Book suggestions?
Lavender Lass
I am just starting a blog and I would appreciate any book suggestions that might be appropriate. It's a fairytale garden blog, so anything with plants, romance, gardens, mystery (especially if there's gardens, tea, old houses) in the story. My recommendation is Mary Stewart's Thornyhold.
And if you wouldn't mind, I would really appreciate you checking out my blog and leaving a comment for a possible book on there. However, any recommendations here or there...would be greatly appreciated : )
Note: No advertising on the blog...besides the Wordpress ads. I'm just trying to get everything up and running. Again, thank you!
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The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Rose Garden, Susanna Kearsley
A favorite book of mine with a bit of magic in it is The Perilous Guard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. It's a YA novel but I enjoyed it as an adult. It is a Tudor era historical novel in which there are fairies - dangerous fairies, not sweetness-and-light ones. I've read the book two or three times and highly recommend it.
You also might like some of the Charles de Lint books. His works are considered urban fantasy. They pull heavily from traditional folklore and fairy tales, but are set in a modern Canadian city. Sone possible titles would be Moonheart, Memory and Dream, or Greenmantle. Not very garden-y, though.
How about Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen? Modern fiction but a bit of magic, and definitely a garden.
Down The Garden Path by Beverley Nichols ( circa 1930's)
Another suggestion is Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, with its allusions to The Secret Garden and the literary fairy-tales embedded in the story.
Thank you for the suggestions!
If anyone has a chance to post a suggestion in my comment box on the website....that would be grand! I don't have many comments, yet : )
Rose- Thank you : )
Hi - maybe this seems far fetched, but as a child & still today, I loved Elizabeth Enright's 'Gone Away Lake' & 'Return to Gone Away Lake'. It's about 2 kids who stumble upon an elderly pair of siblings living in an abandoned Victorian era resort community in upstate NY. The sister has a 'bog garden' & makes her own herbal remedies, along w/ using the native plants for food. That book made a huge impression on me as a kid & started my lifelong love of wildflowers & native plants.
Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim are delightful books with gardens at their centre. I have always found them magical because of the language, although there are no fairies and no mystery. Both are novels, but based on the author's life. The Enchanted April has a villa with a lovely garden, some romance and a bit of magic - the kind you find in Italy in the spring.
Why has it taken me so long to think of Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce?
A wonderful children's book that can happily be read by adults with both a garden and 'time-slip' theme. It has been recommended in the UK as one of the best books for young people of all times.
I'm sure it is available in the US.
lavender, in the US are you familiar with the 'Flower Fairy' books by Cicely Mary Barker? Drawn by a talented 'natural history' artist and published from the 1920's they have a whimsical charm. I don't know if today's children would enjoy them as much as I did 60 odd years ago; but that's progress for you.
Look out for good quality reproductions that do justice to the delicate originals.
Flower Fairy Books
The mysteries of Ellis Peters. Set in the early Middle Ages, the main character is a monk named Brother Cadfael. He is the herbalist in is monastery. Perhaps The Rose Rent would be a grand place to start?
PAM