The lost garden - Helen Humphreys

It's Spring 1941 and London is being destroyed by the Blitz. Gwen Davis, a young horticulturalist, leaves the city for the Devon countryside. In charge of a troop of landgirls, her job is to rebuild the grounds of a neglected estate to grow food for the home front. The beautiful manor is far removed from the fighting but Gwen has her own battles - as she struggles with her shyness and fear of intimacy to create a community among her girls. Then Gwen meets two people who will change her life forever. Raley, a Canadian officer awaiting posting to the front with his men, and Jane, a frail, free spirit whose fiance is missing in action. Through them, and the beautiful 'lost' garden that she stumbles upon, she finds a flowering of a different sort - her own profound capacity for love, even in the face of pain. As the harsh realities of war start to intrude, Gwen finds herself swept up into a world of passion and feeling that she never imagined. Through Raley and Jane, she comes at last to understand the unbelievable joy and unbearable risks of love. THE LOST GARDEN is a triumph of storytelling, a novel so delicately wrought, so exquisite in its rendering of loss that it takes your breath - and your heart - away.