The Walled Garden
Book Feature - The Walled Garden by Robin Farrar Maass
HBL Note: THE WALLED GARDEN by Robin Farrar Maass is described as Agatha Christie meets The Crown crossed with Downton Abbey. Other things this book has going for it: that cover. Swoon. Plus, this is Robin’s debut novel and we are big fans of debuts around here! I also think this book has a tinge of The Secret Garden, a book I adored as a kid. All that to say, THE WALLED GARDEN has a lot going for it! It is about a grad school student investigating a literary mystery involving her grandmother for her dissertation. Reading that synopsis warms my heart because I too was inspired by my grandmother when choosing my dissertation topic. Scroll down to read more about THE WALLED GARDEN by Robin Farrar Maass.
From the publisher:
American grad student Lucy Silver arrives in England hoping to solve a longstanding literary mystery, write her dissertation, and finish her graduate studies in a blaze of academic glory. But as Lucy starts to piece together the correspondence between her late grandmother and Elizabeth Blackspear, the famous poet and garden writer who’s the subject of Lucy’s dissertation, she discovers puzzling coded references in the letters—and when an elderly English aristocrat with a secret connection to Elizabeth offers Lucy access to a neglected walled garden on his estate, the mystery deepens.
As spring turns to summer in Bolton Lacey, Lucy finds herself fighting the Blackspear Gardens’ director’s attempt to deny her access to vital documents in the archives . . . and trying not to fall in love with an attractive Scottish contractor.
In the midst of this turmoil, she stumbles upon an illicit plot to turn the historic gardens into a theme park, and becomes determined to stop it. As she races against time to save the gardens, Lucy’s search for the truth about Elizabeth’s life leads her to a French convent where she uncovers explosive evidence that will change her life and the lives of everyone around her, ultimately revealing a home—and an inheritance—more incredible than anything she could ever have imagined.