The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay

​This dual narrative story weaves between the first quarter of the 20th Century and current times. It is mainly the tale of Rose and Ivy, who were the best of friends in childhood but ultimately forced into following different paths due to the rigid class system of their day.
 
It’s Australia in 2016. After her grandmother dies, teacher and historian, Molly, discovers some intriguing evidence among her effects that she doubts her own mother, Rose, drowned in Bridgewater Bay, Tasmania, in the 1960s, as everyone had surmised. Why did Rose take her own life just before a long-delayed reunion with her own brother, Robert? Could it be she was hiding something that she couldn’t face?
 
In the early 1900s, Rose is the high-spirited, privileged daughter of the Luscombe family, while Ivy Toms is the long-suffering eldest child of an estate worker who treats her badly. The parents on both sides disapprove of their friendship and try to keep them apart. As they become adults, Ivy is faced with the option of factory work or becoming Rose’s maid and is pressured by her admirer Robert to take on that role.
 
Rose grows steadily haughty and dismissive, while Ivy must deal with shabby treatment from the Luscombes and hide her clandestine relationship with Robert.  During World War I, Rose and Ivy sign on as VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurses in a local military hospital. Rose writes letters for a dying soldier that are sent to his older brother in Australia and a paper relationship grows between the two. After the war ends, Rose accepts the brother’s proposal of marriage and together with Ivy embarks on the long voyage to Australia. One of them is fated never to arrive.
 
Molly takes a sabbatical in England, where she meets the last survivor of the Luscombe family and via estate documents and photographs pieces together the lives of Rose and Ivy. In the process, she meets the attractive Lucas Toms, who may be a cure for her own broken heart.
 
This is an immensely readable novel, even if one can pretty well guess its direction at the outset, but it is well-paced and the author has added a couple of twists to make it a little less predictable. (See Note below - spoiler alert!)
 
Four stars.

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Note:  This “switcheroo” theme in romantic novels and films has been around for years with varying degrees of success. One of the earliest and best is “Green Dolphin Street” by Elizabeth Goudge.

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