The Light Behind the Window

Written by Lucinda Riley

Narrated by Gerri Halligan

THE PRESENT - After her mother’s death, Emilie de la Martiniéres finds herself the sole inheritor of a chateau in the south of France. There she discovers an old notebook which leads her along a journey to unravel the tragic love story of the mysterious Sophia. THE PAST (1943). Constance Carruthers, arrives in occupied Paris at the height of conflict. There she stumbles into the heart of a wealthy family and is drawn into a web of deception, the repercussions of which will affect generations to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Audio
• Release date: Jan 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781471209116

Lucinda Riley

Lucinda Riley was born in 1965 in Ireland, and after an early career as an actress in film, theatre and television, wrote her first book aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and continue to strike an emotional chord with all cultures around the world. The Seven Sisters series specifically has become a global phenomenon, creating its own genre, and there are plans to create a seven-season TV series. 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 – an award last won by J K Rowling for Harry Potter. In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised a series of books for children called the Guardian Angels series, based on stories told to her children whenever they were facing a challenging situation. Harry then wrote the books, and they are now being published internationally. 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 June 11th 2021, surrounded by her family.

Reviews for The Light Behind the Window

[andrew1theqm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lucinda Riley once again writes a cracking story! This one was a bit slower in getting off the ground than others I have read but once it did I was fully engrossed! Both the modern day story and the back story from the Second World War captivated me and led me to want to read on and on. As has been said by others some similarity to Kate Morton's stories but I actually think I prefer Lucinda Riley's books. If you like dual time line books I would certainly recommend Lucinda Riley, whilst I enjoyed this one a lot my favourite would still be The Girl on the Cliff which had more of an emotional impact on me.

[candyh_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent story about the history of a particular family and how the ancestors are related. Lucinda Riley has a way of keeping the reader on the edge and devouring her stories. I highly recommend this book.

[silversreviews · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 the sole surviving member of her family and is left with a chateau with vineyards and another home in Paris. Both homes are filled with memories and contents worth millions. But, the millions won't be Emile's because of the debt her mother mounted over the years. Emilie needs to decide if she should sell or keep the chateau. She never had to deal with finances and was doing it alone until a complete stranger, Sebastian, came on the scene.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?THE LAVENDER GARDEN moves back and forth from current day to WWII making a beautiful story even more enticing. The WWII details were fascinating and very well researched.The detailed descriptions of the castle, the French society during WWII, the hint of mystery about the de la Martinieries' history, and the current-day love story make this book another amazing, mesmerizing, and fantastic Lucinda Riley novel. THE LAVENDER GARDEN had wonderful characters that were believable as well as characters that you would want to share a day with. Being in a beautiful chateau with a vineyard, being in Paris and a small French village, being in an English castle, and being with characters you definitely will bond with made the book even more appealing. 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.I hope you get to read it. 5/5This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation in return for an honest review.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Christmas gift from my mother. Not the worst of the genre that I've read but it didn't really sing to me.I guessed some of the twists from fairly early on and was proven pretty right all the way.The story is split between two times, present and past and the past involves a young beautiful SOE operative who finds herself in Paris during World War II, in the house of a man playing a deadly game of secrets and lies with the Nazis. She has to play the games to stay alive and try to keep herself from betraying everyone.The other story, which also serves as the framing device is set in the present, Emile de la Martinieres, a vet who inherits her family chateau in the south of France and stumbles her way through love and deception to unravel the story of Sophia who is one of the generation from World War II. Along the way she finds herself drawn to two brothers from England, one of whom she marries.I found it readable and don't regret reading it but it didn't leave me wanting to find more by this author. The twists were heavily flagged and several of the characters seemed to be to shallow and incapable of acting for themselves, while being described as strong people.

[brokenteepee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my third book by Ms. Riley and I was quite excited to be offered it for review. I very much enjoyed the first two of her books that I read, The Orchid House and The Girl on the Cliff. This book moves back and forth in time between WWII occupied France and England and 1998 France as a young woman, the last of a very long line of French nobility comes to grips with her history.WWII (and WWI) novels are quite the rage right now and that is probably a good thing as the people who lived through that time are passing and if the horrors of age are not remembered they will be repeated. I suspect that much like I was not taught much about the Civil War in school, today's students are not taught much about the World Wars. They are ancient history to this generation of kids. They don't have grandfathers who tell stories of the battles. Their grandfathers fought in Korea or Viet Nam or perhaps not at all.Emilie is not, at least at first, the most compelling of heroines. It took me a bit to warm up to her but once I did I found myself quite engrossed in the story. She knew nothing of her family's history nor of herself. She was a child of a self centered mother and a distant father. What she learned and how she learned it changed her and made her stronger.Ms. Riley is brilliant at weaving history into her characters' lives without making her reader feel as if she is in a classroom. She sets a scene beautifully and when lost in the writing the reader can almost believe they are there too. This book was a bit slow in the beginning for me so I didn't like it as much as the others I've read from Ms. Riley but once it started into the backstory I was hooked.

[whybehave2002 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book that kept me up almost all night a couple of times because I had to read "just one more chapter".

