Other Side of Paradise

by Vanessa Beaumont

For fans of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park and After the Party.

Duty, scandal, and a mother’s desperate attempt to protect her sons from a secret that will destroy them.

'A breathtakingly good, heartbreaking and utterly absorbing story.' Cressida Connolly, author of After the Party

LONDON 1921 – Jean Buckman, a young and innocent American heiress arrives in England to find a society decimated by war but resolutely clinging to the status quo. She marries Edward Warre an engaging but complex man and the owner of a once great but now struggling estate.

As the marriage falters, Jean spends her summers in the South of France where she embarks on a passionate affair that will have repercussions for the rest of her life.

Two sons arrive, the oldest, heir to the estate, is not the true bloodline. But Edward needs Jean’s money to survive, and she needs her husband's silence.

The Other Side of Paradise is the heart-breaking story of a family ripped apart by the shackles of inheritance and the rules imposed upon them by a society that cannot face the truth.

'With gorgeously fluid prose that never snags on the period detail, Beaumont is a debut writer with a bold future.' Jessica Fellowes, author of The Mitford Murders

Genres: Historical Fiction

431 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 9, 2024

Reviews

[Claire Skinner · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all: I love this cover! It screams glamour and drama and society life, all of which I love in a story and the story lived up to this premise!

The novel opens in 1920s London and follows a young heiress, Jean Buckman as she us catapulted into the world of English aristocracy with their unbending rules, stiff upper lips and desire to cling to the status quo which has for, so long, benefitted them. Not long after her arrival in London, she meets and marries Edward Warre - a Lord with a struggling estate: he has a title, she has money - on paper, it is the perfect match.

However Edward is a difficult man and it becomes quickly apparent that their marriage will remain loveless and so, in an act of passion and a desire to remain true to her heart, Jean makes a decision: one for which the repercussions will have a reverberating effect for the next 40 years…

This is the story of one woman’s life: the husband, the lover, the children, the estate, the expectant mother and of course, the money. It paints a vibrant image of a country where title and inheritance are so important for many - but against the backdrop of a country ravished by war and desperate for change. Jean is a highly likeable and relatable character - with the choices she makes fully reasoned and understandable and, as such, my full empathy sat with her and are appeared over and over again to be punished for her decisions reflecting the heartbreaking reality of the time where inheritance and money could rip a family apart.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Rounded down to 3.0

[Rosalind · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s probably tricky to write a book that covers almost the entire lifetime of a person. This was too much narrative for me (verging on too melodramatic for my liking) skipping over time and not really getting to know the characters. It bugged me that not much of an attempt was made at allowing the reader to get to know Edward. He seems fairly harmless at the start, although without character, and his decline into boorish happens almost at the turn of a page. Too much of how their relationship progressed over the first year or so was left to the imagination.

[Tolkien InMySleep · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overly melodramatic, and I found the final chapter fairly unbelievable

[Tripfiction · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novel set in the RIVIERA and NORTHUMBERLAND



This novel should be a real success, if there is any justice in the publishing world. It is a while since I last read an involving story of family dynamics and tradition that bring a time and place to colourful – if poignant and sad – life.

Jean is a wealthy young American woman who has come to London in the early 1920s with her family. Her father is the American Ambassador, her mother from a wealthy publishing dynasty and they have the world at their feet. Jean has her ‘in’ into London’s society when she meets Edward Warre, who has inherited a rambling pile on the edge of the Moors in Northumberland. Spurred on by her mother, the two decide to marry given her family will be investing in the upkeep of the property and its lands.

Lord and Lady Warre are a feted couple, but the cracks in the marriage are evident from the beginning. An American is no match for the emotionally zipped up British Upper Classes, and with both mothers stirring the pot, really, there is no hope. Jean’s mother encourages her to find a property in the South of France, because socially that is the up-and-coming place, so it would be fitting for her to mingle with the members of society who decamp every year to the Riviera.

This gives Jean a fulfilling project because her hands have been pretty much idle in Harehope, the big family house, the attention of her husband fleeting, dismissive and cold. Once in the Côte d’Azur, she trawls the available properties and settles upon one that appeals. It has a couple of incumbent staff members and the scene is set. She mingles within the British community down there and feels at home.

Two pregnancies ensue in close succession and the ire of her husband becomes ever more entrenched, as he is quick to understand why she chooses to spend considerable time in her new home by the Mediterranean.

Her small boys are her pride and joy but her marriage is long dead. Her husband spends a great deal of time in London, doing goodness knows what and thus these two people, confined in marriage, start to pull at the few remaining cords of their union.

She turns for help to her family, she confides in friends, she seeks out her brother with whom she has had little contact, but the role of a wife and mother overrides any personal desires she may have. This is the lot of women.

