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    The Forbidden Garden: A Novel
    The Forbidden Garden: A Novel
    The Forbidden Garden: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Forbidden Garden: A Novel

    Written by Ellen Herrick

    Narrated by Fiona Hardingham

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Sarah Jio, comes a lush imaginative novel that takes readers into the heart of a mysterious English country garden, waiting to spring to life.

    Every garden is a story, waiting to be told…

    At the nursery she runs with her sisters on the New England coast, Sorrel Sparrow has honed her rare gift for nurturing plants and flowers. Now that reputation, and a stroke of good timing, lands Sorrel an unexpected opportunity: reviving a long-dormant Shakespearean garden on an English country estate.

    Arriving at Kirkwood Hall, ancestral home of Sir Graham Kirkwood and his wife Stella, Sorrel is shocked by the desolate state of the walled garden. Generations have tried—and failed—to bring it back to glory. Sorrel senses heartbreak and betrayal here, perhaps even enchantment. Intrigued by the house’s history—especially the haunting tapestries that grace its walls—and increasingly drawn to Stella’s enigmatic brother, Sorrel sets to work. And though she knows her true home is across the sea with her sisters, instinct tells her that the English garden’s destiny is entwined with her own, if she can only unravel its secrets…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 4, 2017
    ISBN9780062660640
    Author

    Ellen Herrick

    Ellen Herrick was a publishing professional in New York City until she and her husband moved to London for a brief stint; they returned nearly twenty years later with three children (her own, it must be said). She now divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a small town on Cape Cod very much like Granite Point.

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    Reviews for The Forbidden Garden

