Publisher: Bookouture
Format: ebook & paperback
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis
From top-ten bestseller Ella Carey comes a gripping, haunting and utterly captivating novel about love, secrets and betrayal in a story that spans the most tumultuous decades of the twentieth century.
What happens when the truths you have built your life on start to crumble?
Emma Temple sits looking out of the window in her beautiful apartment in the heart of London, surrounded by memories of her younger years as one of England’s most influential artists. Nearly ninety, it would be easy to overlook her as a forgetful older lady. But Emma’s past, including her great love affair which survived two world wars, is about to come crashing into the present.
When her granddaughter Laura arrives asking questions about the portrait that hangs above her bed, Emma is transported back over sixty years. The picture was painted by the only man she ever truly loved, the one soul on earth who knew her deepest secret. But when a newspaper claims that the portrait is a fake, everything Emma believed to be true starts to collapse. Suddenly she is transported back to a sunny house in the south of France in 1923 and the moment when her life changed forever…
An incredibly emotional and totally compelling historical novel about the relationships that shape us and the secrets we never forget. Fans of My Name is Eva, Fiona Valpy and Rhys Bowen will be completely transported from the very first page.
My Thoughts
Laura Taylor is shocked when she reads in a London newspaper that the portrait painted by famous artist Patrick Adams, the same portrait used as security for a loan to fund her tuition at the Royal College of Music, is a fake. The portrait entitled The Things We Don't Say has been pulled from the Tate's exhibition of gay 20th century artists after an appraisal by Ewan Buchanan, art dealer and owner of a well-respected London art gallery.
Laura's first thought is to shield her ninety year old grandmother from this news, for Emma Temple is the subject of the painting, gifted to her by Patrick as a symbol of his enduring love and which still hangs in her bedroom at Summerfield, the country house they once shared.
When Emma learns of the claim and how the bank is calling in the loan putting Laura's dreams of becoming a renowned violinist in jeopardy, her main concern is for Laura's future and how to raise the funds to satisfy the bank. But then the doubts begin to creep in that perhaps her life with Patrick, the one man she had ever truly loved, and his feelings for her were a part of a great deception. Unwilling to concede that she hadn't really known the love of her life, Emma is forced to reappraise their relationship, seeking the truth in her memories from when she first met Patrick in 1913 and how their Bohemian life together developed, significantly changing in 1923.
Those memories alternate with Laura's bid to convince Ewan Buchanan to change his appraisal. Thus, saving her career, but most importantly, ensuring her grandmother that life with Patrick and "the most treasured symbol of their entire relationship" wasn't based on a lie.
I'm a huge fan of Ella Carey's dual time frame novels. This one took me a little longer to get onboard than her previous ones. Although Emma's story engaged me from the start, shedding light on what moulded her character, her relationship with Patrick and the traits she handed down to her granddaughter, I found the 1980 part of the story stalled a little and went around in circles until Ewan re-entered the story and revealed his very personal reason for declaring the portrait a fake. I also couldn't believe that a supposedly valuable painting offered as collateral for a loan wasn't in a more secure place (i.e. the bank's vault) than an unlived-in and isolated country house or that the appraisal by one man, who initially refused to share why he thought the painting was a fake, was never challenged except privately by Laura and Emma. Yet, despite these niggles, Ella Carey's ability to write an emotionally charged narrative, with an enticing mystery element, won out and I can honestly say that when I reached the end I found that I had thoroughly enjoyed it.
The aptly named The Things We Don't Say is a wonderful love story. It is also one of jealousy, revenge and betrayal that certainly tugs at the heartstrings. Another triumph for Ella Carey.
Meet the Author
Ella loves to connect with her readers regularly through her facebook page and on her website.
http://www.ellacarey.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ellacareyauthor/
https://twitter.com/Ella_Carey
Where to Purchase
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