Thank you for recommending this! I have just read it on your recommendation and it was engaging and suspenseful and sweet and made me wonder whether Jo Walton had read it. (I don't think she has.) A little of Binchy's style and pace, especially around the high company intrigue bits with Connie, reminded me of Jeffrey Archer -- have you ever read anything by him? The Prodigal Daughter is fast-moving wish-fulfillment -- but maybe that's just a general style for fast-moving engaging very commercial soapy novels of this type.