The Other Side of Paradise
The expectations for any young woman in society in the 1920s was to make a good impression as a debutante and so secure an eligible bachelor who she could marry. For Jean Buckman, daughter of the American ambassador to London at that time, and heiress to an enormous fortune through her maternal grandfather, her hand would have sought out by many in need of a financial boost to their dwindling fortunes. Jean was unimpressed by many of the prospective beaux she encountered until her path crossed that of Edward Warre, a handsome, engaging but somewhat aloof inheritor of his elder brother’s vast estates at Harehope.
Naivety and the urge to escape her mother’s control sees Jean rushing into marriage to Lord Warre following a short courtship. Jean’s family’s wealth boosts the Warre coffers, but an heir to the dukedom is slow to be conceived. At her mother’s suggestion, Jean travels to the south of France in search of a holiday home whilst Edward remains at home, indulging his passion for blood sports with his peers. She finds the perfect villa, influenced by its situation by the warm Mediterranean with its own private beach. Jean encounters a handsome American journalist who seems to turn up regularly on the local social circuit. David becomes her lover, opening Jean’s eyes to the depths of love so painfully absent from her relationship with her husband Edward. Unsurprisingly she becomes pregnant with her lover’s child, and with no possibility of keeping the fact a secret from her husband, though he needs her money, Edward exerts huge control over Jean, which further damages their already rocky marriage.
Beaumont grabs the reader’s attention from the first page, gathering momentum as Jean’s life unfolds and garnering empathy from the audience as further heartbreak and deceit pervade the lives of the lead characters.
