The Angel Tree

September 5, 2016
U.K.-based bestseller Riley (The Seven Sisters) applied years of writing perspective to this rewrite of her 1995 novel, Not Quite an Angel (written as Lucinda Edmonds), and the story shines through her smooth prose. But its expansion into a nearly 700-page behemoth is unjustified even by its sweeping melodrama, stretching across three generations of women from WWII into the 1980s. The story is too shallow and linear for an extended family chronicle and not nearly tight enough for a thriller. Greta Marchmont, who’s had amnesia for 20 years following an accident, returns with her best friend (and nephew by marriage), David Marchmont, to the estate in Wales where she spent her early adulthood. She stumbles across the gravestone of her young son, Jonny, and suddenly begins to recall her life’s events. She remembers that she struggled to raise Jonny’s disturbed twin sister, child star Cheska, by herself; to her shock, she realizes that she harbored romantic feelings for David. The novel’s framing, the roughly chronological revelation of decades of history, and the book’s length leave readers slogging through endless details to get to the plot points they know must be there.

October 15, 2016

The Welsh country lifestyle intersects with the tarnished glitter of the entertainment world in this British-focused story that spans the 40 years following World War II. Rife with secrets and tragedy and more family saga than pure romance, this rewritten narrative with a historical feel includes enough poignant love interest to appeal to romance and women's fiction fans. First published in 1995 as Not Quite an Angel under the pen name Lucinda Edmonds.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2016
It's been more than two decades since the accident that erased Greta Marchmont's memories. She reluctantly agrees to spend Christmas 1985 at Marchmont Hall, the home of her long-dead husband, which now belongs to his nephew, Greta's friend, David. The last thing Greta expects is for her memories to return, but when she happens upon the gravestone of her deceased son, Jonny, she starts to recall her life. We learn that, once a penniless showgirl in London, Greta was left pregnant by an American soldier. David, then just beginning his career as a comic, sent Greta to Marchmont to give birth in peace. There she met David's uncle, Owen, who proposed to her and offered to bring up her twins as his own. But she was troubled by the way Owen so obviously favored Jonny over Cheska, and after the boy's death, she was forced to return to London with her daughter. Cheska became a child star, but as the years go by, her emotional instability becomes more evident. This page-turning, multigenerational sudser by best-selling Riley (The Storm Sister, 2016) will appeal to fans of Barbara Taylor Bradford and Penny Vincenzi.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)