Scan barcode
kdurham2's review against another edition
3.0
Check out the full review at Kritters Rambings
One present day story and two in the past make this novel. All take place at points in France and the two historical deal with World War II. A great spot in history to spotlight and interesting to have a present day story to tie into them. Three different ladies are spotlighted and take the main character in each book and although at the beginning they don't seem related at the end the reader is given the connection (more on this later).
Although I would put historical fiction with current storylines as my favorite genre, I am not sure this is one that will rise to the top for me within the genre. This is due to - three separate books that are advertised as connected, but for me the connection was made way too late in the game and I wish there had been more connection earlier on. This was the big glaring problem I had. I wanted them to come together a little earlier and enjoy the connection instead of it getting thrown in at the end.
One present day story and two in the past make this novel. All take place at points in France and the two historical deal with World War II. A great spot in history to spotlight and interesting to have a present day story to tie into them. Three different ladies are spotlighted and take the main character in each book and although at the beginning they don't seem related at the end the reader is given the connection (more on this later).
Although I would put historical fiction with current storylines as my favorite genre, I am not sure this is one that will rise to the top for me within the genre. This is due to - three separate books that are advertised as connected, but for me the connection was made way too late in the game and I wish there had been more connection earlier on. This was the big glaring problem I had. I wanted them to come together a little earlier and enjoy the connection instead of it getting thrown in at the end.
bmg20's review against another edition
3.0
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publication Date: June 24th 2014 by Harper
I received this book free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
‘In this present hour, there was time for anything to happen, endless time.’
The Sea Garden contains three separate novellas that slowly intertwine together. The first novella shares the name of the title and is set in present day. The second and third novellas are all centered around the WWII era.
I became an instant fan of Deborah Lawrenson’s after her debut novel, ‘The Lantern‘ completely mesmerized me with its Rebecca-esque gothic story. It was clear she had a talent for the written word and I’ve been anxiously awaiting a new book from her. The Sea Garden presents a somewhat full-length novel, broke up into seemingly separate stories but have more in common than assumed. The Sea Garden novella is the present day story which brings to life a young woman named Ellie who is hired to construct a new WWII Memorial Garden. Her short visit is a disturbing one after the mother of the man that hired her is unkindly to her and after she believes to have seen ghosts in the Garden. The real heart of the story comes in the WWII stories that have an unexpected impact on Ellie’s life even after all that time has passed.
‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet: and a light unto my path.’
I recognized and enjoyed the authors skillful writing yet found this story lacking in comparison to its predecessor. I found The Sea Garden to be for the most part too convoluted and lacking a clear and concise ending that wrapped up all loose ends. The affinity between the three tales was a little too slack and wasn’t as solid of a connection as I would expect with a multi-narrative tale such as this. Also, the odd supernatural aspects felt superfluous and too extravagant of an addition to this basic tale of history and its effects on everyone it touches. The writing was most pleasing but I would have appreciated this story more if the three novellas had stood on their own without the compulsory connection between them.
Publication Date: June 24th 2014 by Harper
I received this book free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
‘In this present hour, there was time for anything to happen, endless time.’
The Sea Garden contains three separate novellas that slowly intertwine together. The first novella shares the name of the title and is set in present day. The second and third novellas are all centered around the WWII era.
I became an instant fan of Deborah Lawrenson’s after her debut novel, ‘The Lantern‘ completely mesmerized me with its Rebecca-esque gothic story. It was clear she had a talent for the written word and I’ve been anxiously awaiting a new book from her. The Sea Garden presents a somewhat full-length novel, broke up into seemingly separate stories but have more in common than assumed. The Sea Garden novella is the present day story which brings to life a young woman named Ellie who is hired to construct a new WWII Memorial Garden. Her short visit is a disturbing one after the mother of the man that hired her is unkindly to her and after she believes to have seen ghosts in the Garden. The real heart of the story comes in the WWII stories that have an unexpected impact on Ellie’s life even after all that time has passed.
‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet: and a light unto my path.’
I recognized and enjoyed the authors skillful writing yet found this story lacking in comparison to its predecessor. I found The Sea Garden to be for the most part too convoluted and lacking a clear and concise ending that wrapped up all loose ends. The affinity between the three tales was a little too slack and wasn’t as solid of a connection as I would expect with a multi-narrative tale such as this. Also, the odd supernatural aspects felt superfluous and too extravagant of an addition to this basic tale of history and its effects on everyone it touches. The writing was most pleasing but I would have appreciated this story more if the three novellas had stood on their own without the compulsory connection between them.
juliaspaperback's review against another edition
5.0
This book is comprised of 3 novellas that tie together in the end. I picked up this book on a whim while I was browsing in Barnes & Noble. I was drawn to the title and the part of the description reading "...restore an abandoned garden." I love gardening. I was also interested in reading a book that was historical fiction and I quite enjoyed that I would get to travel back in time for part of the story.
