The Girl in the Garden (Awash with Summer Roses Book 1)

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Here is what is BRILLIANT in my opinion: YES & NO...."It's PERFECT".....because the blurb describes everything without describing anything: BOTH!!!! And...isn't this what we want? The Howes, Mom Adele and Dad Leo are new age, free thinking hipsters. Adele homeschools their girls, Catkin, Fern, and Willow (ages commiserate with Grace and Pip) making the atmosphere of this close knit, insular community, even more claustrophobic. While the storyline had some issues for me-I had a good idea how this was going to play out relatively early on-it was Jewell's descriptive writing style and character development that really drew me in. This is a well written family drama with a good dose of mystery/suspense to keep everyone on their toes. ABOUT THIS BOOK: You live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. There are some really stand out characters in this story. Like every other female in the book, I too fell madly in love with Leo. Of course Leo is fictional...does anyone like him really exist?! :-) Even Gordan, Leo's grumpy and obnoxious father was well imagined, and I think we all have someone like him in our own family. But my absolute favorite has to be Pip. 12 years old but wise beyond her years, with a fierce love for her family that is infectious.

Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really? Two scenes that I don't think I'll ever forget. Without giving too much away, I'll say only that one involves a heroic dog, and the other describes a photograph of two men and two horses. Truly a magical use of words! I loved all of the characters, those that figured largely in the narrative, and those whose appearances are secondary. Like stream-of-consciousness, the reader flows with the events and with the thoughts, present and past, not sure where things are going or how things will work out, not expecting perfect endings, but hopeful.And what is it with seat mates on flights who don’t get the hint when you have your nose in a book? Last year it happened when I was reading The Seven Good Years. Yesterday, it happened as I was reading The Girls in the Garden. Some drunken idiot sitting next to me kept asking what I was reading, whether it was any good, and sorry for bothering you, it won’t happen again... I used to read too but I don’t have time anymore, how’s that book by the way … Envy is a dangerous emotion. That, and a sense of entitlement. I remember having spats with my friends, usually a dispute over a toy (or later a boy), something that was all over and done with, forgotten in no time at all. But under the friendly communal spirit of these gardens, lurks something deeper and darker. Envy, resentment, secrets and teenage hormones combine to form a dangerous mix, and provide us with a wonderful mystery written in Lisa Jewell's easy and freeflowing style. More important, Roland quietly observed one evening, is that June has Luke to anchor her. Mabel disagreed. Anchors weigh, she reminded him.

When the winter months come, Mabel knows that she cannot let June and baby Luke live in the cold, unheated cabins. She turns to her friend Iris and, in return for a favor bestowed many years previously, Iris feels obliged to acquiesce to Mabel's request. So it is that June and baby Luke move into the cabin in the garden formerly occupied by Iris's daughter, Claire.The Girl in the Garden is a beautiful story. I was immediately impressed by Melanie Wallace's gorgeous prose. Her story enchanted me straight away and I loved the unusual circumstances of every main character. Melanie Wallace regularly changes her points of view and every character has a distinct voice and an interesting story to tell. It felt like I was allowed to take a peek in all of their lives, which is a great way to tell a story. Each person in The Girl in the Garden has wonderful characteristics and flaws, told in a way I found pretty factual. I enjoyed that aspect of the story especially, all of the characters have a strange history and they have their secrets, reasons for peculiar behavior and faults. They are human, but not perfect, which I absolutely loved. Pitched as a cross between Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic The Secret Garden and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, this debut could do well with reading groups." - Library Journal Sam began laughing too, the room was no longer reeling but somehow expanding, contracting, as Oldman went on to ask: So, what happened to you? - and then Sam’s chest was heaving, a strangled sound came from him as he began sobbing into his hands, his tears salty and the taste of them bitter and Sam unabashed and anguished. For no one - not his parents or his brother, not Freddie, neither Rita nor Gloria, not Leonard, no one - had ever asked; they’d seen him, they’d seen what had become of him, Rita had often touched his scars, and maybe they’d all waited for Sam to recount what he’d been through, but their silence only reinforced his impression that they all, every last one of them, willed his story to remain untold, his past unspoken." I didn't particularly warm to either Clare or Adele, they were each too one-dimensional and cliched. The reader meets so many different people who are part of the estate, that its difficult to keep up withe everyone, their actions and their motivations.

Clare’s feeling of safety was false because she did not have any idea of the way the introduction of her daughters into the territory of the group of teens who had grown up in the park would change the hierarchy and status of that situation. Adele, who had lived near the park all of her married life sensed the changes in the group but thought that it was the result of the children growing older and changing loyalties. When Adele realized that Dylan, who had been friends with Tyler since they were babies, appeared to be romantically involved with Grace, she believed perhaps jealousy was at the center of the feelings of unease among the group of friends. There is something on the brow of the hill, a strange shape emerging from the hedge that encircles the Rose Garden. She heads toward it. I highly recommend this drama to all lovers of fiction...there is a little something in here for everyone to enjoy! The mystery itself is pretty decent and one that you really do have to wait until the end as the author made sure to insert more than one suspect into the story. The ending itself is not completely satisfying although it did not ruin the story for me or anything. I don't want to get into spoiler territory so I will just leave it at that. I think I would try another story by Melanie Wallace, but only if the formatting was different. I honestly don’t think I could tolerate going through another whole book without parenthesis. I feel like that’s unfortunate as I believe I might miss out on a really good story.What drives Catkin and Fern to follow Tyler’s lead? What do you think were their motivations for taking the actions they took? This novel is set in the mid-1970's at a beach front (not named in the novel). This powerful novel focuses on June, a young girl who is abandoned at a motel on the coast with her infant child, Luke. They are both eventually taken in by the motels owner, Mabel who is trying to move on after the death of her husband. Mabel is ready to close up for the season until June and Luke change her plans. It is a very dim and dull journey for most of the characters but the novel focuses on the spirit of each character. This novel will build a long lasting impact on the reader, as it did for myself. Things happen in that park differently to how they happen in the real world. Different rules apply.” There is an undercurrent of hesitation, a feeling just below the surface that seems dangerous somehow.

This is really a conversation about abuse and neglect in the context of children either growing up in a cult or being raised by cultish parents. The murder mystery portion is really just there to keep the plot moving and have all of the necessary players on the board. Lisa Jewell sure knows how to ramp up the suspense – and how to throw out a red herring or five or ten!

MUST HAVE PRODUCTS

These and other characters in this powerfully written novel are all damaged in some way. In fact, one of my favorite characters in the novel I haven't yet mentioned. His name is Oldman. A WWII veteran and a long confirmed bachelor, he is Duncan's friend, he was once a friend to Claire, and now he befriends June and baby Luke. Do you think Adele does the right thing by keeping quiet after she discovers what happened to Grace? What would you have done in her position? She gazed at the water dumbly, unable to make sense of it, too tired to be overwhelmed, not even fully realising that they'd reached an edge of the continent, unable to process the enormity of having come to the destination she'd chosen, because every cell in her body was crying out for sleep."