Eileen Goudge: A Masterclass in Romantic Suspense

With her real estate career in ruins following an alcohol-induced fit, Tish Ballard thought she had finally hit rock bottom. But when she uncovers a trunk filled with bones and roses, things take a turn for the worse.

Now she is thrown into a murder investigation that has roots in her youth. Battling against her high-school crush, homicide detective Spence Breedlove, she must find a way to unmask the killer before she is put away for murder herself. 

In the summer of 1943, Sylvie had a child with dark hair, bearing no resemblance to her husband. It is the daughter of her lover, a man who teaches her passion, and to avoid her husband's fury, she replaces her own child with another in a hospital fire.

Rachel and Rose have drastically different upbringings. Rachel, in the high-rises of Manhattan, is on the path to becoming a doctor, while Rose lives in the slums of New York, falling in love and escaping into a profession as a lawyer. One day, they fall in love with the same man, not knowing the terrible secret that connects them in more ways than one. 

Paving the way for her Carson Springs Trilogy, Goudge tells the story of a Hollywood film crew coming to and upending a small California town in this novella. Cora Delorasa was married for over a decade, but only thirty, when she met the dashing film director Hank Montgomery. Soon, she realizes her marriage is not at all what she had imagined, and gives in to passion…

In Carson Springs, a woman falls in love with a man who is twice her age, much to the disapproval of her mother, Samantha Kiley. But what Sam, a widow, doesn't realize is that she, too, is about to become involved with a man who is fifteen years her junior, shocking the small town. And yet gossip isn't the only thing spreading through the village: a murderer is on the loose. 

The second novel in Goudge's Carson Springs trilogy, a divorced woman reflects on a life-altering decision. Kneeling before the altar, Gerry Fitzgerald is moments away from taking her vows in the sisterhood of God. But she is racked with doubt and guilt, thinking about the passion she shared with Father Jim, which has led her to become pregnant.

She knows she's not ready to give up the potential of a family, and flees, only to give her child up for adoption. But years later, she questions her choice, reopening wounds she thought were closed, and reuniting with the father of her child. 

When Emily and Sarah Marshall are cleaning out their sick mother's attic, they discover a journal in their mother's handwriting, recounting life in a small Nebraska town in 1951. Within that journal is the story of an almost-married Elizabeth Harvey, who is swept away into a passionate love affair with AJ, her adventurous childhood friend.

When AJ is the suspected culprit of a fire, Elizabeth must choose between a life of stability with Beau or one of unpredictability with AJ. Meanwhile, Emily and Sara are shocked to learn there was another man in their mother's life, and he wasn't their father…

With only six months left to live, Manhattan's professional matchmaker Camille Hart decides to set her soon-to-be single husband up with someone new. As a child, she watched her father struggle with her own mother's battle with cancer, and she doesn't want that fate for her kids. But finding Edward the perfect match may prove to be disastrous, in a shocking last twist no one expects. 

Set in 1970s New York, Ellie Nightingale works hard to give her newborn daughter the life she deserves. But one day, the baby is kidnapped, leaving Ellie distraught. Kate Sutton and her husband, a wealthy Connecticut couple, took on what they thought was an abandoned child.

Skylar Sutton, the now grown-up child, leads a happy life, falling for a New York policeman, until one day the three women are brought together under dire circumstances.