    4/5

    81 ratings18 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is the second book from the author featuring her mystical, gardening sisters. In the first book, The Sparrow Sisters, the women were introduced and with this book the eldest surviving sister, Sorrel is featured. There was much trauma in the first book that leads to the actions in The Forbidden Garden. You can easily read this book without having read the first but as is usual with a continuing series, having done so will enhance the experience.Sorrel Sparrow has an uncanny ability with flowers. Her bouquets bring joy and her gardens are a joy to behold. There is no simple explanation for how she does what she does but her talents are sung far and wide. She does make some people nervous but she tries to not let it bother her. A man in England with a garden in desperate need of help learns of Sorrel and writes to her to come and bring his Shakespeare Garden back to life – his family history is dark and he fears that there is something evil that only a stranger can fix.Sorrel agrees and finds herself falling in love with England, the estate and a special someone – but can she trust any of it? Or is it just being out of her element and away from her sisters?I did enjoy this book. I really enjoyed The Sparrow Sisters and this sequel is also good – not as good in my opinion but still a good book. Ms. Herrick really brought both London and the English countryside to life for me as a reader. I wanted more history though – since the premise of the story was the evil in the garden and that evil was due to something that happened in the past I wanted (needed?) more of that part of the story. Maybe it’s my love of historical fiction and I’m in the minority here, I don’t know, but I feel that there was not enough. Other than that it was a good story with a bit of romance, a bit of magic and a touch of history. I do hope there will be further Sparrow Sisters books.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book. Truly amazing. I’d like to read it all over again.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written, beautifully read. I was sad to finish. Now i want to know whats happening with charecters in the book!,
    • 5/5
      Quite a different kind of story,for which, in my opinion, you need to be at least a little bit interested in nature and gardens. If you are it is a beautiful story, very well related, with mystery and romance as well as herbs and flowers. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      Unfortunately not nearly as good as the first book. Way too predictable and lacking detail and intrigue.
    • 3/5
      This was a fun read. Set in a somewhat magical England complete with a cursed garden, this novel traces a family seeking to recreate an old family garden and turning to an American gardener with some special abilities to make it happen. Of course, a romance and a centuries-old mystery quickly comes into play. Overall, this novel makes for fun, enjoyable reading with a magical twist.
    • 3/5
      Although I enjoyed the story and the writing, I have to admit that this book left me wanting quite a bit more. Maybe I would have felt some extra depth if I'd read the author's earlier work that involved this character (though I doubt it, given that this seemed fully stand-alone and mostly revolved around another place & set of characters), but as it was, I felt distanced from the characters and the story. As if they weren't quite real, and were more pictures or acting creations than real, thinking, feeling people. As a result, I never did really get emotionally involved in the story, and although the characters seemed to be feeling pressure and reacting to a high stakes situation... the read remained very casual, for me.What more did I want? Well, more connection, and more depth. As it was, it simply felt too easy, too delicate... too formed, maybe.All in all, I didn't dislike the read, but I'm rather glad to be moving on to something else, and I'm not sure I'd pick up another book by this author--certainly, I won't pick up another book featuring any of the Sparrows or the characters focused upon here. They were nice enough... but not quite real or interesting enough.
    • 4/5
      I have enjoyed reading this very much, as the topic and the locations hold dear to me. Gardens hold a special magic all their own and to be able to put the words together to tell their story is a special talent. As Hoffman, Morton, and Burnett have done, I will now be looking for more from Herrick. I love that Sorrel has been given the chance to work her magic. This book also shows the healing properties of working in the garden this wins a special place in my heart. I am going to read the first book and then re-read this one. It is great that there are books to read that just give us a calm clean feeling that we can take away to out own gardens where we can contemplate the book as we work. Good job to Ellen Herrick, I look forward to reading more books by this author.
    • 4/5
      This is the second book from the author featuring her mystical, gardening sisters. In the first book, The Sparrow Sisters, the women were introduced and with this book the eldest surviving sister, Sorrel is featured. There was much trauma in the first book that leads to the actions in The Forbidden Garden. You can easily read this book without having read the first but as is usual with a continuing series, having done so will enhance the experience.Sorrel Sparrow has an uncanny ability with flowers. Her bouquets bring joy and her gardens are a joy to behold. There is no simple explanation for how she does what she does but her talents are sung far and wide. She does make some people nervous but she tries to not let it bother her. A man in England with a garden in desperate need of help learns of Sorrel and writes to her to come and bring his Shakespeare Garden back to life – his family history is dark and he fears that there is something evil that only a stranger can fix.Sorrel agrees and finds herself falling in love with England, the estate and a special someone – but can she trust any of it? Or is it just being out of her element and away from her sisters?I did enjoy this book. I really enjoyed The Sparrow Sisters and this sequel is also good – not as good in my opinion but still a good book. Ms. Herrick really brought both London and the English countryside to life for me as a reader. I wanted more history though – since the premise of the story was the evil in the garden and that evil was due to something that happened in the past I wanted (needed?) more of that part of the story. Maybe it’s my love of historical fiction and I’m in the minority here, I don’t know, but I feel that there was not enough. Other than that it was a good story with a bit of romance, a bit of magic and a touch of history. I do hope there will be further Sparrow Sisters books.
