The Light Behind The Window: A breathtaking story of love and war from the bestselling author of The Seven Sisters series

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You may be right. It's only coffee. So let's also talk about forged identity papers. Based on this book I'd assume 90% of citizens in France during the war had forged papers. Need new papers? Your local aristocrat can have them whipped up overnight! Don't know any aristocrats? Head to the nearest cottage; the peasantry can meet the same deadline for half the price! (I am assuming on the price thing; money is never mentioned and it's never hard for anyone to obtain anything in this book.)

Just one other thing before I wrap this one up. The way Emilie throws in at the very end that she can’t have kids feels rushed and makes zero sense. It doesn’t add anything to the story. Yes, there’s Anton but that storyline could’ve happened without her whole melt down. I just personally think that that scene was random and poorly done.

This is by far my favorite Lucinda Riley book. I loved her detail about the French and English countryside and absolutely loved the specifics of the ancestry of Emilee's family. Digging into a family's history is my favorite historical thing to do. The ending is wonderful. Castles, hidden rooms, families, World War II, and history coming alive as past and present blend together for an incredible, marvelously detailed read. Emilie de la Martinieres is there when her glamorous mother draws her final breath. As the end comes, Emilie realises what a task she now has to face, as the sole remaining heir she has to sort a flat in Paris, her mother's jewels and other remnants of her famous and glamorous life as well as the Chateau in the south of France, which her mother hated, but Emilie loved as a child when her father was alive. Riley is talented ... will appeal to fans of historical fiction, Kate Morton, and Helen Bryan" Booklist

Air raids are boring to sit through apparently but don't damage anything, apparently, and travel is smellier but apparently everyone does it. Cousins from Vichy France apparently head to Paris for holidays without any difficulty. A few month after the war Constance wants to go home so she just does, without difficulty. In reality it took people months to find passage home. Francamente, encontré la historia de Emilie un tanto floja y poco creíble, con un personaje central muy endeble y sin consistencia, mientras que la de Connie y el entorno de la Francia ocupada me pareció bastante mejor descrito, además de más interesante. La resolución final, que une por fin a las dos familias protagonistas, aunque bien narrada, quizás haya sido demasiado previsible (O tal vez es que yo haya leído demasiadas novelas de temática similar).The incredible bravery of the SOE, the Resistance and the ordinary French men and women is movingly told; I'm a Brit used to war stories told from home soil and am ashamed to say how little I know about day to day occupied France. That's not to say this is a gritty war book though, far from it. There are some tense moments, but they're dealt with 'nicely' with only hints of the horrors that happen off-screen. The main body of this book is how the long-lost secrets of the past affect the future generations. Booklist A fast-paced, suspenseful story flitting between the present day and World War II . . . Riley expertly weaves Emilie's story into a dual narrative . . . A real old-fashioned romance which manages to have a compelling narrative as well as something of a history lesson in the Special Operations Executive. Brilliant escapism And the husband: Still can't figure out why he married her. I mean, if it was just "her money" that'd be one thing. But we're told it was to steal a specific book. For money. But the book isn't really THAT valuable, comparatively. I mean, it's a ton of money to me, but in context it isn't. I don't think so, anyway, because our novel isn't actually sure how much this MacGuffin is worth. It's not even the most valuable book in the chateau's library. There were plenty of other objects he could have stolen, since Emilie didn't even know what she owned. The book trots this "steal one specific book" explanation out at the end and even tries to lampshade it but it just doesn't make sense.

Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Italian Bancarella Prize, the Lovely Books Award in Germany, and the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. In 2020 she received the Dutch Platinum Award for sales over 300,000 copies for a single novel in one year – a prize last won by J. K. Rowling for Harry Potter. No habiendo leído aún “Hothouse Flower”, me decidí por conocer a Lucinda Riley a través de esta novela, de la que también había escuchado buenas referencias. In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised and wrote a series of books for children called The Guardian Angels. But predictability of plot can be okay if you are interested in the characters. Which was my second issue. In particulare Emilie, the main protagonist in the modern-day story, drove me mad. She is the daughter of an aristocratic family, whose socialite mother was totally uninterested in her. The mother dies at the start and Emilie, who has 'rebelled' by abandoning the social life and becoming a vet, is left with a huge chateau on her hands. You'd think someone who has worked hard enough and single-mindedly enough to have such a career would have a bit of gumption, but Emilie seemed to me to have absolutely none. She dithers and she swithers. When her mother's dog is run over, she actually has to consult another vet! She seems to think she can only practice in Paris, and that any move to any other part or France or any other country must mean she gives up her career (the one she's worked so hard to succeed at) and frankly, when she met her Nemesis (and anyone but Emilie would have known right from the start that's what he was) I thought she deserved all she got.I don't understand why so many people seem to want to write books about women in SOE that in fact aren't about what women in SOE did. Or at least, I thought this would be about a woman in SOE (along with a related story set in the more or less present day), but apparently it wanted to be a soapy drama. Which could have been okay, except that it was so clunky and flat.

Yet again Lucinda Riley has created and weaved a story which has you gripped from the beginning to the end. You have to keep reading, you have to know what happens you have to know if love will conquer all, if war will end, if all wrongs will be righted and that the light will shine again from behind the window where it has been hiding for many years of the main characters. Mir hat der Lavendelgarten sehr gut gefallen. Es wird nicht das letzte Buch von Lucinda Riley sein das ich lesen werde. Außerdem wird es auch nicht ausziehen wie ich ursprünglich geplant habe. Zugegebenermaßen habe ich aber2 Versuche gebraucht bis ich das Buch beenden konnte. Beim ersten Mal war wahrscheinlich einfach die falsche Zeit für das Buch. Jetzt beim zweiten Mal hatte ich echt Spaß beim Lesen und wollte mehr über Emilie und ihre Geschichte und die Vergangenheit ihrer Familie erfahren. A fast-paced, suspenseful story flitting between the present day and World War II . . . Riley expertly weaves Emilie’s story into a dual narrative . . . A real old-fashioned romance which manages to have a compelling narrative as well as something of a history lesson in the Special Operations Executive. Brilliant escapism If you don't care what life was like in wartime France, the hardships and dangers, why bother to set your story there? With one exception nothing really difficult happens to these ridiculous characters. And they are so ridiculous. They do nothing and then talk to each other about how brave they all are. The Light Behind The Window: A breathtaking story of love and war from the bestselling author of The Seven Sisters seriesThe way she draws her characters is totally authentic and I really couldn't see the ending (well, maybe a tiny hint). Sebastian's family had some connection to Emilie's chateau and vineyard, and the winemakers on the estate knew what that connection was. The account of the important family connection is revealed through Constance's life during WWII and her connection to the de la Martinieries' family. But, did Sebastian suddenly appear and help Emilie because of the family connection or because he was interested in the valuable paintings inside her estates and most of all her family inheritance? South of France, present day. After the death of her glamorous, distant mother, Emilie de la Martiniéres finds herself alone in the world – and sole inheritor of her grand childhood home.