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    The Sea Garden: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Sea Garden: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Sea Garden: A Novel
    Ebook400 pages6 hours

    The Sea Garden: A Novel

    By Deborah Lawrenson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Romance, suspense, and World War II mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas—rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere—from the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.

    The Sea Garden

    On the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden’s owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian. . . .

    The Lavender Field

    Near the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life . . . and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected.

    A Shadow Life

    Iris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime London, falls for a French agent. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, he vanishes. When France is liberated, Iris is determined to uncover the truth. Was he the man he claimed to be?

    Ingeniously interconnected, this spellbinding triptych weaves three parallel narratives into one unique tale of love, mystery, and murder. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war—and a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 24, 2014
    ISBN9780062279682
    Unavailable
    The Sea Garden: A Novel
    Author

    Deborah Lawrenson

    Deborah Lawrenson studied English at Cambridge University and worked as a journalist in London. She is married with a daughter, and lives in Kent, England. Deborah’s previous novels include The Lantern and The Sea Garden.

    Read more from Deborah Lawrenson

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    Reviews for The Sea Garden

    3.5/5

    3 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Since this story is not just a dual narrative but a triple narrative, for the full explanation you’ll want to visit goodreads. The first storyline follows a British garden designer hoping a commission on a beautiful island will be her chance to break into the international scene. However, once she realizes that her clients are eccentric and possibly malicious, she’s not sure the job is worth the risk. The second story is that of a young blind woman living in Nazi-occupied France with a difficult decision to make. And the third story is that of a British intelligence agent during WWII who falls for a French agent who disappears, suggesting he might have had hidden allegiances. The way these three stories connect is a surprise.

      The first scene in this book immediately highlighted the author’s amazing talent for bringing a location vividly to life. I think what made her descriptions work so well for me is the level of detail she includes. It’s not too much, not too little, matching what I think I’d notice if I were actually there. The first story was not as enjoyable as I expected based on that first scene. It was a bit trippy, with hints of the supernatural or a conspiracy or both. I found it a little too confusing and finished this section unsure what had just happened. By the end, I considered this first section worthwhile for its impact on the story as a whole, but I didn’t love reading it.

      The second and third stories were both fantastic. I continued to enjoy the author’s evocative writing but also started to love the plot. Both of these sections featured somewhat untraditional, very brave female protagonists. I thought they were both incredible and a ton of fun to read about. The layering of the three stories, each one adding more information and getting closer to the heart of the matter, gave this story a lot of depth. It was a very unique way to tell a multi-narrative story, sequential instead of alternating, and I think it worked beautifully. The overall effect was to give the ending a lot of emotional impact. I admire the author’s choice to tell a story in a unorthodox way and would love to read more of her work.

      This review first published on Doing Dewey.
    • 4/5
      Deborah Lawrenson's novel, The Sea Garden, is composed of three short stories which are seemingly unconnected but which ultimately come together in unexpected ways. The first story, called The Sea Garden, centers on Ellie Brooks, a young woman arriving on the French Mediterranean island of Porquerolles to work on a garden commission. As Ellie sketches out her ideas, she is bothered by misgivings about the elderly woman who found and convinced her son to hire Ellie and she feels as if her only ally in the increasingly menacing situation is an elusive war historian. The second story, called The Lavender Field, tells the story of a young blind French girl who works at a perfume factory and discovers that the family who has taken her in works in a Resistance cell. Marthe must decide whether she has the courage to join in with this dangerous work as well, especially after a tragedy threatens to derail long held planning. And the third story, A Shadow Life, is also set during WWII. In it, a junior British intelligence officer named Iris falls in love with a French agent. When the war ends, Iris is determined to discover what happened to her lover, despite accepted evidence that he was possibly a double agent. Each of the stories is completely self-contained but toward the end of the third story, the other two stories are tied in to the mystery of whatever happened to Iris's lover. The first story, set in the present day, has a gothic feel to it with a rising tension and hints of the paranormal. There are some plot aspects that aren't resolved entirely satisfactorily until the third story and there are one or two things that are raised, like the suicide of the young man on the ferry in the opening of the story, that are used for atmosphere but need a bit more to be fully realized in the story. The second and third stories are significantly different in tone than the first story, completely lacking the threatening tone that pervades the first. These latter two stories tell of different aspects of the war and are representative of the many stories that make up the whole of the war. They are fascinating in a historical sense and interesting for the personal touch they bring to the Resistance and to British intelligence. Lawrenson has done a phenomenal job in connecting all three individual stories in the end and in revealing the mystery and secrets behind the whole.The descriptive passages here are very visual and evocative and Lawrenson's managed to conjure up the scents to which Marthe, as a blind woman, would have been so very sensitive. Each of the stories are atmospheric and well researched, from gardening to the war and the main characters are all strong women, appealing and intelligent. The structure was an interesting one that required a little work on the reader's part to remember well each story and make the connections that tied the whole together. Historical fiction readers, specifically those with an interest in WWII, and those who enjoy mysterious fiction will enjoy this novel immensely.
    • 4/5
      ‘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 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.