Search - Garden of Lies

This is the first book I've read by Eileen Goudge and I must say I wasn't disappointed. I was hooked from the start and had trouble putting it down. The babies deliberately switched at birth plot device is driven by her well fleshed out and endearing characters. I just finished reading it and plan to start the sequel tonight. I can't wait.

On a hot July night in 1943, Sylvie gives birth to a dark-haired child she knows is the child of her lover. Realizing that her husband will not accept the child as his own, she finds deliverance from her impossible dilemma: amidst a raging fire in the hospital, Sylvie claims the fair-haired baby girl of a dead woman as her own, leaving her real daughter to be raised by strangers.
Rachel and Rose grow up worlds apart. Rachel is raised in the lap of Manhattan luxury, an ice princess determined to be a great doctor; Rose, in the slums of New York City, yields to passion too young yet escapes heartbreak to become a prominent lawyer. Neither of them knows the terrible secret which draws them ever closer as they both fall in love with the same man-bringing them face to face with the truth about each other and themselves.

This was actually better than I thought it would be :)

A real thriller

Sylvia seizes the opportunity offered by a hospital fire to switch infants, taking a newborn whose appearance resembles her husband's. Her true child, fathered by Sylvia's lover, is left to make her own way in the world. Rachel, raised in luxury as Sylvia's daughter, becomes a doctor. When her career is jeopardized, she is defended by Sylvia's real daughter, who has overcome poverty to become a lawyer. The two women of course compete for the same man, as Sylvia herself tries to decide whether to marry Nikos, her former lover. With the requisite cast of heroes and villains and a backdrop including the Vietnam War, this should be a sure-fire hit for romance lovers.