Book I The Sea Garden takes place in 2013. Ellie Brooke travels from London to a small island off the coast of France to fulfill a garden commission but it's not what she was expecting. From the start Ellie is put in strange situations and it only gets more and more creepy the longer she stays on the Island. While reading I was wondering if Ellie was just insane.
Book II The Lavender Field takes you back to 1944 France where you're introduced to Marthe who is blind and finds her passion of working at a lavender field and creating perfume scents. Once the war begins Marthe, and everyone around her, are drawn into the Resistance. I found the character development to be superb. I especially enjoyed the authors writing of Marthe and how she perceives the world in scents. The chapters are named after scents which I really loved because I could then relate those smells to the book.
"The scent was all around them; it curled and diffused in the air with a sweet warmth and a subtlety, then burst with a peppery, musky intensity." ~ Chapter 2 Wild Violet of The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson
Book III A Shadow Life takes place during the same time as book II. You're transported back to London and you're now on the other side of the War. You'll meet Iris, an intelligence officer, who had no idea what she was getting herself into. While reading about Iris and her co-workers I found myself wondering how I would deal in the sort of situation they were in. How brave these women were serving their Country was touching but scary.
I really didn't expect the ending until very close to the wrap up and was surprised since I was so invested in these characters. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read. It's written beautifully and I am putting this on my reread list for sure!
Subscribe to my blog to get emails when I post reviews.
Instagram @julias_paperback
Email [email protected]
Book I The Sea Garden takes place in 2013. Ellie Brooke travels from London to a small island off the coast of France to fulfill a garden commission but it's not what she was expecting. From the start Ellie is put in strange situations and it only gets more and more creepy the longer she stays on the Island. While reading I was wondering if Ellie was just insane.
Book II The Lavender Field takes you back to 1944 France where you're introduced to Marthe who is blind and finds her passion of working at a lavender field and creating perfume scents. Once the war begins Marthe, and everyone around her, are drawn into the Resistance. I found the character development to be superb. I especially enjoyed the authors writing of Marthe and how she perceives the world in scents. The chapters are named after scents which I really loved because I could then relate those smells to the book.
"The scent was all around them; it curled and diffused in the air with a sweet warmth and a subtlety, then burst with a peppery, musky intensity." ~ Chapter 2 Wild Violet of The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson
Book III A Shadow Life takes place during the same time as book II. You're transported back to London and you're now on the other side of the War. You'll meet Iris, an intelligence officer, who had no idea what she was getting herself into. While reading about Iris and her co-workers I found myself wondering how I would deal in the sort of situation they were in. How brave these women were serving their Country was touching but scary.
I really didn't expect the ending until very close to the wrap up and was surprised since I was so invested in these characters. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read. It's written beautifully and I am putting this on my reread list for sure!
Subscribe to my blog to get emails when I post reviews.
Instagram @julias_paperback
Email [email protected]
gregread's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this. A present day story twines with two glimpses into the past, a fascinating look at the
French resistance during WWII from the peasants on the ground smuggling messages in Braille to the British service supporting them. The presentation was confusing at first but then I got lost in the three separate stories, which tie together in a shocking twist at the end. I can't wait to see more from this author, her first two books have been fabulous.
French resistance during WWII from the peasants on the ground smuggling messages in Braille to the British service supporting them. The presentation was confusing at first but then I got lost in the three separate stories, which tie together in a shocking twist at the end. I can't wait to see more from this author, her first two books have been fabulous.
wordsmithlynn's review against another edition
4.0
Three stories that seem, on the surface, to have no connection give The Sea Garden a disjointed feel. But I think that sensation is intentional, meant to reflect the moods of the three women who serve as protagonists for these stories.
Lawrenson begins in the present day, with Ellie, a rather depressed landscape designer who has been commissioned to create a garden on an idyllic French island. Unfortunately, the estate owner is eccentric, to say the least, and the project goes from bad to worse. What some have seen as an abrupt ending to this story struck me as very moving and with definite supernatural overtones.
The next two stories travel further back in time, to Vichy France in World War II. One tells of a blind perfume designer named Marthe who aids the Resistance. The other recounts the story of Iris, an English girl hired to work for a top-secret code-breaking organization that's aiding the French Resistance fighters.
It's hard to give a lot of detail about this book without ruining the various surprises and twists. The biggest issue I had with the book is the jarring shift in mood from the first story to the the other two. While the first tale, "The Sea Garden," creates an almost Gothic atmosphere (think du Maurier or Victoria Holt), the other two are firmly grounded in a very real world at war. This leads to the ending feeling a little "tacked on" and contrived, since the supernatural tone goes away for about three-quarters of the book and then suddenly returns.
