Four months into the year and I have actually read one book (and on one occasion two) for each monthly prompt. Finally a reading plan/goal I have actually managed to stick to and in the actual month (rather than starting the books and not finishing them for months). I'll be writing about last month's book this week sometime. My stack was a bit larger but I had to whittle it down a little. I just want to read one book, but if I manage two or more that's even better. I was surprised by how many gardening books I have on my shelves and left a number of nonfiction books in their places, or the pile would definitely get out of hand. Always good to browse a little and see what I have for later, right?
Now to choose one to start with. The prompt is "how does your garden grow" since May flowers is what we should be looking forward to (or the start of veggies maybe). It has not felt at all like spring here. I had to wear my winter coat against the lashing rain this weekend, and there were snowflakes in the air this morning. We'll be optimistic and if nothing else I can at least read about warmth for the time being. So from top to bottom, my choices this month:
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton -- I believe this is a reimagining of sorts of The Secret Garden. This story begins in pre-WWI Australia and follows several generations of a family with a mystery at the heart of the story. It opens in 1913, moves on to 1975 and then ends in 2005. I have had this book on my pile since it came out in paperback. I have read and enjoyed Kate Morton, so this one is very tempting indeed.
When I first read about The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick it was the book I had in mind to pick up this month. I hadn't really planned on shelf browsing, but I couldn't help myself in the end.I believe this is a contemporary story with overtones of magical realism to it. Sorrel Sparrow is hired to restore the walled "Shakespeare Garden" at a great hall--a task others have tried to accomplish but failed at. One of the blurbs reads "a romantic, bighearted novel that celebrates femininity in all its nurturing, resilient, and fearless power." Doesn't that sound like a perfect combination?
Katherine S. White's Onward and Upward in the Garden is one of my NYRB subscription books from back in 2015! It is a collection of New Yorker essays from the 1950s. It is a little hefty (with somewhat smallish print) book though there are only fourteen essays in the volume. I wonder if I could manage one essay a week and carry it over into summer? Maybe I will try at least one and see how it goes.
Stephanie Barron writes a cozy mystery series featuring Jane Austen, but The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf is a standalone story. This is another modern-ish day story about a woman who comes to Sissinghurst Castle (home of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West) to study the famous White Garden. It's a bit of a mystery as an unknown diary is found that sheds light onto Woolf's suicide.
Deborah Lawrenson is another author who I have read and enjoyed, so I am sure I would like The Sea Garden. This is another (obviously a theme writers like to work with) story set in both the present and past as a woman is hired to restore an abandoned garden on an island off the French coast in the Mediterranean. A parallel story runs during WWII about the French Resistance. A lush Mediterranean island sounds very, very inviting at the moment.
Last is another novel with parallel stories, but this is set in 1998 and all the way back in 912, Into the Heart of the Garden! The contemporary story concerns a woman trying to decide whether to sell her cottage and ancient garden. I'm not sure how the two stories connect, but there must be something to twines the two together. "The rich and varied history of England is seen through the eyes of generations of women who have found sorrow and joy, inspiration and courage 'down the garden path'."
There is nothing for it but to dip in and see which story catches my interest first. I'll let you know which one ends up in my reading pile!