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Julia arrives at Havenworth Manor with a job to do. As a professional landscape architect, she has specialized in restoring historic gardens, and the owner of Havenworth wants the grounds of the old estate returned to how they looked in 1940. Julia is dismayed by just how bad the grounds look now, and how little information she has to go on to be able to fulfill the old woman’s precise request. Making her life at the moment more challenging is working alone, as she’s left the prestigious firm she worked for, after a complicated situation. On top of that, she is now raising her late sister’s little boy, Sam.
Andrew Morrison, the man who hired her on behalf of his godmother, Margaret Clarke, the 92-year-old owner, is busy and often terse, with concerns of his own. And he and his sister, Helen, don’t want Julia to push Margaret too much on her past and that of the home. But without photographs, records, or plans of the landscaping from 1940 to go on, she has to ask some questions of the owner.
As days and weeks go by, Julia makes some progress with her questions, and she and Helen discover an old journal filled with notes and beautiful drawings of flowers. The young women who wrote and drew in that florilegium, as it was called, however, is a true mystery.
Readers, however, learn about the artist, Irene, as the book progresses. The story goes between the present and 1940, when Irene, Margaret’s older half-sister, dreams of getting out into the world and going to art school. Her father and stepmother won’t allow her to follow her dreams; in fact, they pay her little attention compared with her younger sister. When she meets a handsome RAF officer, Irene falls for him — and follows him to London, where she finds herself in danger. Not long after, she vanishes from Margaret’s life.
The Restoration Garden is a dual-viewpoint/time-period story, layered with heartache, loss, and tragedy but also hope, renewal, and love. I found it largely engaging and satisfying, though the romance felt a bit lacking.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes around 6 instances of moderate profanity, about 5 uses of mild language, and 3 uses of British (bl-) profanity. Sexual content includes kissing and a scene where a husband and wife consummate their marriage, sharing removal of clothes and the woman’s discomfort later. Violence includes bombs dropped during World War II and deaths and injuries associated with them, a murder by gun, threats with guns, and an attempted murder by choking/strangling.
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