[dubaireader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Originally published as The Lavender Garden.This is the second book by Lucinda Riley that I have read and I enjoyed this one more than Hothouse Flower (U.S. title The Orchid House). This is another split-time novel, part of which is again set during WWII.In 1943, Constance Carruthers, with her husband missing in action, trains to become an agent for the Special Operations Executive. Her plans to make a difference behind the scenes are shattered when her contacts fail and she finds herself living an alias in the mansion of Edouard de la Marinieres and his sister, Sophie. He is leading a double life and she must play along in the charade.The present day story involves Emilie de la Marinieres, who has travelled to France to sort out the mansion she inherited on her mother's death. She must decide whether to sell it to pay her mother's debts, or find some other way out of the mess she finds herself in. Enter a knight in shining armour, in the person of Stephen Carruthers, an art expert who offers to help her find buyers for the art works.You will already have spotted the similar names and Ms Riley weaves a complicated story around these four characters and their connections. There is also a fifth character who plays a significant part, Stephen's house-bound brother in Scotland.A well written novel with excellent characters that dropped a star because I found Emilie just a bit too pathetic and gullible, Otherwise, well worth the read.

[quiltinfun06 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well worth reading about WWII and the French Resistance, The Lavender Garden was extremely enjoyable.

[alisonb60 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love this story and thoroughly recommend it. A heartwarming tale divided between life in France in 1943 and the present time. I was wondering how it would end up until the very last minute. I think it is wonderfully written and I am off to find out more Riley's books.

[booklovers2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Can there actually be another love story that takes us back to the horrors of WW2? The answer is yes, there actually can. This time we learn of the Resistance and the brave women who were essential in the fight and the aftermath of secrets that unfold. How the interweaving of the past and present create the telling of another perfect love story filled with family secets

[beth.clarke · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5. It was fine. A bit too predictable. The ending a bit too neat.

[caj828 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At the beginning of the book I felt that it jumped around a bit and was a little irritating having Emilie act so careless about her finances. Also she was just plain annoying in general. I was half tempted to give the story up if Emilie was the sole focus of the book. Luckily the book jumps back and forth from Emilie in 1999 to Constance in 1944. The story follows Constance aka Connie as she trains to be SOE and goes undercover in France. She was so refreshing and I took to her from the very beginning. I found myself really wanting to know about her and how she was tied into Emilie’s family. As I followed Connie's story I start to like Emilie's part a little more not much more but a little. The story is a bit predictable and you sort of knew what was going to happen but it was nicely written and I was able to get sucked in to the book. Overall I liked it. I think I would have liked it a lot more if I liked Emilie better. I just couldn’t find much to like about her.

[dorolerium · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Lavender Garden is a touching and interesting story of two families coming together, in the past and semi-present, with heroics in one generation and a mystery in the other. We go back and forth from the present to the past in alternating sections, watching Emilie’s journey of growing up as she learns about the activities of her family in France during World War II. Despite being from an important family, Emilie doesn’t know much about her history, and it turns out, herself either.Constance, on the other hand, is caught up in the war, separated from her husband and sent off to a foreign country on a very dangerous mission. Almost as soon as she makes it into France, she meets Edouard de la Martinieres, and while her mission is taken off course, her desire to fight for her country and end the war stay with her. Connie is an amazing woman, the sort I wish I knew and had the opportunity to be friends with at some point in my life.I spent much of the novel wanting to shake some sense into Emilie – whether it’s that I’ve seen too many movies, or I’m just not as trusting of a person as she is, I felt like I could see trouble coming for her and I couldn’t do anything about it. She is pretty naive at the beginning of the novel, and I couldn’t help but be frustrated as I read some of what she was going through.Consequently, the flash back segments set during the war were much more interesting to me. I felt like I was able to get a reasonably realistic view into the war in Europe – or realistic for me, at least. Although I know that WWII occurred, and who the major players were, I feel relatively separated from it, both by generation and locale. The danger these characters were in was so palpable, I felt at times that I was in an air raid, at risk in a safe house, or stuck in a cellar somewhere. These scenes were all beautiful, heartbreaking, and I wish there had been more of them.At the end of it all, while I didn’t want to participate in Emilie’s life much, I do want to read more novels about this time period in Europe, as well as visit a vineyard or five in France.

[getrus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lucinda Riley’s novel is both a WWII novel concerning the French Resistance and about a young woman finding her identity through the telling of her father’s involvement with the Resistance and the recent death of her mother. Emilie returns to the chateau she loved after her mother’s death to decide what she is going to do now with her parents’ belongings and the houses they owned (her father having died years earlier).During this time she meets Sebastian who is an art dealer and who always happens to be there to help her with decisions which need to be made. Eventually, the two decide to marry, and it is found out that Emilie’s father and Sebastian’s Grandmother were both part of the Resistance during the war. Even though Seb is English.Emile finds out her father’s story through a family friend who runs the vineyard on the land which belongs on the chateau. She learns of how Seb’s Grandmother Constance found herself in France even though she lived most of her live in England and how she helped Edoaurd, Emilie’s father.This book grabbed me at the beginning and I did not want to stop reading until I had heard the whole story and then I wanted to know more of what happened. I felt so connected to the characters by the end of the story I wanted to learn about other parts of their lives. For me this is definitely one of my favorite reads so far this year.