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When the Heather Blooms
By
Darryl Martel
In the post-war village of Marshfield-in-Hollow, nestled between the wild moors of North Yorkshire and the green sprawl of Cumbria, ten-year-old Clara Dunn, the sensible, big-hearted daughter of a local shopkeeper, meets Ivy Greaves, a sharp, wiry orphan sent from a Manchester convent to live among strangers.
From a shared piece of blackcurrant toffee grows a lifelong friendship, deep, complicated, and stitched tight with loyalty. As the years unfold, the girls navigate the quiet hostilities of village life, grief, and the uncertain inheritance of a haberdashery suddenly left to Clara after her father's death. But when a charming but crooked accountant makes a claim on the business, Clara must learn to fight not just for her livelihood, but for her independence.
At university in Leeds, their world widens and fractures. Ivy is drawn to Jonny Leach, a poetic soul from the Dales, while Clara is pulled into the orbit of Margot Denning, an ambitious socialite who sees Ivy's hidden lineage as a path to status. When Margot uncovers that Ivy is the illegitimate niece of the wealthy Westmore family, she sets in motion a series of betrayals that force Ivy to confront the truth of her origins and choose between reclaiming a name that once rejected her or defining her own.
As Ivy faces the powerful Westmore's and Clara takes Leonard Cray to court to reclaim her family's business, their friendship is tested by distance, ambition, and heartbreak. But even as their paths diverge, Ivy to the promise and peril of London, Clara to a hard-earned peace in the shop where it all began, the bond between them endures like the heather that blooms each year on the hills above Marshfield: rooted, wild, and always returning.
When the Heather Blooms is a sweeping, deeply human coming-of-age novel about friendship, identity, and the courage it takes to live a life you've chosen, not inherited.
