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The Rose Garden
by Susanna Kearsley (Goodreads Author)
by Susanna Kearsley (Goodreads Author)
Barbara's review
bookshelves: historical-fiction, romance-goodies, keepers
Nov 08, 11
bookshelves: historical-fiction, romance-goodies, keepers
Read from November 06 to 08, 2011
Oh my, what a lovely, lovely book. Romance at its best.
It's really funny, but I just couldn't get into Kearsley's previous book (The Winter Sea), but I picked this one up and could not put it down.
Fair warning--the plot involves time-travel. But it was so logically done that I had no trouble accepting it.
Eva is a very sympathetic character. At the start of the story she is grieving for her sister Katrina. Eva has returned to Cornwall-a place where she and her sister spent some glorious summers during their childhood. Her first purpose is to scatter her sister's ashes. But after reconnecting with a family she had known as a child, she decides to stay. Eva soon becomes involved in the day to day life of brother and sister Mark and Susan and their step-mother Claire. So far, so ho-hum. But Eva keeps seeing things, and hearing things. The scenes where she does internet research on her 'mental condition' ring so true. And one day she actually meets the owners of those voices--in 1715! It is hard to say who is more shocked-Eva or Daniel. And it soon becomes apparent that Eva has no control over her forays into the past.
From that point on the story bounces back and forth between now and 1715.
Since this is a romance, it is no surprise that Eva slowly falls in love with Daniel and he with her.
But we also get a few secondary romances to sweeten the plot. Mark and his sister Susan run the family rose business (which is in financial difficulties). Felicity is a young artist who is smitten with Mark; Susan is recovering from a bad break-up. Add to the mix the charming Oliver, who is falling for Eva. The ordinary-ness of the modern story is off-set by the perils of the 1715 story.
Daniel and his brother Jack are smugglers, involved in the first Jacobite rebellion. There is a vengeful crown agent who spares no effort to see Daniel and Jack dead. And Eva keeps popping up at really inconvenient times.
There are some really neat twists to the story. And presiding over it all is Claire--who knows ever so much more than she is letting on.
It will be fun to go back and re-read this now that I know how it ends. And I am sure I will be re-reading it.
It's really funny, but I just couldn't get into Kearsley's previous book (The Winter Sea), but I picked this one up and could not put it down.
Fair warning--the plot involves time-travel. But it was so logically done that I had no trouble accepting it.
Eva is a very sympathetic character. At the start of the story she is grieving for her sister Katrina. Eva has returned to Cornwall-a place where she and her sister spent some glorious summers during their childhood. Her first purpose is to scatter her sister's ashes. But after reconnecting with a family she had known as a child, she decides to stay. Eva soon becomes involved in the day to day life of brother and sister Mark and Susan and their step-mother Claire. So far, so ho-hum. But Eva keeps seeing things, and hearing things. The scenes where she does internet research on her 'mental condition' ring so true. And one day she actually meets the owners of those voices--in 1715! It is hard to say who is more shocked-Eva or Daniel. And it soon becomes apparent that Eva has no control over her forays into the past.
From that point on the story bounces back and forth between now and 1715.
Since this is a romance, it is no surprise that Eva slowly falls in love with Daniel and he with her.
But we also get a few secondary romances to sweeten the plot. Mark and his sister Susan run the family rose business (which is in financial difficulties). Felicity is a young artist who is smitten with Mark; Susan is recovering from a bad break-up. Add to the mix the charming Oliver, who is falling for Eva. The ordinary-ness of the modern story is off-set by the perils of the 1715 story.
Daniel and his brother Jack are smugglers, involved in the first Jacobite rebellion. There is a vengeful crown agent who spares no effort to see Daniel and Jack dead. And Eva keeps popping up at really inconvenient times.
There are some really neat twists to the story. And presiding over it all is Claire--who knows ever so much more than she is letting on.
It will be fun to go back and re-read this now that I know how it ends. And I am sure I will be re-reading it.
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