    • 5/5
      It's the first day of spring. What a perfect time to finish reading a novel by Ellen Herrick titled "The Forbidden Garden." Sorrel Sparrow, one of four sister, goes to London. Her duty is to restore a Shakespearean Garden. While the family who own the garden have continued to grow and remain vibrant, the garden has been left to die.This is a second book in a series. The first book about the Sparrows is named "The Sparrow Sisters." Their last name is like a call to nature. Unfortunately, there is little information in "The Forbidden Garden" about the sisters. Just enough is given to wake up the curiosity. I especially worried about the death of one sister. I also began to wonder about how they were treated in their town. Often, women who have special abilities or talents are seriously thought of as witches. By the way, I don't feel a person has to read the first book. I thought of this as a stand alone because it focuses on Sorrel's magical gift.While Sorrel walked around Kirkwood Hall and the grounds and met the family, I wanted to stand in her shoes. Kirkwood Hall is full of mysteries: There are the tapestries. There is the diary. There is also a strain of cruelty which runs through the Kirkwood line. The English History of the tapestries seemed rather complicated. Would it have been possible for them to stand alone without the garden?This is a fairy tale saga about family, an English family. It's amazing what Sorrel discovers as she goes about her work. For example, there are very old bricks. They are as old as the Tudor Era. My archaeological toes began to tingle. I've never thought of the age of bricks.I could easily reread this novel again. It's definitely a keeper. Each time I pick it up there is new treasure to dig through and sort out. If only I had Wags, the dog, to follow me around. No matter, I easily could hear his steps on the floors.
    • 4/5
      The Forbidden Garden is the story of Sorrel Sparrow who travels to England to restore the garden of an English estate. The garden has had problems and no one seems to be able to make anything grow, but Sorrel is brought in to work her "magic" on the garden and winds up forming relationships with the various people she meets in England. I found the writing a little contrived (how many Americans who have never been to England have you heard calling something "a bit of alright"?) but it's well-enough written. The characters are likable for the most part and while it doesn't have a great deal of plot, the characters do keep you interested. It's a good light read.
    • 3/5
      Sorrel Sparrow leaves her sisters and business partners to go to Kirkwood Hall in England to bring a long-neglected Shakespeare Garden that is said to be cursed back to life. I missed the first installment in what appears to be a series featuring the sisters. This one mainly involves Sorrel and with mostly new characters present, keeping track of the characters and separating them from each other should not have presented problems. However, it did. I found myself confusing the various persons. I flipped to the front of the book, hoping this was one of those books with a "cast of characters" in the front, but it was not. While I enjoyed reading about the garden and what Sorrel was doing, I really felt the novel lacked a real plot. While the gardening aspects of the novel are very well done, the rest of it is not. The book was described as "Gothic" in some of the descriptions, but it fails to deliver in the same manner novels written in the heyday of the genre in the 1970s did. It simply did not produce the same types of tension. I received a copy of the book through Library Thing's Early Review program in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      Great fun to be able to catch up with The Sparrow Sisters again! Sorrel gets an unexpected job offer to help revive a old garden in an English country estate. I'm always tickled to immerse myself in a good, well-written Gothic novel which this felt like to me - I enoyed it.
    • 3/5
      I received this book as part of the LT early reviewer program and was initially quite excited to read it. I was hoping for something along the lines of Alice Hoffman, but what I got was... Yawn! Unfortunately, it took me forever to get through because it was so dull and slowly paced. While the intent of the plot was strong, the execution just wasn't there. By trying to engage different elements of magic without making it appear to be magic, it just became muddled and forced. Even the characters became caricatures of who they could have been if written a bit more subtly. All in all, just not my cup of tea.
    • 3/5
