I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley. I had no idea what it was about, but I love historical fiction so I decided to give a try. I am very glad that I did. This is a beautifully written story about a garden and the women that are linked by its history.

The novel begins from the perspective of Emma, a woman who is hired to restore a garden at an estate in England. The garden was created by a famous garden designer from the early 1900's, Venetia Smith. As Emma restores the garden, the book flashes back to 1907 and 1944 and tells the story of three other women with connections to the garden, including Venetia. Through their perspectives we learn about not only the garden but the time period and social climate of the past.

All of the women from the past in this book have hopes and dreams that are limited by their gender, but they persevere to make a life that will bring them joy. There are instances of love, family obligations, motherhood, marriage, war, and more. Each woman has strength in her own way. I enjoyed their stories. It was interesting too to see how their different stories all came to be connected in the end.

The details of the garden itself and all the different kinds of plants and flowers was a bit boring to me. I am not really into gardens, so I just wasn't interested in that aspect of the story. However, for a reader that is fascinated by gardens, this will prove to be a positive quality of this book.

Overall, I would say that this book delivers what is usually desired in a historical fiction. It has multiple points of view across different time periods. The characters are strong and survive through difficult times. The historical context offers the reader a learning experience about the time and culture. I would definitely recommend it to fans of the genre.

Thank you to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.

Well, it's official. I'll read anything that Julia Kelly writes. I have thoroughly enjoyed every book that I've read of hers (Whispers of War & The Light Over London) and The Last Garden in England was no exception.

Her writing is compulsively readable - I did not want to set the book down and felt myself almost being carried from chapter to chapter. It's difficult to explain, but her writing is just so dang soothing.

I am a fan of dual timelines, and when done well the introduction of a third timeline is a welcome addition for me (I know this isn't the case for everyone!). I would say that Kelly wrote the timelines well, and the chapters work well with one another. I generally prefer one timeline over the other(s), but in this novel I found myself genuinely enjoying certain aspects of all three timelines to the point that I don't know if I could choose.

The garden design in the 1907 timeline was so interesting - and the descriptions! I couldn't get enough. The relationships in the WWII stood out more than anything else, and the romance in the present day timeline (plus the solving of the mystery!) was so well done.

Overall, I highly recommend this novel to readers of Historical Fiction!

The storyline switches from 1907 where we meet Venetia Smith, a young artist hired to design the gardens at Highbury House for wealthy and far less talented businessmen; switching to 1944. Three very unlikely women are drawn together for very different reasons. Beth Pedley is desperate to find a place all her own, Stella Adderton wants to flee the constraints of Highbury House for her own personal reasons and Diana Symonds is dealing with her personal home being turned into a hospital.
Enter Emma Lovett at present day, hired to restore the lush once beautiful gardens of Highbury House. As she delves further into the history of the gardens she comes across mystery and secrets that were meant to be forgotten.
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my review.

A three generation timeline. Set in England in the times of great estate gardens at the great estate houses. This story follows one such garden for a period of 100 years. Having always wondered how the estate gardens evolved, and knowing they were prestige pieces for the owners, it behooved the owners to invest heavily in their design and execution. To many of the owners, the gardens were not a place to become havens and shelters and happy places, but only to serve as show pieces. The story follows the original designer, the movement toward WWII, when many of the gardens were torn up to be planted to vegetables to feed the population of England, to the present-day owners who want the garden restored to its original beauty and design. We find, as the story progresses, that the three women who are the main characters, all have ties that have bound them together over the years.
Although the garden was the focus of the story, it was more a story of love and loss---and women's emotional ties to the world around them, and the people who crossed their paths.

I loved this story! I wanted to finish it to see what happens but I never wanted it to end! Featuring multiple timelines, the story is not hard to follow as it has a central theme. Ms. Kelly does a magnificent job of creating beautiful imagery. As a reader, I could feel myself being drawn into the story. I could almost smell the flowers, with their vivid colors showing. I could feel my sigh of relief when a situation was resolved, even if it was not initially what I had hoped or expected to happen. Ms. Kelly has an amazing gift for weaving such a beautiful story.

I highly recommend this story for those who love historical fiction and unexpected happily ever afters!

This is a beautiful and historically set story. The plot and characters are complicated and full of depth. The story is written in a beautifully visual way. I found myself immersed in the world of the old and new and honestly really enjoyed this book.

