The Light Behind The Window

Unlocking the past is the key to the future . . . From Lucinda Riley, number one bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series, The Light Behind the Window is a stunning tale of love, war and, above all, forgiveness. 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. A notebook of poems leads her to the mysterious and beautiful Sophia, whose tragic love affair changed the course of her family history. As Emilie unravels the story, she too embarks on a journey of discovery, realizing that the château may provide clues to her own difficult past. London, 1943. A young office clerk, Constance Carruthers, is drafted into a special operations team, arriving in occupied Paris during the climax of the conflict. Separated from her contact, she stumbles into the heart of a wealthy family who are caught up in a deadly game of secrets and lies. Forced to surrender her identity and all ties to her homeland, Constance finds herself drawn into a complex web of deception, the repercussions of which will affect generations to come . . . 'A fast-paced, suspenseful story flitting between the present day and World War II . . . Brilliant escapism' - Red This title has been published outside the UK under the title The Lavender Garden.

Lucinda Riley was born in 1965 in Ireland and, after an early career as an actress in film, theatre and television, wrote her first novel aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and continue to strike an emotional chord with cultures all around the world. The Seven Sisters series specifically has become a global phenomenon, creating its own genre. 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. In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised and wrote a series of books for children called The Guardian Angels. Though she brought up her four children mostly in Norfolk in England, in 2015 she fulfilled her dream of buying a remote farmhouse in West Cork, Ireland, which she always felt was her spiritual home, and indeed this was where her last five books were written. Lucinda was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and died on 11 June 2021, surrounded by her family.