Bill Fitzgerald is a TV Journalist who does foreign assignments. When the novel opens he is in Bosnia covering the war in the Balkans. He has seen so much brutality and killing that he just wants out for some r & r. He goes to Venice where he meets a beautiful woman and he starts an tryst with her. When he finds out she is married, he is devastated but decides to continue the relationship.

I have not read any of her other novels so I do not know anything about her writing. This was a shallow and poorly written effort.

Spoiler alert! Beware that this is one romance that does not have a happy ending. ( )

It's been a long time since I've read a Barbara Bradford novel. I adored the "Woman of Substance" series featuring the Emma Harte dynasty, but this novella is not of the same depth or quality.

"A Secret Affair" had all the potential of a great novel: a beautiful love story and a bit of suspense, against the backdrop of a romantic rendezvous in Venice Italy and Manhattan New York during the winter holidays. A handsome, talented, famous, young widowed war correspondent has an affair with a beautiful, sophisticated married woman. The only problem is there is zero character development and events are told in such scant detail it appears Bradford didn't want to waste the time and effort to elaborate on the plot. As a result the characters are unnaturally flawless and the plot lacks credibility.

If I had paid full price for this novel, I would be demanding my money back. ( )

A 33-year-old tv war correspondent who recently did a stint in Bosnia, Bill Fitzgerald decides to go to Venice to relax. While there, he meets 27-year-old Vanessa Stewart, an American woman who is a glass designer from New York. Unhappily married, Vanessa begins a no-strings attached friendship with Bill which quickly blossoms into an illicit affair. The lovers agree to meet each other as much as possible after they return home. However, on the third rendevous one of them doesn't show up. I thought that this book was a short read. I enjoyed it but it was more like a long short story more than anything. I gave it a B+! ( )

I read this book many years ago. My thought about this illicit romance is just so, so. Probably a good summer reading. ( )

About illicit but real love between a war correspondent and a married artist. ( )