A fresh start starts with a fresh garden

Synopsis

Rosie Steadman needs a new start. It’s over a year since her husband died, and there must be more to life than her job in retail. When she spots an advert to rent a garden, it feels like the perfect project.

Media celebrity Connor Forbes is currently lying low in his brother’s flat after a public break-up and, with job prospects drying up, finding someone to look after the overgrown garden is the least of his problems. 

For both Rosie and Connor, it’s a strictly business arrangement. But can they keep it that way? 

As Rosie gets to know the man beneath the tarnished image, she finds it harder to resist his charms, but she’s been hurt before and Connor has a reputation – can this really be a second chance at love?

My review

It’s been a year since Rosie Steadman became a widow. And she cannot really say that she has moved on after losing her husband. But now the time has come to start again. And when she sees an advert of a garden being rented out, she sees this as a sign. Not that she green fingers, but somehow the advert allures her and she cannot wait to get her hands dirty. What Rosie doesn’t know is that she is renting the garden from Connor Forbes. Connor is hiding away in his brother’s flat, after a very public break – up causing also his television job drying up. And while his neighbours are complaining about the overgrown garden, he couldn’t care less. So when Rosie agrees to look after the garden, that is at least one thing less on his worry – list. While things start off strictly business, slowly Rosie and Connor get to know each other and slowly become friends, helping each other out. However, when opportunities arise, can Rosie find the courage to open up her heart again, or will Connor live up to his reputation?

There are plenty of books in the world about starting all over again. There are even plenty of stories where one of the main characters has lost a partner and find it difficult to move on. And yes, there are some tropes, when you have read of them, you have read all of them. But luckily for us, this book isn’t that kind of book! 😊

Being single myself, and not having had to cope yet with a great loss in my life (or at least where I was old enough to comprehend it), I can only try to understand how Rosie felt and is still feeling at the start of the book.

When you are married, life is filled with compromising. There are obviously moments where you don’t get along, but you have to add some water to your wine. But I felt really early on, that in her marriage, it was especially Rosie adding water, wanting to please her husband.

And that made me not only feel sad for her, but also made me understand better just how much at loss she is.

I don’t know if I would react on an advert to look after a garden, and no, it isn’t because I am anything but a person with green fingers 😊 But more because I would be too wary reading that add and I would believe that it would be a crazy person who put that advert there.

Crazy is not how I would describe Connor, but a tormented man, a hurt man, a man in hiding. And he for sure isn’t scoring any points in his initial behaviour. No matter what you have ben through, it doesn’t cost a thing being kind to others, doesn’t it?

But I also have to admit, the way he has been painted as a bad guy, and how easily people just put him aside, it angered me. Yes, perhaps Connor didn’t see and understand what was happening, and he could have been more perceptive, but that doesn’t mean that what has happened to him is fair in any way. So yes, I could understand him hiding away, keeping to himself.

Rosie needs a nudge to start again, and Connor is the way. Of course things don’t start off great between them. I would even dare to say it starts rather hostile. The contrast between the pair of them couldn’t be bigger. Where Rosie is a little ray of sunshine, even happy to meet Connor’s neighbours, Connor is a dark cloud, even feared by others.

However, Rosie’s kindness doesn’t let her reciprocate Connor’s behaviour, even if Rosie truly does want to. In fact, when Connor needs it the most, it is Rosie who helps him. And it is there that we see a shift, a change in their strained relationship.

A change that they both need, to move on. Having each other in their lives and not only in a business matter, is what they both need. With each other in each other’s lives, the dark clouds are slowly disappearing, and I could feel a lightness in my heart myself seeing how their own confidence starts to grow, how they elevate each other.

While I truly melted seeing how the relationship evolves between Rosie and Connor, what warmed my heart was seeing Connor also opening up towards others, showing his real character and not just affirming what people assume of him.

But while things are going great, we also see that humans are still humans, and miscommunications happen, wrong decisions and choices are being made. And while as a reader, that can be frustrating, it adds a real level of humanity, realness to the characters.

What starts as a perhaps strange advert, shows us the healing powers of tending a garden. You never know what people you may encounter in the strangest ways, but that can be the catalyst of beginning all over again. It can give you courage, strength, and even make you understand better the past and how not to make the same mistakes again.

Linda Corbett wrote not only a beautiful story, but also a strong one. She shows us that no matter what happened in the past, we can always start again.