Customer Reviews

THE SEA GARDEN

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

First Line: Revel the weeder was digging where the terrace wall had collapsed by the Sea Garden at Trelise.

Victoria, a young American, and Guy, a young Englishman, meet, fall in love and get married. Shortly thereafter Guy inherits the family estate on condition that he and Victoria change their surname to Blakeney-Jones. They move to Trelise, a fictitious one of the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall in England.

Trelise was bought by Joshua Jones in the 1840s, and the herbalist spent the rest of his life turning the island into a garden. Now the gardens are overgrown, and Guy has the idea of filming their restoration and making a television series. When bones are discovered in the section currently under renovation, they're dismissed as having belonged to a centuries-dead monk. Victoria doesn't believe this and begins to research the history of Trelise, going through diaries, letters, invoices and other documents stored in the mansion. As she pieces together the generations, Victoria finds deceit and death handed down over the decades-- enough of it to put her own life in danger.

I really enjoyed this book. Llewellyn is a native of the Isles of Scilly, and he brings them to life on the page. The convoluted history of the owners of Trelise from past to present was compelling, and it was interesting to see how Victoria's own strengths and weaknesses played a part in her deductions and conclusions.

If you're a fan of exotic settings and family histories with more twists and turns than a basket of cobras, you should enjoy The Sea Garden. I will definitely be taking a look at the other books Llewellyn has written.

I've enjoyed the other five books I read by this author. I found this one so disappointing. I made it through the first four chapters and flicked through the rest. It's dire. He needs to go back to sea or do another follow-on like the Riddle of the Sands/Guns of Navarone ones. Sorry, I'm just really disappointed.

The Sea Garden unburies its dead and lays them at the feet of a late twentieth century American newly betrothed to a man who inherits the Garden by the sea. She curses her fate as history appears in the present and she tunnels back into the past. Betrayal, murder and the cruelty of the sea mixed in the wonderful bouyant Llewellyn style.

This book is a real page turner, a treat, a must.
Read it and you'll enjoy it!!!! if you'll read one book this year, read The Sea Garden!