This novel is beautifully observed, with a strong sense of place and time, elements that simply fly off the pages. The writing is lyrical, with such a light and articulate touch. This is a quality rendering of the life of one woman in the first half of the twentieth century. Highly recommended.

[Julianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a beautiful and eloquently written period piece that ultimately leaves me so disappointed with many plot holes in character development.
The ending is just a kick in the pants to readers who’ve gotten that far… it seems so out of character for Alfie to desert his brother who he’d spend his entire life protecting. It’s almost like he’d never met the quiet, animal loving painter, and so kind of you to knowingly leave him with a bankrupt dynasty to he could take his rightful place as heir to a throne he never wanted. And is shocked to hear he’s not thriving in that environment?
And poor Jean, the puppet to her overbearing mother, in such an unhappy marriage- yet we don’t get enough to understand WHY, other than loneliness and feeling like she doesn’t fit in. Why she chose to hide the truth from her boys who so desperately wanted to understand, but felt compelled to tell her interior designer and an acquaintance from a decade ago?
Her understanding of social structure at the beginning is annoyingly thrown to the wind with pestering David urging her to take an arduous transatlantic journey to spill the beans to her society queen mom. How did she not have a better grip with reality as to how that would pan out? Elizabeth would never agree to a divorce let alone one for a society columnist?
Why did the fun aunt not make a second appearance? I was so hopeful she would swoop in and save the day.
After such a sparkling start, I’m upset enough at the ending to be writing multiple run on sentences, wishing the book had been quite a bit shorter so I could have moved onto something better faster. Le sigh.

[Jo_Scho_Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Beginning in the early twenties l, this is the story of Jean Buckman; a wealthy young American heiress who marries Englishman Edward Warre. Their marriage is not the success Jean hopes for. Edward is reserved and lacking warmth and Jean escapes to France each year and it is there she meets David. The decisions she makes one summer will change her life forever more. There is no going back.

A wonderfully evocative work of historical fiction. The nineteen twenties are portrayed so expertly and the whole book has such a vivid sense of time and place. I couldn’t warm to many characters, they all had that British reserve but I did feel empathy for Jean who, as an American, clearly struggled with it.

As the years pass and Jean’s life moves on it’s interesting to contemplate her mistakes and silences. Should she have done things differently? Are her regrets few or plentiful?

A thought provoking read for sure.

[Lisa Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful!

Oh my! Part of me wishes I'd never read this book - it's achingly beautiful and has left me feeling hollow and bereft. I don't think I've ever cried over a book - and I must have read thousands, but this made me sob. If I'd known the effect I probably wouldn't have read it, I'm not one for maudlin or heart breaking books, but it's so beautifully crafted with such a compelling story. And it's not all sad , it's just that I got so heavily invested in the characters that I wanted a happy ever after for them all. A poignant , intelligent and compelling story.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's the glamorous atmosphere of novels like Brideshead and The Pursuit of love, witty banters, and well developed characters..
A good novel, i hope to read other books by this author
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Theresa Howes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written, heart-wrenching story of mother love and sacrifice. Packed with period detail of the lives of the English aristocracy in the first half of the twentieth century, it’s a truly immersive read.

[Laura Pinchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfull book! Vanessa Beaumont's writing style captures the reader starting from the first page and does not let you go untill the very last.

[Alessia von Slawik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very British. Loved it very much

[Alicia Primer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of period UK/Côte d’Azur atmosphere but the lead was so utterly weak, her infidelity notwithstanding, that I wanted to give her a shake and tell her to buck up. 3 1/2* rounded up for setting.

[Christine Eskilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easily digestible but perhaps one of the most overwritten books vis-à-vis description that I have ever read.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book. It took me a while to get in to it, but stick with it! The final chapter? Devastating! 5 starts for me.

[Richelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a good book and a relatively enjoyable read, however, it could have been drastically cut down with a lot of the unnecessary peripheral characters removed.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epic saga from the 1920s spanning 40 years; Jean Buckman, the wealthy American heiress, marries Edward Warre, an English Lord, falls in love, produces two sons and bit by painstakingly bit looses everything except her self respect and determination to survive. Jean’s affair with a fellow American gives rise to her making drastic lifestyle changes to avert scandal. Throughout the novel her relationship with her two sons Alfie and George is unbending and grows ever stronger to protect them from their father’s wrath. One by one those closest to Jean die, firstly her father and then her husband Edward, which gives some form of relief to enable Jean to regain a modicum of freedom, but with the latter discoveries of her husband’s gambling had severely diminished the family’s wealth and estate.

An enjoyable but depressing, sad novel of a dysfunctional marriage and how the truth will always out. A book for lovers of romantic historical fiction with its glitz, glamour and scandal. The characters are original, the backdrops of Harecourt Estate, London and the South of France refreshing and the storyline strong and compelling.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Oneworld, for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review