes an unexpected turn when she finds herself taking an interest in helping the family heal rifts and rebuild their fortunes. But what can she do?

We were pleased to discover that while there is a chronological order to the series, it doesn’t matter too much if you read the books out of order. There have been many more books by Santa Montefiore since The Deverill Chronicles with Shadows in the Moonlight the latest, published just this year. This stand-alone novel tells the story of Pixie Tate, called to the wild coast of Cornwall to unravel a mystery at St Sidwell Manor. This is the same place from which a child vanished a hundred years before. Surprise revelations, love affairs and a devastating choice will follow in this sweeping romantic mystery. Magic!

17 September 2024

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