The Garden

by Gillian Linscott

My dear, you are smothering me with cherries, ambushing me with andromedas, and impaling me on ilex. No wonder the purple beech is weeping. I'm sure it is from sheer bewilderment. Oh my girl of little patience, this is not the way one makes a garden, any more than one makes a painting by squeezing every tube to hand onto canvas. I shall explain when I come. Holders Hope, Herefordshire. The roots of a great garden are laid in the long summer of the Edwardian age. Grown from a woman s desperate need to hold on to beauty, created by a man who plants his love for her, hated by a husband it humiliates and imprisons - the garden grows around a secret it will take almost a century to solve.For two generations the lives of two families are bound up with the garden. The Allegri family, mine owners with the money to pay for it. The Thomas family, mine workers from the Welsh valleys with whose care and skill help to shape it. Three children - an unhappy rich girl, a musician and a boy dreaming of revolution - meet in the garden and share a secret that will affect the rest of their lives.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

340 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Gillian Linscott introduced her popular suffragette/sleuth, Nell Bray, in the critically acclaimed Sister Beneath the Sheet. A BBC reporter turned full-time writer, she lives in Herefordshire, England.

Linscott has also published several titles under the pseudonym Caro Peacock.

Reviews

[Abbey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stand-alone historical cosy mystery, written 2003; mysterious family saga, set in 1907, 1920, and present day rural England. Love affairs gone bad, a glorious Edwardian garden gone to seed, and family secrets (some buried, some living), including murder.

The initial setting - and set-up - is plushly superb, the atmosphere intense and passionate, and several of the characters are appealing, but the victim is so vile, so obviously deserves to die horribly, that it doesn’t really matter whodunit. And the guilt and subsequent difficulties raised by the coverup don’t at all ring true. A bit pat and formulaic for Linscott, although sweetly enjoyable in spots. The first two-thirds is smoothly written and mostly entertaining, but the last third is dry and disappointing.

It’s unfortunate that, due to plot constraints, the character we most identify with, resonate to - the creator of the garden - leaves the story half-way through. As long as he’s around the novel "works", a beautifully florid story that flows by us like a sweet summer’s day. We believe in his garden, his love, and his life, his passion for them all. When that’s gone, the pretty setting ceases to mean much, the mildly disagreeable characters begin to grate, the plot machinations become more obvious. And when we discover, at the very end, that the least likable characters are responsible for the murder, it’s anti-climactic - by then we don’t much care what happens to them.

Linscott’s strength in her Nell Bray stories is that we really feel as though "we are there!!" with her, in her time and place, caring what happens to, and with, Nell. The sense of immediacy in those novels is acute, pulling us along her tumultuous life. Much of this stand-alone novel feels dry and dusty, with little of that sort of connection. The colors of their lives seem pale, most of the people terribly distant from love or passion, or from us.

I suspect this was done deliberately by Linscott, to show how time alters memory or feelings, but unfortunately this does not come across at all well and only serves to detract from the strong beginning of the story. By the end of the story the garden itself seems to be the only truly living thing here, not the characters or plot and not, alas, this book.

[Kirsty Darbyshire]

Take the good bits of a sweeping family saga type book and a writer who mostly writes mysteries but isn't really writing a hard core mystery here, place them down in the bit of time that stretches before and after the "great war" with some things coming all the way down to the present day and you have a really good read.

If forced to decide I'd probably say I prefer Linscott's Nell Bray series books which are set in more or less the same period of time but I did very much enjoy this and it confirms that Linscott knows her historical stuff very well and is an expert at weaving it into the plot without lecturing you.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Despite the title it isn't just about gardening! The garden sets the scene and is the thread that runs through the story, which progresses from 1907 to 2001, via pre-war Herefordshire, WW1, the anger of the post-war pit lockouts in the Rhondda and the struggle of the miners for decent wages. In between there is love, sorrow, passion and hatred. The early parts where the garden is being created I found fascinating, seeing how the planting was laid out to create illusions and effects - I might try some ideas on a much smaller scale in my own jungle, sorry, garden! The politics of the pit lockouts, as the mines were returned to private ownership after wartime government control, show the depths of hardship faced by the colliers, seeing armed soldiers at the pit gates, hearing the Riot Act read as they try to prevent the use of blackleg labour, fighting for their jobs and their families' futures. (Who would have thought that similar scenes would recur in the 1980s?!)

My only criticism of the book, and it's why it's only getting a 4 star not a 5 star rating, is the number of silly mistakes throughout the book, e.g. countless instances of "bur" instead of "but": the letter "r" seems especially problematical as it appears in many places where there should be the letter "t", the same applies where "m" appears instead of "in". Other silly spelling errors also appear, and these should have been picked up by the proofreader.

However, it's a great story and well-worth reading, if you can manage to ignore the errors!

[MaryRhona · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stopped reading after a few chapters. Not interested in the storyline.

[Sherrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

My kind of book, interesting characters set in a historical time. It takes place during the first world war in Wales. It was a time when girls began to bob their hair and raise their skirts and the poor people began to rise up against the aristocracy and demand equality. The building of the garden makes me wonder if there was that sort of intrigue when Butchart Garden or the gardens at Huntington Library were being built. I used to so love exploring the gardens at Huntington Library and imagining how they came to be. The only thing that was a bother was that the transition from the past to present day was unclear for a bit. I couldn't for the life of me figure out who Colin and Kim were at first and got Cordel mixed up with Colin and couldn't at once decide who they were. The ending was great. Loved the book.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, its quite a sad tale in many ways, with complex characters and many twists and turns. The garden itself is wonderful and the author obviously has a great love of plants and gardens. It comes alive in her descriptions, so much so that you start to visualise it in your mind, especially round the pond with its water lilies and dark secret.
The historical setting is fascinating with the first world war and the miners strike in Wales woven into the story, along with the geographical location it makes great reading.
I would happily recommend this book.

[Florence Pautot]

Moving story as well as puzzling. Beautiful descriptions of the garden.

[Sally-W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical mystery surrounding a neglected garden. Reminiscent of Kate Morton's 'The Forgotten Garden' but with more gardening!

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

You need to be a gardener to really appreciate this book but if was it was also an interesting mystery and I do enjoy her books.