Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

This Ebook edition was first published by Headline Publishing Group in 2015

All characters – apart from the obvious historical figures – in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library.

eISBN: 978 1 4722 0550 6

Cover photographs© Susan Fox/ Trevillion Images (letters); CURAphotography/ Shutterstock.com (portrait); hxdbzxy/Shutterstock.com (background)

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Contents

Title Page

About the Book

About Adele Parks

Praise

Copyright Page

Also by Adele Parks

Dedication

MARCH 1914

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

APRIL 1914

Chapter 7

MAY 1914

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

AUGUST 1914

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

OCTOBER 1914

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

NOVEMBER 1914

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

MARCH 1915

Chapter 23

MAY 1916

Chapter 24

JUNE 1916

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

JULY 1916

Chapter 29

AUGUST 1916

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

SEPTEMBER 1916

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

SEPTEMBER 1918

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

JUNE 1923

Chapter 52

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

By Adele Parks

Playing Away

Game Over

Larger Than Life

The Other Woman’s Shoes

Still Thinking Of You

Husbands

Young Wives’ Tales

Happy Families (Quick Read)

Tell Me Something Love Lies

Men I’ve Loved Before

About Last Night

Whatever It Takes

The State We’re In

Spare Brides

If You Go Away

For Conrad,
my independent thinker

MARCH 1914

1

27th March 1914

Dearest Diary, I have waited for such a long time for today. Eighteen years, nine months and ten days. My entire life. Forever.

VIVIAN CAREFULLY UNDERLINED the word forever and in a somewhat uncharacteristic gesture hugged the diary to her as though it was a child. Vivian Foster wasn’t prone to being especially giddy – amongst her friends she was considered the most knowing and realistic – but today was, without doubt, exceptional.

Forever? There must have been a time when she wasn’t aware of how important marrying was, when she was just a child and concerned with paddling in streams, making perfume from crushed rose petals or picking brambles. Then all she’d waited for was the next sunny day. She just couldn’t remember that time. Perhaps she’d written what she had because writing in diaries made her nervous. Stomach fluttery. She was not sure she wanted to be so known, and certainly not by her already far too controlling mother, nosy younger siblings or a cheeky maid, which was the risk. Diaries were dishonest. When she wrote in hers, she fell into a persona that was quite close to her best self but far from her true self, an insurance against prying eyes. She kept her true self buried practically all of the time. Eighteen-year-old girls weren’t exactly encouraged to say what they thought; in fact they weren’t encouraged to think at all. Writing that she had waited ‘forever’ for this day was the sort of thing that could not cause any real trouble; it was the type of comment that people expected young, virginal debutantes to write. Naïve. Forgivably imprecise.