The Walled Garden by Sarah Hardy
The Walled Garden by Sarah Hardy
Synopsis
A luminous debut
novel about love, the trauma of war and the miracle of human resilience, for
readers of Anna Hope, Sadie Jones and Elizabeth Jane Howard.
No one survives war
unscathed. But even in the darkest days, seeds of hope can grow.
It is 1946 and in the village of Oakbourne the men are home from the war. Their
bodies are healing but their psychological wounds run deep. Everyone is scarred
- those who fought and those left behind.
Alice Rayne is married to Stephen, heir to crumbling Oakbourne Hall. Once a
sweet, gentle man, he has returned a bitter and angry stranger, destroyed by
what he has seen and done, tormented by secrets Alice can only guess at.
Lonely and increasingly afraid of the man her husband has become, Alice must
try to pick up the pieces of her marriage and save Oakbourne Hall from total
collapse. She begins with the walled garden and, as it starts to bear fruit,
she finds herself drawn into a new, forbidden love.
Set in the Suffolk
countryside as it moves from winter to spring, The Walled Garden is a
captivating love story and a timeless, moving exploration of trauma and the
miracle of human resilience.
My Review
This is an outstanding debut novel that is emotively written.The aftermath of war was an issue that was often not talked about in the 1940s and the mental legacy it left was an issue that was more often than not, dealt with in isolation with no recognition of PTSD and how to treat it.
Sarah develops her story in a heart wrenching and thought provoking manner that the reader cannot fail to be moved by. I experienced so much love, anger, frustration and also helplessness as I read The Walled Garden. As you are drawn deeper into the carious lives of the characters......
Alice- desperately trying to reach out to her Stephen and bring him back to the gentle,quiet poet she had loved and married, whilst rebuilding The Walled Garden and the healing power of nature, in order to try and recover what she has lost.
Jane- trying to hold her dysfunctional family together and support all of them as best she can.
The vicar, trying to be everything to everyone whilst seriously ill himself and dealing with his own feelings and emotional wellbeing.
The aftermath of war affected everyone- not just those who lost loved ones, but those who came back, discharged medically unfit, as well as the families waiting for them at home not recognising the men who had returned as the men who had left them.
This is such an emotive read that you will not be able to put down and yes you will experience the whole gamut of emotions and will dwell on these for a long time afterwards whilst thinking about the effects of war, and the coming to terms with it for the survivors and their families.
I managed to hold myself together, emotionally, until The Epilogue, in which there is a paragraph about the importance of The Coronation of our late Queen and I just sobbed.....
This is a story beautifully written and , if you only read one book this year, it should be this one.
I look forward to reading more from Sarah in the future.
About the Author
Sarah Hardy has lived for the last ten years on the Suffolk coast where her novel is set. Before that she lived in London, Dublin and The Hebrides.
She has worked on national magazines and newspapers.
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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