Secrets have a way of surfacing at the least convenient moment, usually just as someone has started to fall in love. These three novels make the most of that awkward truth, moving from a crowded Cornish household to an island cottage and on to a family home gone quiet with grief. Each is warm and funny, with a few tears tucked into the margins. Truth will out, and these heroines are all the better for it.
Jill Mansell, ‘It Started With a Secret’ - Lainey lands a dream job in St Carys by pretending to be half of a couple, then finds her employer’s grandson Seth far harder to fib to than she bargained for.
Holly Martin, ‘Spring at Blueberry Bay’ - Bella opens her Hope Island cottage to a handsome homeless stranger, unaware that Isaac is not remotely who he seems.
Lucy Diamond, ‘The Best Days of Our Lives’ - After Leni McKenzie dies in a cycling accident, her sister Alice pieces together her last weeks and discovers how much the family never told one another.
