The Stone Flower Garden: A Novel [Hardcover]

Deborah Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2002

Darleen Union and Eli Wade are childhood friends torn apart by a murder that has never been solved. Raised by her grandmother, Darleen is the heir to Hardigree Marble Company, which controls the small North Carolina town of Burnt Stand, and Eli is the boy genius destined to make something of himself when his family is forced to leave. But now, years later, long-buried secrets are about to be, literally, dug up: "On a dark spring night twenty-five years after I helped bury my Great Aunt Clara Hardigree, I found myself digging her up." A story about destiny, and a great love affair, this is a rich, gothic, Southern story about the darker side of family myths.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title of romance writer Smith's latest (after On Bear Mountain) alludes to a pink marble hideaway on the family estate in Burnt Stand, N.C., where Darl Union grows up fabulously wealthy but lonely, the orphan granddaughter of Swan Hardigree Samples, town autocrat and owner of Hardigree Marble Company. On a hot summer day in 1972, seven-year-old Darl watches as 10-year-old Eli Wade and his family push their broken-down pickup into town. She knows from the minute she sees Eli that the two of them are meant to be together, but the Wades' presence in Burnt Stand stirs up long-buried troubles. When those troubles culminate in a murder, the Wades suffer the consequences, and Darl and Eli are torn apart. Twenty-five years later, Darl has become a defense attorney passionately devoted to mercy and justice, and Eli is a reformed high-stakes gambler, with millions of dollars to spend on pet causes. After Swan suffers a heart attack, Darl and Eli find themselves back in Burnt Stand, still in love, but haunted by the unsolved mystery in their past. The exotic family history of the Hardigrees (involving prostitution, arson, out-of-wedlock births, half-siblings of different races and smalltown empire-building) colors the tale in florid shades, and Smith piles on plot twists with a heavy hand. The late 20th-century setting is a bit incongruous the dynastic goings-on seem better suited to an earlier era but Smith knows how to generate genuine emotion, and readers will be wringing out their hankies by the time the protracted conclusion rolls around. Southern author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Darleen Swannoa Union already knows how isolating wealth and privilege can be. As the only grandchild of Swan Hardigree Samples, the elegant and autocratic president of the Hardigree Marble Company and the chief employer in the town of Burnt Stand, NC, Darleen has spent her entire life confined to the family's pink marble mansion and its surrounding estate. Her only friend is Matilda, the daughter of Swan's assistant until Eli Wade comes back to town. When Darleen rushes to his defense against the local toughs, she learns that there are some problems money and power cannot solve and that true soul mates can be found in the oddest places. Smith's darkly convoluted tale of secrets buried for generations explores the meaning of family and love under the most trying of circumstances. The novel will resonate with readers who enjoyed similar themes in Smith's earlier A Place To Call Home (LJ 6/15/97), but that tale of small-town Southern secrets, though simpler than the more dramatic The Stone Flower Garden, remains the more compelling of the two.
- Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st edition (February 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316800945
• ISBN-13: 978-0316800945
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,518,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bell Bridge Books

Deborah Smith is a founding partner and VP of BelleBooks and its main division, Bell Bridge Books. Check here for news and updates on the titles she and her partners are publishing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Stone Flower Garden, May 4, 2002

By 

Danielle DeFrain - FictionAddiction.NET (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Stone Flower Garden: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Stone Flower Garden holds a secret that burns a hole through the innocent love of childhood. A secret of innocence and death, of betrayal and loyalty. A secret that, after a quarter of a century, one family is determined to unearth and another yearns to forget.

Burnt Stand, North Carolina holds many such secrets within its walls of marble. The Hardigree family and their quarry is the center of it all, run now by Swan Samples Hardigree, a lady to the core of her cold heart. Darl Union is Swan's granddaughter and the keeper of her shameful legacy...one that, if made public, would shatter the grand image Swan's own mother first carved out for them.

Drawn into the tangled web of deceit was Eli Wade. His family arrived in Burnt Stand when he was just a boy and he immediately lost his heart to the lonely little girl that Darl was at that time. They shared years of happiness in their own private escape...a lovely stone flower garden situated part-way between their two homes on Hardigree land. That happiness was to be shattered, however, by a secret that would itself be buried within the garden....one that would force Eli and what was left of his family out of town.

Twenty-five years later, all the key players would be drawn back and, one way or another, the truth would come out. But would it be welcomed or destroy just as many lives the second time around?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deborah Smith is an amazing author that enables her characters to live in such a way that makes it hard to accept their one-dimensionality. She irrevocably draws the reader in with this dramatic tale of a loyalty so fierce and demanding it destroys everyone it touches.

This book will consume the reader and, at times, leave him or her breathless....with shock, with anticipation or with sympathy. After the last page has been turned, the characters will be missed and Burnt Stand will have burned another hole....into the memory of those who won't want to leave it behind with the closing of the cover.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars four-tissue box tearjerker, February 4, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Stone Flower Garden: A Novel (Hardcover)

In 1972, ten years old Eli Wade and his family enter Burnt Stand, North Carolina by pushing their broken down car into town. Though three years younger than Eli, Darleen Union, heir to the Hardigree Marble Company that owns the town, knows they belong together. They become friends until someone murders Darleen's Aunt Clara. Though the case is not solved, everyone blames Eli's dad forcing the Wades to leave town.

Twenty-five years later Darl, a defense attorney for the downtrodden, and Eli, a very successful reformed gambler, meet again in her hometown. Though still in love, but adult style, Clara's murder keeps Darl and Eli from a permanent relationship. In front of him, she digs up her aunt's grave that she helped dug twenty-five years ago so that Eli can learn the truth.

STONE FLOWER GARDEN is filled with twists and turns so that each time the audience feels they grasp the tale, a new angle appears. This gives the story line extra oomph so that the reader has more than just a steamy southern romance. Though the era seems wrong to contain the southern dynasties that ruled one-company towns, the charm and angst of the lead characters manage to overcome that counter-anachronism. Deborah Smith provides her audience with a four-tissue box tearjerker that never eases off the high emotional tension of the plot until the climax.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SUCH A GOOD BOOK!!, April 9, 2002

By 

LUV TO READ "LORRAINE" (RHODE ISLAND, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Stone Flower Garden: A Novel (Hardcover)

Darl Union and Eli Wade meet when they are children and immediately become soul mates and the best of friends.....Eli's father is hired as a stonecutter by Swan Hardigree, Darl's very controlling grandmother, to work in the Hardigree marble company.....Darl's great aunt Clara is murdered and at this time, Eli's family leave town.......Darl and Eli never forget each other and when they are reunited 25 years later, Darl knows that the terrible secret which she has buried in her heart must be shared with Eli. He is the only person she can trust and she hopes that he can help her.....This is a heart-tugging story and it shows the love of families, but also takes us into the dark side mystique of families.....The author pulls us into the middle of this wonderful family saga......Loved this book.