The Jeweller's Wife: A compelling tale of love, war and temptation

This book is slightly different from her other novels. This book moves rapidly through time - from World War II to the 1960s. It is a saga of friends and family. Th novel includes a cruel husband, an affair, a death, betrayal, family rivalry, devoted sisters, blackmail, suicide, measles, and more. It actually gets better as it goes along. Well worth my time and money. Loved the characters. This novel deserves an A+++++++++++

Judith Lennox is one of my favourite authors simply because she writes so well with characters so real you can identify with their strengths and weaknesses. The Jeweller's Wife is no exception. The story takes you through such twists and turns and a gamut of emotions I simply couldn't put it down!

I wanted to love this book like the others I have read, but just couldn't. It was ok but definitely not as good as the rest.

I liked the story, but it is a bit fast and superficial. Doesn't go deep into any storyline.

Really enjoyed this book

Loved this book...love Judith Lennox!

great historical fiction with interesting family storyline.

The Jeweller's Wife,  Judith LennoxReview from Jeannie Zelos book reviewsGenre:  general fiction My first Judith Lennox read, so I wasn’t sure what style she’d have, if I’d like it and for a while I feared it would be one I didn’t.It seemed very slow to start, I was hooked by the decisive way Henry swept Juliet into his sphere, out of Cairo and into Marsh Court, but once they were there though and we met the rest of the Winterton family and Henry’s friend Gillis, it seemed to become a bit bogged down for me.I felt that it was a bit full of yet more people who seemed to not add much to the story, just to be there as family members.Gradually though I was drawn in, the little cracks in what seemed like perfection bled through, the people became more real to me as they took on more solid form and revealed their personalities.I really didn’t like Henry, admired him when he first met Juliet, but once back in England I saw what a cold, bullying man he was. Yet he had good friends, was greatly admired by people, had a sound reputation and seemed to almost be two different people at times. I so felt for Juliet left in the cold and austere Marsh Court during the war, struggling to keep things going, working so hard as most women did to hold home and family together. When Henry returned as in many families it was to a change, from the home they’d left, to children grown from babies, to wives that had become more independent thinking.You can see how he slowly draws away from Juliet, and it made me wonder just why he ever married her. Did she fill a need for a wife? Was he that entranced with her? If so why did the gloss wear off, or would he have been that sort of man anyway?I felt for poor little Piers too, always striving for his father’s approval and never quite getting it.I love the closeness of the cousins, the family days they all had at Marsh Court, and then Gillis comes into the scene just when Juliet is feeling really neglected – and in fact is being neglected. Left home like a trinket and polished up and brought out when the occasion needed it – that’s how I felt Henry had come to regard her, as if she should just take everything and be grateful, rescued as she was by him. Who knows how her life would have gone if they hadn’t met?Then the story deepens, Gillis holds more secrets that as a rising politician he wants kept hidden, Henry gets more dictatorial, his brother dies suddenly and everything become all change once more.Then we move forward to when the cousins are older and they take over much of the story.I think my favourite is Aiden, he really got lumbered with things, taken away from his first love of art to be plunged into the world of business, and it just wasn’t right for him. In families like that though its all about Duty. The friction between him and Piers gets worse and worse, its always been there but they were friends, it was just off the side of friendly rivalry, but it becomes a deep, bitter rift with Piers’ actions.Gillis’ secrets come back to haunt the family, and the story moves in a kind of full circle, with a little drama but more just a story of a family growing when the world and its ways were changing.I loved Joe, loved his farm and family, his quiet assuredness, and in comparison to the Grand Marsh Hall his farm seemed to adapt far better to all the changes. I loved when he talked about how many years it had been in the family, since Stuart times, and when Juliet thinks that makes the Wintertons and Marsh Hall seem like Parvenus...Its a wonderful saga of a read, one to be savoured, and if like me you find the start slow, do persevere because it’d be a shame to miss this treat of a read.Its very based around families and people rather than just Juliet and Henry,m as I’d expected. Beautiful ending too ;-) ...Stars: four and a half, that slow start almost made me stop this book, but that would have been a real loss.ARC supplied by Netgalley and publisher

I have been a fan of Judith Lennox since the late 1980s and have read all her books. The characters in each book invariably conform to a pattern, but I don't mind that as the stories and settings are different each time.I really enjoyed this story, which covers the lives a middle-class family the Wintertons (from 1938 to 1966) headed by Henry Winterton, a forceful domineering man who has inherited the jewellery business from his father. He marries Juliet, a nineteen year old artist's daughter who has grown up in a bohemian home in Egypt, losing her mother at a young age. Juliet falls in love with the ancestral home, Marsh Court in Maldon but sadly although she knows Henry doesn't love her she puts her heart and soul into the marriage, despite Henry's frequent outbursts of temper and unwarranted criticism of her and just about everyone he knows. They have two children, Piers and Charlotte (Charley) whose lives become entwined with those of their cousins through childhood to adulthood. Throughout years we read of their hopes, dreams, marriages, illicit affairs and how past secrets and acrimonious relationships threaten to destroy the Wintertons' livelihood and family loyalties.My only criticism in this latest book by Judith Lennox is that there are many more characters than in her previous stories and at times I got a bit confused, but despite that I found it hard to put down, as i have with all her other books, which along with this one, I thoroughly recommend.

Frankly this felt a little bit long and drawn-out - it could have easily been cut to tell the same story. Much as I have enjoyed previous books by this author, I don't think that this was one of her best - the characters were drab and uninspiring and none of them had a 'handle', nothing to grab and identify with, which is something Ms Lennox normally does so well. It felt in parts as if it were writing by numbers, and the plot is far too thin to sustain a book of such length. When it came to the generation after Juliet (the main character - very drab and grey) it felt as if they had very much been painted in just to fill in a little more space. On the whole, a disappointment, although it certainly passed an idle couple of days. It could have been so much more and I think that's the real shame of it - it's a missed opportunity, which is very unlike this author.

A family saga, quite light in literary terms but very engaging nonetheless. This is a tale of an extended family, on the surface united and happy. Underneath intrigue and secrets abound, leading to more than the usual tensions. But this is an outwardly respectable family which must keep up appearances. Juliet with her muddled, unhappy life, is the family member, the jeweller's wife, around whom this story revolves. A very cosy read, full of suspense and drama with exacting tragic interludes, set in a location on a causeway which plays an exciting part which takes an appalling cost on the lives of many in the story.

I have yet to be disappointed with a novel by Judith Lennox and this one is just as engrossing as all her others. She is my favourite author by far, her books are well researched with characters I root for and the descriptions of the areas her books are set in are like paintings, I can see them, feel them, smell them. A family saga that I didn't want to end. I had kept this on my kindle as long as I could, savouring the time I would read it, rather like that last expensive chocolate in the box, that's how much I enjoy her books. Looking forward to her next book that I see is out early next year. Keep writing Judith.

I loved this book which is not one I would choose to read about love affairs and family matters but I persevered with it and wanted it to go on and on ......it's a very easy read which can be put down and picked up but it's not easy to put down towards the end and I would encourage anyone who doesn't normally read love stories to give it a try.