      What I liked about this book: It’s set in England. The descriptions of the country estate and the London museums were interesting to me. There is a mystery about the failing garden, something about a Kirkwood family curse. The idea if a mystery intrigued me. The descriptions of gardening and the ability to grow so many herbs, flowers and vegetables – how I wish I had that talent. The cover is colorful and invites you pick the book up for a quick look, especially if you are a sucker for a pretty book cover.There are passages about food throughout the book. Eggs with chives, Shepherd’s Pie, Roasted chicken with potatoes and veggies….. I prepared a Shepherd’s Pie as my representative dish. It’s the first meal Andrew prepared for Sorrel Sparrow.What I didn’t care for:Unbeknownst to me there was a previous book called The Sparrow Sisters. When I started reading The Forbidden Garden I felt like I was missing something, a backstory that wasn’t explained by the author. After looking online I saw there was a previous book. That would have fleshed out the characters more for me if I’d known and read it first. Mystery solved.This book was advertised as “Perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Sarah Jio, comes a lush imaginative novel that takes readers into the heart of a mysterious English country garden.” Well……..there is a garden in England and there is a bit of mystery but, not at all like Kate Morton in my opinion. That may come as a disappointment to some readers if they absolutely love Kate Morton, so I wanted to mention that. The mystery has more to do with enchantment….think about Alice Hoffman books instead.The allusion to magic had me shrug my shoulders – Meh. Witchcraft wasn’t mentioned but it’s hinted at as an innate magical and mystical ability within each of the Sparrow sisters as they handle the soil in the gardens and make potions.Predictable ending but that doesn’t always put me off a book. Sometimes you can figure it out and sometimes it’s obvious who the love interests and culprits will be.Overall a solid B rating for the writing and descriptive passages.*I won an advanced reader's copy of this book through LibraryThing.
    • 4/5
      The Forbidden Garden: A Novel by Ellen Herrick is a very sweet book. It does however, manage to remain in the light, airy and a little magical area of sweet, and not fall into saccharine area. The Sparrow sisters live in New England, in a little town on the coast. Together they run a little nursery in Granite Point, and are wise women in every sense of the word. They are also very devoted to one another. Before this story begins, they had survived a dreadful time. A time that had affected each of them, and stolen just a bit of their innocence. Nettie and Patience found their way through the difficult time, and each of them also found love. But Sparrow found her way through alone. She was thrilled by her sister's happiness, but perhaps a little wistful. But, when there is a little magic in the air (and in the garden) things can happen. Sometimes, these things change lives. Sparrow was invited, entreated, and practically begged to go to England to help the Kirkwood family reclaim an recalcitrant garden at their home in the English countryside, Kirkwood Hall. They had heard of Sparrow and her way with growing things from Graham Kirkwood's sister, who lived in Granite Point. So with the blessing and in fact enthusiastic support of her sisters, off she went. As it turns out, she finds some magic there, and perhaps something more?
    • 4/5
      Sorrel is one of the Sparrow sisters, a trio (once a quartet) of preternaturally gifted women who have a connection with plants. Their nursery in New England overflows with gorgeous plants that grow and bloom fast- that’s Sorrel’s realm. Another sister works with herbs and healing; the third can make any food related plant bear lushly. For this reason, Sorrel has come to the attention of a wealthy British manor owner. Kirkwood Hall has been renovated and made open to the public part time. All is lovely- except for one spot. The old Shakespeare garden lies in ruins, as it has for a couple of centuries. Within its walls, nothing grows. Sir Graham Kirkwood asks Sorrel to come over and make it right. Once she gets there, Sorrel finds a happy extended family. There is only one grim spot- Lady Kirkwood’s brother, Andrew. An Anglican priest on sabbatical, he’s recovering- poorly- from a broken heart. He provides the romance in this combination romance/mystery, as Sorrel and the Kirkwood’s try to not just make the Shakespeare garden beautiful again, but to find out *why* it’s lain fallow for so many decades. Then there is the legend that any Kirkwood entering the garden will fall ill and die… This is a pleasant enough story, with the extended family (that includes the head gardener, the inn keeper, and Lady Kirkwood’s brother) searching for clues while Sorrel designs and plants the garden. Basing it both on other Shakespeare gardens and glimpses of it in the tapestries, she creates a formal arrangement of parterres and knots that bursts into growth and bloom the minute she puts the plants in the ground. But things don’t work out easily; the garden’s curse is still alive. As a gardener and a foodie, I couldn’t help but love the descriptions in this story. Herrick brings to life the look, feel, and scent of the plants. The meals the family eats are described just as lushly as the plants; I was hungry most of the time reading this! The mystery was interesting, although it largely came down to people deliberately hiding information. But the book is not without its faults; this is the second book of I assume a series, and as such referred constantly to events of the first book. Those references took up far too much of the narrative, and it’s far too repetitious. Also, for a mystery, it’s not a very tense story- it dwells on the relationships too much to make us worry much. It’s like the book couldn’t decide if it was a mystery or a cozy woman’s story. Still, I’m going to find the first book and read it. Because plants.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely love this book. I had read The Sparrow Sisters and didn't realize that a sequel had been written. I enjoyed The Forbidden Garden more than The Sparrow Sisters book but it was also a good read.In this new book we have Sorrel Sparrow taking a job to restore a Shakespearean garden on an old country English estate. Others had tried to restore the garden but had not only failed but had gotten sick. So what's the mystery behind this garden that refuses to be revived? Generations of family history, a horrible act committed by one in the family and told in 6 hidden tapestries. I enjoyed getting to know the current owners of the estate. Watching Sorrel work her magic and falling in love. Other than the horrible incident at the root of the story, the book just made me feel good and I loved learning about all the plants and love poured into the garden. Just a really good read for me. It's a book I could and will read again.