The French Gardener

Prepare to be “spellbound by the sheer charm” (Daily Express uK) of santa montefiore’s tender and powerful new novel about marriage, passion, loss, renewal, and the healing power of love.

A magical garden. A cottage that holds a secret. A mysterious Frenchman (handsome, naturally). A family in need of some love. These story elements are irresistibly entwined in this heartwarming novel by the author reviewers consistently compare to Maeve Binchy (Booklist) and Rosamunde Pilcher (Daily Mail UK). It begins as Miranda and David move out of London into a beautiful country house with a magical garden. But reality turns out to be very different from their bucolic dream. Soon the latent unhappiness in the family begins to come to the surface, isolating each family member in a bubble of resentment and loneliness. Then a mysterious Frenchman arrives on their doorstep. With the wisdom of nature, he slowly begins to heal the past and the present. But who is he? When Miranda discovers his secret in the cottage by the garden, the whole family learns that a garden, like love itself, can restore the human spirit, not just season after season, but generation after generation. Wise and winsome, poignant and powerfully moving, The French Gardener combines the savvy of contemporary women’s fiction with an old fashioned sensibility steeped in the importance of family and the magical power of love.

"Montefiore's well-crafted, evocative novel is instantly sensual and welcoming. When Miranda Claybourne's seven-year-old is expelled from school, the stylish Londoner, magazine writer and mother of two, ditches her posh Notting Hill digs for the idylls of a country estate. But her simple-life fantasies soon fail. Her husband's preoccupied with his job and his mistress; the kids lash out at each other while Gus, the elder, terrorizes both farm animals and his new classmates. Enter Jean-Paul, a handsome, mysterious Frenchman with an offer to tend her woefully neglected gardens. Cleaning out the estate's rundown cottage for Jean-Paul, she discovers the secret journals of the previous lady of the house — a brilliant gardener, Ava Lightly, and her love affair. As if by magic, Miranda's garden begins to thrive and she owes it all to Jean-Paul, with whom she thinks she's falling in love. The drama of the journals distract from her own failing marriage, and Miranda delights in the idea that her life is running parallel to Ava's — it's a lovely coincidence, until she stops to consider exactly what may have drawn Jean-Paul into her garden. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Wise and winsome, poignant and powerfully moving, "The French Gardener" combines the savvy of contemporary women's fiction with an old fashioned sensibility steeped in the importance of family and the magical power of love.

Santa Montefiore's novels have been translated into twenty languages and have sold more than three million copies in Europe.  She studied Spanish and Italian at Exeter University.  She lives in London with her husband, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, and their two children.