Our Dear Daisy

Rosie Goodwin

AS the nation winds down for longer, darker nights, Rosie Goodwin, one of Britain’s best-loved saga queens, conjures up her storytelling magic for the second book in her Flower Girls series.

A former social worker and foster mother, four-million-copy bestselling author Goodwin (pictured below) has penned over forty beautiful, heartwarming sagas, exploring life and love in days gone by. She was also awarded the rights to follow three of the late, great Tyneside writer Catherine Cookson’s trilogies with her own sequels.

And now she’s back to win our hearts with another gritty and drama-filled tale which stars a young woman whose life changes more dramatically than she could ever have imagined when her father sets his sights on marrying a local widow. In Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1880, twenty-year-old Daisy Armstrong lives a happy life with her loving blacksmith father, Jed. They have a special bond, particularly after the deaths of her beloved Irish mother Mauve five years ago, and her younger brother Alfie only a short time afterwards.

But when Jed falls in love with local widow, Victoria Peake, both father and daughter’s settled lives take a very different course. With expensive tastes and a lavish lifestyle, moving into Daisy and Jed’s humble forge is not what vain and selfish Victoria or her spoiled son, Gilbert, expected... and they make that very clear.

Worked to the bone trying to look after their busy home, Daisy is exhausted. But the one glimmer of hope is Lewis, Victoria’s elder son, a gentle and hard-working young man. When one fateful day something terrible happens to Daisy, she finds herself sent away from home and the chance of love slips through her fingers.

After unbearable suffering, but finding incredible strength within, Daisy might finally have a chance at the life she wants. But can she ever find her way back to Nuneaton... and to the happiness that she so desperately deserves?

It’s no surprise that Goodwin is one of the most borrowed authors from UK libraries and here she packs in all those human events and emotions – births and deaths, loves and losses, good people and bad people – that have made her novels so beloved by readers over the decades. Daisy’s journey from the familiarity of her father’s village forge through unexpected pain and terrible hardships proves to be a gripping emotional rollercoaster ride with plot twists aplenty and a story full of intrigue and heartache but also friendship, family, resilience and love. 

Full of Goodwin’s wisdom and warmth, Our Dear Daisy is a sweeping and romantic page-turner in a series that is set to bloom again with Our Sweet Violet in February next year.
(Zaffre, hardback, £14.99)