The Blue Rose [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Anthony Eglin (Author), Gordon Griffin (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2005

Alex and Kate Sheppard have found the perfect house; the home they had always dreamed of owning. Nestled deep in the Wiltshire countryside and surrounded by a two-acre walled garden, The Parsonage was to be their own little paradise . . . but nothing stays perfect forever.

Soon after moving in they make an impossibly exciting discovery---one that defies every known law of nature and science. They find a blue rose bush flourishing in their walled garden. But as word of their discovery leaks out, the Sheppard's peaceful existence is shattered and they find themselves plunged into a world of coded journals, genetic experiments, cold-blooded greed, and, ultimately, murder. Threatened from every direction, with no one to trust but themselves and Lawrence Kingston, a gardening expert to whom they have revealed their exciting secret---the only way they can save their lives is to unravel the dark, seductive secret of the Blue Rose.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In his excellent debut, Eglin combines just the right amount of horticultural detail with well-drawn characters and an absorbing plot. While Kate and Alex Sheppard explore the long neglected gardens of the Parsonage, their newly acquired, 19th-century Wiltshire country house, they discover an astonishing plant—a rose bush with blue flowers ("Not lavender or mauve, but an electric sapphire blue"). For help, the couple turn to Lawrence Kingston, a noted rose authority and incidentally a crossword puzzle aficionado, and Christopher Adell, their London legal adviser. In spite of their efforts to research the plant in secret, word of the extraordinary find gets out, and the likable Sheppards are soon mixed up with secret codes and missing journals and threatened by vicious hybridizers from Japan and the United States, as well as local growers and supposed friends. Mysterious deaths, a kidnapping, a chase and various shootings add to the suspense. Apt gardening quotations, from Edmund Spenser to Dale Carnegie, introduce each chapter.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

If you love roses, or gardening, or British mysteries, you will probably love this novel, lush with the lore and lure of all three. Eglin, a Californian and award-winning rose gardener, writes well of what he knows. Unfortunately, he is less skilled in the essentials of fiction writing: plot, dialogue, and characterization add up to not much in this first novel. Kate and Alex buy their dream cottage in Wiltshire, called the Parsonage, with its two-acre walled garden overrun with roses. What they find in a corner is the impossible: a sapphire-blue rose. Although they immediately contact a gardening expert and an attorney, they are plunged into a world of conniving relatives, rose pollination recorded in Enigma code, evil American and sneaky Japanese executives, and the mysterious death of a friend who handled the rose. It's melodramatic and the dialogue is terrible, but the rosarian detail is irresistible. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Soundings; Unabridged edition (June 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845590309
• ISBN-13: 978-1845590307
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beware the blue rose, December 22, 2004

By 

W. Oliver (Alabama) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blue Rose: An English Garden Mystery (Hardcover)

When Kate and Alex Sheppard move into their dream house - a 19th century cottage complete with a walled garden - they make an exciting discovery - a rose bush in their garden sports blue flowers! Kate, a gardening enthusiast, knows that this mysterious rose could bring them worldwide fame and fortune. They try to remain calm and decide to seek advice from a botany professor and a lawyer. Despite their best efforts however, the secret is soon out, and the couple find themselves badgered by determined opportunists clamoring for the rose and a nightmare that includes kidnapping and murder.

This is Eglin's debut novel and it is a delightful page-turner. Gardeners will love the horticultural details thrown in and mystery fans will appreciate the well-paced plot and the author's attention to detail and believable dialog. This is an author to keep an eye on!

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, April 15, 2006

By 

S. Hays (Mesa AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blue Rose: An English Garden Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

I really wanted to like this book because I love mysteries and gardening, and the author seems like a nice guy. However, by halfway through I was turning pages as fast as I could, not because it's a page-turner but because I wanted to be done with it. As another reviewer mentioned, the book is full of cliches and one-note good guys/bad guys. Poor dialogue, excessive irrelevant details, awkward use of Britishisms, and thoroughly unbelievable behavior on the part of the husband during the last part of the book (humorous comments on the weather, for example) made this hard to read. Definitely a 'first novel' - maybe he'll get better as he goes on.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exciting amateur sleuth, October 31, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blue Rose: An English Garden Mystery (Hardcover)

From the moment they saw the Parsonage in the English village of Steeple Tarrant Alex and Kate Sheppard knew they found their dream house. Once they moved in, Alex and Kate work to fix the huge neglected gardens and soon find hidden under other plants a blue rose. Kate knows it must be very valuable because scientists have tried for decades without success to create one. They contact Doctor Lawrence Kingston who is an expert on roses and ask him to provide his expert opinion.

When he sees the rose, he advises them to get a lawyer to handle all the buyers that will want to purchase the flowery gem. They decide to put it up for auction but before that can happen, two businessmen desperate for money call and try to get the rose. The Sheppards refuse to talk to them and refer them to their lawyer. Someone is desperate enough to kidnap Kate and hold her for ransom in exchange for the rose. The only problem is Alex no longer has it because someone has stolen it.

THE BLUE ROSE is an exciting amateur sleuth mystery that will appeal to people who love to garden and those readers who don't like a lot of gore and blood in their who-done-it. The protagonists are beleaguered from every side by folks who will stop at nothing to get THE BLUE ROSE. What nobody knows is that the flower has an unexpected property that makes it dangerous. Anthony Eglin has written a wonderful garden mystery that like many vines takes a lot of unexpected twists and turns.

Harriet Klausner