Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2009
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in England's River Ouse. Her body was found three weeks later. What seemed like a tragic ending at the time was, in fact, just the beginning of a mystery....
Six decades after Virginia Woolf's death, landscape designer Jo Bellamy has come to Sissinghurst Castle for two reasons: to study the celebrated White Garden created by Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West and to recover from the terrible wound of her grandfather's unexplained suicide. In the shadow of one of England’s most famous castles, Jo makes a shocking find: Woolf's last diary, its first entry dated the day after she allegedly killed herself.
If authenticated, Jo's discovery could shatter everything historians believe about Woolf's final hours. But when the Woolf diary is suddenly stolen, Jo's quest to uncover the truth will lead her on a perilous journey into the tumultuous inner life of a literary icon whose connection to the White Garden ultimately proved devastating.
"Barron invests the text with a quick pace and an absorbing plot, making this a dynamic thriller with a well-tempered literary fixation." - Publishers Weekly
"The White Garden grows an intriguing tale, weaving together the tendrils of past and present, growth and corruption, love and despair, into a landscape of hope. This is a mystery in a garden: a garden in war; a garden beset by modernity; a ghostly white garden haunted by the dead." - Laurie R. King, author of The Language of Bees
"Stephanie Barron has concocted a delicious exploration of what could have happened to Virginia Woolf in the weeks between her disappearance and the day her body floated to the surface of the river Ouse. Part mystery, part a search for redemption, The White Garden will entrance readers from the moment they open it." - Tasha Alexander, author of And Only to Deceive
This information about The White Garden was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Stephanie Barron is the author of the standalone historical suspense novels A Flaw in the Blood and The White Garden, as well as the Jane Austen mystery series. As Francine Mathews, she is the author of several novels of espionage, including The Alibi Club. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
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