After her husband's death, gardening became Tilly's livelihood and her salvation. Her thriving North Carolina business and her young son, Isaac, are the excuses she needs to hide from the world. So when oddly attractive, incredibly tenacious James demands that she take him on as a client, her answer is a flat no.
When a family emergency lures Tilly back to England, she's secretly glad. With Isaac in tow, she retreats to her childhood village, which has always stayed obligingly the same. Until now. Her best friend is keeping secrets. Her mother is plotting. Her first love is unexpectedly, temptingly available. And then James appears on her doorstep.
Away from home, James and Tilly forge an unlikely bond, tenuous at first but taking root every day. And as they work to build a garden together, something begins to blossom between them-despite all the reasons against it.
Comment: I decided I would want to read this book after seeing a very high praise of it in one blog I follow. I have not paid much attention to reviews so I would not be influenced, but now that I have read the book, I must say I still expected a bit more...
This a slow paced novel, with interesting subjects being presented and a romance developing between two people who are dealing with personal issues which aren't as easy as they might seem to those not going through similar situations. I was quite curious to see how the author would mix up everything and still achieve a good result. I think that the important things were well done but I confess I expected the overall effect to have more harmony.
The plot isn't complicated, Tilly knows about gardening, has a small business and James feels she might be able to help him. Both have issues which could not be quickly solved but I imagined the slow pace at first would be a hint things would develop cautiously but sweetly. I think the decision to move things to England and have such a huge part of the story there fit certain needs (like Tilly having closure on a past relationship), but most of the time it sounded more as if things were being delayed, as if being there was simply an interlude. I was also not fully on board with the odds of someone like James being able to simply travel to meet a compulsion. The fact he is very rich helps, but...
While in England, Tilly needs to think about her past and besides her friend Rowena she needs to deal with former boyfriend Sebastian, not about to be divorced and father of two children. They had their chance while young but it slipped away and now it's hinted perhaps they can reunite. I'm not a fan of love triangles, especially when one of the intended isn't clearly a bad match (this does make impressions simpler) but more than this, I felt this supposed need for closure was a convenient way to delay solving other issues. The truth is that I wanted to see the romance developing between Tilly and James and this was a bit more subtle than what I think would need to be.
In fact, the romance is always there, but this is a novel more focused on thinking about feelings, not as heavy on the demonstration of them. I feel conflicted because I also like it better when love stories aren't only about sex, but here I got the feeling they talked a lot and what was meant to be convincing about their feelings for one another was too vague. There are some scenes yes, in which we can see them interacting in a way that is meant to say "we like one another", but it didn't seem enough, considering the big issues in their personal lives.
Tilly is still mourning her husband and the way things happened still causes her to feel guilt, for he had a living will. What came after still haunts her and I could understand some of her behavior and choices because of this, but on the other hand, I felt glad she wasn't as obsessed with this to ignore the possibility of finding someone else. I think her side of things, with the exception of some stuff in England which I feel was mostly unnecessary, was understandable and logically presented.
I used the word "obsessed" back there on purpose, since James does feel genuinely obsessed with Tilly and in how she can help him deal or control his OCD somehow. This element was very intriguing because it's not one often seen in romance novels, or it isn't such a heavy part of the overall plot. I could accept the reasons why James had this condition and how unlikely it is to find a solution, his best chance is to find ways to deal, to process and go on with his life. He tried many things, and meditation helps. I kind of liked seeing this debated in the novel, but James also had money to try alternatives to a day where this is a huge part of it... how can people without similar means deal with something which is so time consuming or that affects daily routines so much?
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