Jules Hayes

Three Friends. Two Secrets. One Hidden Life. Growing up around Winston Churchill’s country estate in Kent, Frank, Florence and Hilda are inseparable, but when Frank marries for duty rather than love, the lives of the three friends begin to fragment. In 1938, and as WW2 casts its menacing shadow, Frank makes other catastrophic choices, the consequences of which will leave a tragic legacy. For over fifty years Florence has been the keeper of Frank’s secrets, but soon after his death in 2002 she writes to his grandson, Richard, hinting at his family’s troubled past. As Richard starts to dig further into his grandparents’ lives, disturbing secrets come to light that have not only haunted his grandad, but will impact on Richard too. When a pivotal encounter between Frank and Churchill during the war is revealed and a mystery relative in a psychiatric hospital discovered, just how much more does Florence dare disclose about her life with Frank, and is Richard ready to hear? An intricate, multi-layered and sumptuously atmospheric story spanning seventy years and three generations, showing how – sometimes – the only way forward is through the past.