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed these stories. I'm always happy to read stories about strong, independent women and Marthe and Iris definitely fit the bill. Ellie's story is more problematic and sad, but that one makes excellent use of mood and setting.
On a peripheral note, I love that the third story, "A Shadow Life," makes use of and calls attention to the very real and overlooked story of Vera Atkins' Lost Agents.
Vera Atkins (Miss Acton in Lawrenson's fictionalized account) oversaw a network of spies for one of Britain's wartime intelligence organizations, the SOE. Over 100 agents, many of them women, were sent into France as radio operators and many of them vanished without a trace. Others are known to have perished in concentration camps within a few months of arriving in country. Their loss is a bitter lesson in the price of government incompetence and arrogance, since the girls repeatedly attempted to send coded messages warning their British handlers that the network had been compromised. Whether the messages were ignored due to incompetence or indifference on the part of their handlers is open to debate. In "A Shadow Life," Lawrenson seems to come down on the side of incompetence on the part of the mission commanders. Whatever became of the real girls, Lawrenson takes this tragic piece of history and uses it to fashion an entertaining, original, and moving piece of fiction.
Lawrenson begins in the present day, with Ellie, a rather depressed landscape designer who has been commissioned to create a garden on an idyllic French island. Unfortunately, the estate owner is eccentric, to say the least, and the project goes from bad to worse. What some have seen as an abrupt ending to this story struck me as very moving and with definite supernatural overtones.
The next two stories travel further back in time, to Vichy France in World War II. One tells of a blind perfume designer named Marthe who aids the Resistance. The other recounts the story of Iris, an English girl hired to work for a top-secret code-breaking organization that's aiding the French Resistance fighters.
It's hard to give a lot of detail about this book without ruining the various surprises and twists. The biggest issue I had with the book is the jarring shift in mood from the first story to the the other two. While the first tale, "The Sea Garden," creates an almost Gothic atmosphere (think du Maurier or Victoria Holt), the other two are firmly grounded in a very real world at war. This leads to the ending feeling a little "tacked on" and contrived, since the supernatural tone goes away for about three-quarters of the book and then suddenly returns.
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed these stories. I'm always happy to read stories about strong, independent women and Marthe and Iris definitely fit the bill. Ellie's story is more problematic and sad, but that one makes excellent use of mood and setting.
On a peripheral note, I love that the third story, "A Shadow Life," makes use of and calls attention to the very real and overlooked story of Vera Atkins' Lost Agents.
Vera Atkins (Miss Acton in Lawrenson's fictionalized account) oversaw a network of spies for one of Britain's wartime intelligence organizations, the SOE. Over 100 agents, many of them women, were sent into France as radio operators and many of them vanished without a trace. Others are known to have perished in concentration camps within a few months of arriving in country. Their loss is a bitter lesson in the price of government incompetence and arrogance, since the girls repeatedly attempted to send coded messages warning their British handlers that the network had been compromised. Whether the messages were ignored due to incompetence or indifference on the part of their handlers is open to debate. In "A Shadow Life," Lawrenson seems to come down on the side of incompetence on the part of the mission commanders. Whatever became of the real girls, Lawrenson takes this tragic piece of history and uses it to fashion an entertaining, original, and moving piece of fiction.
iris_descent's review
I liked the Book 1 and I even liked the Book 2 more. But the Book 3 is just not it.
lazygal's review against another edition
4.0
I loved The Lantern and was so excited to read The Sea Garden, which is, in more ways than one, a follow-up. Rather than one story, the author has provided three novellas, with the second and third set in and around World War II. That there is an intersection for all three becomes apparently towards the end; at times that intersection feels a tad forced. My other reason for giving this a four rather than the five I wanted so much to give the book was that the third section at times read a little too much like parts of Code Name, Verity (there's even a Hugh Verity named!).
It was very nice re-meeting Marthe, the blind perfumiere that we meet during The Lantern, getting more of her backstory. Unlike that book, this doesn't have the Rebecca-esque overtones in the modern day story although there are a few moments of odd. And the section set in Porquerolles? Add that to my list of Islands I Want To Visit.
ARC provided by publisher.
It was very nice re-meeting Marthe, the blind perfumiere that we meet during The Lantern, getting more of her backstory. Unlike that book, this doesn't have the Rebecca-esque overtones in the modern day story although there are a few moments of odd. And the section set in Porquerolles? Add that to my list of Islands I Want To Visit.
ARC provided by publisher.
luckyliza13's review against another edition
5.0
I found myself staying up late into the night reading this suspenseful tale! Pay attention to characters throughout each story as they all tie together in the end. I was fascinated by the historical detail. Any WWII historical fiction fan should read this!