The blurb inside the cover of Lavender Morning (published in 2009) sounded intriguing. It promised to be a romance with a lot of interesting mysteries and surprises to solve before coming to a conclusion.

The prologue confused me. He had one of the characters in the blurb, Miss Edi, in intimate conversation with a person named Helen, promising to meet in the next few days. She went on to mention so many other characters and it made me wonder how they all fit together. I even checked the blurb on the front, twice, to confirm what and who the story was supposed to be about. Things became clearer as Chapter One progressed, but I found that the confusing Prologue had interrupted the flow of my reading initially.

I particularly enjoyed the flashbacks to earlier parts of Miss Edi’s life that were revealed in bits and pieces to make the puzzle start to fit together. Somehow, her story overshadowed the current characters’ story, but that was okay, as it became clearer how her stories were so intertwined.

What didn’t sit well with me was what I considered to be a significant loose end that wasn’t taken care of by the end of the book. Starting in the Prologue, then throughout the book, as past events and connections were revealed, Miss Edi and her connection to a man named Alex, who knew certain things about her from Miss Edi’s past, were mentioned. she. Her connection, and what Alex knew about Miss Edi, continued to be mentioned until the end of the book. On the penultimate page of the book, when things were resolved with the current characters, it is suggested that we will find out what the secret was, as a character would ask his relative about it. It didn’t happen. So, this secret that is alluded to throughout the book, did not end up being revealed. To me, that’s an unsatisfying ending.

Then I found out that Lavender Morning was actually the first book in the Edilean trilogy. So I looked up some reviews on the next two books as I was eager to get them so I could continue reading about the story that had been built. I was disappointed.

The second book, Days of Gold, was about people a few generations earlier and how the Edilean Township was born. He wasn’t going to provide information about Alex and Miss Edi’s secret.

The third book, Scarlet Nights, like the first novel, was again set in Edilean in contemporary times. From what I’ve read about the book, its story was based on what happened between two of the supporting characters from the first novel and introduced a new main character. So it seemed to be a stand-alone book in its own right, which was set in the familiar surroundings of the city of Edilean. It is highly unlikely that you will follow up on what was not answered on Lavender Morning.

So despite my confusion at the beginning of the book, I enjoyed Lavender Morning enough to want more of that story. However, that is not what Jude Deveraux provided in the next two books.