Reviews for The Lost Garden: A Novel

The average rating for The Lost Garden: A Novel based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-03-23 00:00:00 Tho Do Beauty illuminates every page.... intimate, mysterious, and lovely compassionate prose! Many sentences and paragraphs to ‘pause’ ( highlight), read again - and again. This review would be many pages long if I included them... but this one sentence— is something I’ve been experiencing quite deeply for well over a year now.... “Grief moves us like love. Grief is love, I suppose. Love as a backward glance”. This is my second book by Helen Humphreys. Her prose is elegant and effortless but I think it’s her characters that will stay with me long after her books end. Gwen Davis, the narrator, is 35 years old - a horticulturist- flees bombed-out WWII London to manage a team of ‘Land Girls’....women who grow vegetables as part of the war effort at a country estate. The journey Humphreys takes us on —(the ladies more interested in the Canadian soldiers than planting veggies), ... possesses multiple layers of much splendor and affliction. It’s also a lovely tribute to the late Virginia Woolf..... who’s recent death left Gwen feeling quite lugubrious. The supporting characters, Captain Raley, Jane, the history, the British countryside itself....are marvelously huge-hearted - weighty - for such a short novel ( 194 pages).... Just proves that my momma was right when she told me... “no worries for being short, precious jewels come in small packages!” I look forward to my next Helen Humphreys novel. Always exciting to discover new favorite authors... And recently I’ve found three... Helen Humphreys, ‘Mary Lawson’ and ‘Betsy Robinson’ as well!

Review # 2 was written on 2015-02-19 00:00:00 Chad Smith It is 1941 and London is being bombed daily. Gwen leaves her job at the horticulture center and takes the position of training young land girls at an estate on the Devon coast. There job is to grow food for the home front. In the estate house a group of soldiers are stationed, waiting to be posted. All have left things or people behind, many have acquaintances or loved ones who have already been killed, or presumed missing. For many of the girls this is the first time they have left home. Most are changed by the time they spend here. In restoring the gardens, Gwen finds a secret garden, a small abandoned place whose name is on a rock. Who planted this, a garden that doesn't even show up on the plans of the estate? Beautiful, beautiful writing, poetic at times, begging to be read again and again. A simple story at the beginning that gains depth as we get to know some the characters. What the war has cost these people, the understanding that they can't go back to prewar lives, that things will never again be the same. A touching story that with a melancholy tone, so many flowers described of which I had never known. Virgins Woolf and her To the Lighthouse play an important part in this novel. The cover is simply stunning, in fact I found this to be a gorgeous package all around. Just love the way this author writes, so glad I have a few more of her books to read. Thanks again, Delee.