The Sea Garden

Summary (from the publisher): Romance, suspense, and World War II mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas-rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere-from the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.THE SEA GARDEN: On the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden's owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian …

THE LAVENDER FIELD: Near the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life . . . and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected.

A SHADOW LIFE: Iris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime London, falls for a French agent. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, he vanishes. When France is liberated, Iris is determined to uncover the truth. Was he the man he claimed to be?

Ingeniously interconnected, this spellbinding triptych weaves three parallel narratives into one unique tale of love, mystery, and murder. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war-and a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy from HarperCollins.

The Sea Garden is composed of three interconnected novellas and takes its name from the first novella of the book. In "The Sea Garden", present day landscape designer has been invited to a Mediterranean island to restore a memorial garden. "The Lavender Field" is set during World War II and focuses on Marthe, a young blind woman apprenticed to a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence and working for the Resistance. Finally, "A Shadow Life" is also set in World War II, but focuses on Iris, a young woman working for British intelligence in London.

The opening novella is eerie and unsettling. In the first scene, Ellie witnesses an apparent suicide. It becomes increasingly clear that supernatural forces are at work on the estate where Ellie was hired to work. "From this angle the water was pewter gray. Her reflection was sharp and still. The outline of a man slid up behind her. Her heart seemed to jump out of her body" (44). Things only continue to go downhill for Ellie from there, "An unspecific pain woke Ellie. For a moment she felt unable to breathe. She put a hand up to her face, and it spread wetness onto her mouth and cheek. [...] Dark red stains blotched the white sheets" (55).

The following two novellas, although set in wartime, are far less unsettling and there is an absence of seemingly supernatural forces at work. In particular, I appreciated reading about Marthe in the second novella, since her perspective was unique due to her blindness; "she felt the lighter air come in, the silkiness of a light breeze on her face. His touch still shimmered on her skin" (146). Of the three female perspectives, I felt least connected to Iris in the final novella.

The ways in which the three stories are connected is not revealed until the conclusion of the novel, but they do have to do with the Xavier figure. Figures slip through scenes in the first two novellas, only to be revealed to have been a key figure in the last. I wasn't wholly satisfied with the connection between the stories, because it seems implausible and because, for Marthe's plotline in particular, tenuous. Additionally, because this book is composed of three separate novellas, there's little time for deep character development. I would have loved for the final section of the book to return to Ellie's perspective to bring the book full circle and conclude the book from there.

Stars: 3