Pains Hill - Margaret Buntrock

This psychological thriller, set in both the eighteenth century and the1990s, is a fictional account of real-life Painshill Park, a romantic landscape garden in Surrey, England, which was a film location for the first season of Bridgerton, the Netflix TV series. The novel explores the extraordinary and ill-fated ambition of the garden's creator, Charles Hamilton, and imagines the mysterious life and death of his young first wife who has vanished without trace from all historical records.

Obsession takes many forms. In the eighteenth century, Charles Hamilton, a frustrated artist is determined to create a revolutionary landscape garden even though he has neither the land nor money to achieve his great dream. In the 1990s, Jane Brennan, a young history researcher, becomes obsessed by the mystery surrounding the life and death of Hamilton's young first wife, yet unknown to Jane, her own life is threatened by a different obsession from her past.

Charles Hamilton transformed poor scrubland into a dazzling three-dimensional work of art, including a man-made lake, islands, follies, a magical crystal grotto and a successful vineyard, but at what personal cost?

Two murders, a garden of tricks and fantasy that echo across the centuries, can the young history researcher uncover the truth before she too becomes a victim?

A gripping thriller but also a book that reveals the passions and cultural inspiration that created England's great landscape gardens.