In this The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore review, I’m going to say straightaway that I had very high expectations. I loved A Week in Paris and hoped for more of the same. I wasn’t disappointed. Rachel delivers another knockout book. Again, it goes between two time periods. This time modern day and a hundred years in the past.
The main character (Mel), has recently undergone a painful breakup. She’s a university lecturer on an imposed break to write about the past artists from nearby Lamorna Cove. The rented Cornish cottage sits in the grounds of a dilapidated hall with long neglected and overgrown grounds.
“She looked up a Merryn Hall and shivered. What had she expected to find? A pretty cottage nestling in the manicured grounds of a small country mansion? A warm welcome, old-fashioned county hospitality? In his letter, Patrick had prepared her for something a bit crumbly, but not this … It was the desertedness and the air of, yes, of lurking menace, that bothered her.”
Between researching and writing, exploring and recovering from a broken heart, Mel begins to uncover the garden. And in doing so, she develops a relationship with the hall’s new owner, Patrick. As the garden is revealed, something more than friendship blossoms. However, it isn’t straightforward as he has also recently become single and is still reeling from the breakup.
Running parallel to modern-day events, are those from a hundred years ago. They centre on a recently arrived eighteen-year old maid, Pearl Treglown.
“There she sat clutching a parcel of books and a shabby holdall containing the rest of her worldly goods, wedged in by serval empty baskets and a large slatted crate from Penzance market in which clattered several angry crabs and two lobsters. She was, Adeline had told her, to travel the few miles from Newlyn to Lamorna to be a housemaid at Merryn Hall, where Aunt Dolly was cook, Further than Pearl had ever travelled in her life before.”
The writing is wonderfully evocative with its two timelines cleverly tied together. In The Memory Garden, you get a strong sense of Cornwall, its people, landscape and rich history. You can clearly picture being there.
I thoroughly enjoyed this lovely novel as it transports you between two distinct time periods. But it isn’t all happy, happy. The story and the characters are realistic. It explores what we go through with breakups, the nervousness of entering into new ones and our fear of rejection. If you want a thoroughly enjoyable story that conjures up richly descriptive places chose this book. I highly recommend The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore and I’ll certainly be reading more from this talented author.