Any gardener will tell you their garden is alive and has it's own character. Julia Kelly developed a story around the life of a garden and the people who care for it. This will strike a chord in the hearts of many, those who garden and those who love gardens as a place of peace and renewal. The life stories of these five women are connected by a garden through history and three separate timelines.
In 1907, the commission to design and create the garden at Highbury House has been awarded to Venetia Smith, a highly regarded woman in a field dominated by men. She will pour her heart into this garden and along the way will plant more than seeds and bushes in the British soil.
In the present day, Emma Lovett has been commissioned to bring the Highbury House gardens to their former splendor. Having survived two World Wars and many, many years of neglect, the gardens hold the secrets of years. Emma's efforts will be overwhelming until she finds documents and drawings from Smith's original designs. She will run into a literal wall when her attentions turn to the Winter Garden. This will lead her to.....
1940's war torn England will need every garden available to feed her weary populace. Flowers may be beautiful, but they won't fill a child's belly. As the mistress of Highbury House, Diana Symonds has already turned sections of her home into a safe place for convalescing soldiers. Now she must decide how best to use the rest of her home's assets to care for the people who count on her.
The garden has seen so much of history and now it will share the stories that have been sown into the very soil. A wonderful story, rich with real characters and their love of a place and it's history.

This book has 3 time periods to keep track of. There are strong female characters and a romance within the story. The historical components and how the time periods interwind with each other are nicely done.

3 timelines in this wonderful story about an estate in England. 1907, 1944 and present day are all represented. In 1907 Veneita Smith is hired at5 Highberry house to make the gardens beautiful. A different era for sure. 1944: When land girl Beth Pedley arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury, all she wants is to find a place she can call home. Cook Stella Adderton, on the other hand, is desperate to leave Highbury House to pursue her own dreams. And widow Diana Symonds, the mistress of the grand house, is anxiously trying to cling to her pre-war life now that her home has been requisitioned and transformed into a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. Then in present day Emma Lovett, who has dedicated her career to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens, has just been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to restore the gardens of the famed Highbury House estate, designed in 1907 by her hero Venetia Smith. But as Emma dives deeper into the gardens’ past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long lain hidden. The timelines transition perfectly and the story is one that you can't put down. The timelines really show how life changed from WWI to WW2 and today. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I enjoyed the gardening aspect but I am tired of multiple narratives only to tie together in the end - just too overdone in many books these days.

There is too much going on, too many characters and their storylines to really sink my teeth into and enjoy. Once you start to get involved in one character and their story, you’re ripped away and taken into another which is distracting and interrupting.

I did find the gardening aspect enjoyable and I wish it delved deeper.

Nice story just not captivating enough for me and it felt like every other book out there. Beach read for sure.

Three timelines, each with a strong woman at the center, and all happening in a grand garden. Add the individual romantic interests to build an engrossing story.

The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly follows a tried and true approach of telling a story through different timelines and different characters with one unifying theme that carries through. All three stories are interesting and compelling in their own way as each focuses on a different central issue. As someone interested in plants and gardens, I find the the theme of the garden also fascinating.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2021/02/the-last-garden-in-england.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

Julia Kelly’s The Last Garden in England was a terrific read. It has everything I love: England as the setting, historical details and great characters with a little romance as well. With the house as the anchor, 3 stories are connected throughout the years. I also enjoy gardening, and while I could never get to the level of the designers in the book, it certainly was fun to read about. I rarely read books for adults (being a PreK-2 Librarian), but this one was well worth reading!

The common thread in five women’s lives are the gardens of Highbury House in England. It takes place over four seasons at different periods of time (1907, 1944 and the present day). Venetia Smith is the designer of the gardens. She is a woman ahead of her time, but her progressive nature has repercussions that change the course of her life. In 1944, the lives of Beth, Stella, and Diana intertwine in unexpected ways. They are all of different stations, yet are bonded by the gardens. Emma Lovell is restoring the gardens in the present day. Will she discover the secrets they hold, while at the same time opening up herself to love?
I always enjoy books that take place in different time periods but whose characters are somehow related, whether by blood or circumstance. It is enjoyable to see how they are intertwined across time. I did not feel as much satisfaction with the connections of the characters in the different time periods in this novel. The gardens are what connected them, but I didn’t feel like that connection was strong enough. I would have liked more descriptions of the gardens in each season. There were too many main characters. It wasn’t confusing, but I didn’t feel a great connection to any of them because they weren’t explored deeply enough. I didn’t particularly like Diana or Stella. This is part mystery, part love story, part garden book, part war story. A lot going on with little depth.
This was overall an entertaining book that brought me to the gardens of a manor house in England and taught me a bit about how those estates were used during World War II.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advanced digital edition of this book.

