The Lost Garden

by HelenHumphreys (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.66

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.22

  This word-perfect, heartbreaking novel is set in early 1941 in Britain when the war seems endless and, perhaps, hopeless. London is on fire from the Blitz, and a young woman gardener named Gwen Davis flees from the burning city for the Devon countryside. She has volunteered for the Land Army, and is to be in charge of a group of young girls who will be trained to plant food crops on an old country estate where the gardens have fallen into ruin. Also on the estate, waiting to be posted, is a regiment of Canadian soldiers. For three months, the young women and men will form attachments, living in a temporary rural escape. No one will be more changed by the stay than Gwen. She will inspire the girls to restore the estate gardens, fall in love with a soldier, find her first deep friendship, and bring a lost garden, created for a great love, back to life. While doing so, she will finally come to know herself and a life worth living. Reading group guide included.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.22

  It's Spring 1941 and London is being destroyed by the Blitz. Gwen Davis, a young horticulturalist, leaves the city for the Devon countryside. In charge of a troop of landgirls, her job is to rebuild the grounds of a neglected estate to grow food for the home front. The beautiful manor is far removed from the fighting but Gwen has her own battles - as she struggles with her shyness and fear of intimacy to create a community among her girls. Then Gwen meets two people who will change her life forever. Raley, a Canadian officer awaiting posting to the front with his men and Jane, a frail, free spirit whose fiance is missing in action. Through them, and the beautiful 'lost' garden that she stumbles upon, she finds a flowering of a different sort - her own profound capacity for love, even in the face of pain. As the harsh realities of war start to intrude, Gwen finds herself swept up into a world of passion and feeling that she never imagined. Through Raley and Jane, she comes at last to understand the unbelievable joy and unbearable risks of love. THE LOST GARDEN is a triumph of storytelling, a novel so delicately wrought, so exquisite in its rendering of loss that it takes your breath - and your heart - away.