In my next life I want to come back as a wealthy English noblewoman and spend my days promenading, taking tea and reading in one of my meticulously kept gardens on the sprawling country estate owned by my family for generations. Yes, I think that will do just splendidly...😜

I so wanted to give this book more stars as there were elements I really enjoyed...the beautiful writing, the garden descriptions and a few of the characters.
BUT...
Like many current novels, this one employs the tried-and-true (read: overused) device of multiple narratives, from different time periods that only come together at the end. As the title betrays, there is a mystery surrounding a particular garden. However, it’s set up clumsily. The mystery, if you can call it that, was not particularly gripping nor intriguing. Additionally, the characters stress and ponder over ridiculous things that feel forced (IMO). It’s a good story but it’s essentially duplicated 3x in 3 different time periods. I would’ve loved to see more diversity between the lives of the women.

In sum: this book was mostly entertaining, but the book flap promised a "poignant" and "unforgettable” story...I found it to be neither.

Note: Maybe my lackluster view is due to the fact that I’m not a gardening enthusiast? (Although I loved “The Language of Flowers,” which is all about flowers) It also could’ve been because I read this during the recent Arctic Storm in Texas with no power and no water and children climbing all over me.

Did anyone else read this and love it?

One of my favorite genres, The Last Garden in England captivated me throughout all three time frames. Venetia, a master garden designer ahead of the times plans a series of gardens for an estate in 1907. The descriptions of these beautiful gardens made them come alive for me and I so wished I could have seen other the gardens and the roses that Matthew created. Venetia was a strong woman who endured much pain and heartbreak while living at Highbury House.
Beth is a land girl who is working near Highbury House which has been requisitioned and is being used as a hospital for wounded soldiers in 1944. She, Stella and Diana try to preserve the gardens which are threatened. The thread of Bobby and Robin will long remain with me.
Emma has been hired to recreate the overgrown gardens at Highbury House and has long been a fan of Venetia. Her investigative skills uncover secrets of the garden and those who have loved it.
The three stories are interwoven with such finesse and the separate stories emerge as they entwine. So loved all the romances and parallels between the characters. Even the minor characters are seemingly brought to life. The Winter Garden - such a depressing place. Also loved Julia’s author’s note at the end. I also appreciated all the opportunities to learn more about life in rural England during the early 1900’s and during the war. I am a new fan of Julia Kelly. Many many thanks to Julia Kelly, Gallery Books, and NetGalley for affording me the pleasure of reading an arc of this captivating read.

** spoiler alert ** I have thoroughly enjoyed Julia Kelly's previous two books so I was excited to receive an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Gallery Books.

This is a story based on a fictional garden with a three timelines and three POV. I will admit at first I found this confusing. There are so many characters in each timeline that I had trouble keeping everyone straight especially the supporting characters. But I finally was able to make sense of everyone.

Kelly did a fantastic job in her description of the garden and the setting. I felt like I could see the various parts and would have loved a walk through to see it for myself.

I will say that I did get a bit teary towards the end about Dianna and Bobby. Be still my heart. I did struggle some with Stella's decision just for the fact that it felt like she was trading Bobby for a new life.

This was a completely slow burn book for me. I am glad that I stuck with it. I really did enjoy it and the last 1/3 of the book tied everything together well. Once again, Julia Kelly wrote a solid story that I found fascinating and informational.

This book is a gorgeous love letter to gardens and to the pieces of the soul that find their way into the soil over generations of cultivation and care. It follows three generations of women who touched, or were touched by a stately garden-- its designer, its WW2-era custodians, and its modern restorers--giving each distinct and compelling voices. The result is, as a garden, individually intriguing specimen made even more beautiful by the parts the contribute to the whole. I adore Julia Kelly's prose: how she balances both lyricism and accessibility deftly. As a reader I am drawn in exactly where I am and yet elevated to somewhere magical.

One garden, 3 women spanning decades , and one important link. I loved this sweet book. It‘s a story of love, loss, determination, and joy. No earth shattering events but a nice tale. Beautiful language and women taking charge of their own happily ever afters.

I was impressed with how all the stories were interwoven. A great work of historical fiction. It easy to forget that even 50 years ago women didn't have the same freedom and rights to make with their bodies and work as they do now. To see how they persevered during the World Wars and after was an amazing work of literature.