`Prue Leith was not just born to cook...She was also born to
write.'

`Prue Leith, as well as being a brilliant cook and businesswomen,
is also a highly accomplished novelist. This is an engaging and
well-crafted tale.'

`Prue Leith writes about gardens with the knowledge born of real
love for the subject, and this gives the story an extra dimension; so those
who enjoy both gardening and romance will find it the ideal novel to take
on holiday.'

'A deeply satisfying read about a middle-aged woman who takes on a neglected garden in Oxfordshire and about the garden she finds and saves.' Highly recommended.

'Under the bracken, under the soil, under the forest, under the water, the garden's history is there. It needs an ardent lover to find it.' Lotte is in unfamiliar territory. After a painful divorce and a great deal of soul-searching, she's abandoned her successful career as an architect for a degree in Garden History, and uprooted her three children to take a job as Head Gardener to millionaire Brody Keegan. Brody is as ignorant about gardens as Lotte is knowledgeable, his tastes as loud as hers are quiet. The things they have in common are a passion for Maddon Park and a determination to get their own way. As Lotte locks horns with her boss and his spoilt young wife, she finds herself on an emotional rollercoaster. She knows what is right for the garden, but - still raw from divorce, anxious about the children and frightened of entanglement - she has no idea what is right for her.

I loved writing this book, though it took me three years. Mainly because it was an excuse to explore the potting sheds and compost heaps of much grander gardens than mine, and to dig into old archives looking at estate maps and gardeners' logs.

But also because I fell in love with my heroine Lotte, whom I had originally imagined as a rather buttoned-up academic divorcee with her emotions deep under wraps, and found she emerged as a feisty woman who falls passionately in love with her sexy, driving, but uneducated and frankly, bullying, boss.

Her dilemma (does she do what's right by the children or right by her?) is age-old, but there were other themes that gradually took me over, such as: Whose garden is it anyway? The legal owner who pays for everything and comes down at weekends and notices that the delphiniums have not been staked, or the gardener who works in it 40 hours a week and knows every blade of grass, and has lovingly
pricked out the cabbages, weeded the lawn, fed the roses, pruned the apple trees, and been there, rain and shine, cold and blistering sun?

And then there was the question of taste: Brody is essentially vulgar, but he's generous and fun, and his business drive and risktaking is what makes the world go round. Lotte has posh tastes: classic, subdued, careful, never vulgar. Is the garden to be a plantswoman's design of drifts and sculptural shapes, or Brody's vibrant mix of shouting colour and fountains to rival Versailles?

Much of Maddon Park's garden is a blown-up version of mine. Our lake is not much more than a pond, with the Chinese pagoda on the island made of fibre-glass, and the Chinese bridge designed by my husband and built by the local builder, whereas Maddon's lakes are vast and the Chinese Island has boathouse and teagarden; my old roses probably number a dozen while Maddon's would qualify for the National collection; my veg garden is a few hundred square metres, Maddon's walled garden covers several acres.

But my garden was my inspiration, and a lot of what happens to Lotte happened, usually on a much smaller scale, to me. I made a sort of memorial path to an ancient copper beech that had come down in a storm by slicing its great trunk into 6" think rounds and laying them to form a winding path - not a success: I laid them when the wood was green and they rotted. But by the time I had Lotte doing the same thing with her Dad, I'd learnt about seasoning the wood, so they got it right.

And I once poisoned a rose by muddling up pesticide with herbicide in a sprayer. In The Garden, Lotte, overworked and exhausted, makes a similar mistake with truly horrific, grand-scale consequences.

Of all my novels, this is the one I felt most deeply involved in. Lotte and Brody lived in my head more than real people I think. Which is odd since I am only an amateur gardener and both my previous books were about people with jobs I'd had: Leaving Patrick is about a restaurateur, and Sisters is about a party caterer, both of whose trades I know backwards. But it is the gardener, Lotte, that I felt, and still feel, most close to.

I think my next book will be about a pianist. And that will REALLY tax me. I cannot read music, have had no musical education, and cannot sing a note! But I'll have fun researching all that, that's for sure.

'Explores mature relationships, moral choices and the rebirth of a garden.' The Lady

Prue Leith was born in South Africa, but has lived most of her
working life in London, where she has held Cookery Editor or Food Columnist
jobs for The Daily Mail, The Sunday Express, The Guardian and The Mirror.
She has also been a restaurateur, caterer, telly-cook and broadcaster, and
has written many cookbooks. Prue Leith has written three novels: Leaving
Patrick, Sisters and The Gardener.

2008-01-18 Gardening and Romance

Charlotte Warren, known as Lotte, divorced mother of three, architect, garden historian and horticulturist is the protagonist of The Gardener.

The novel follows Lott's growing passion and obsession with Maddon Park after she takes the post of Head Gardener there. Working for the millionaire Brody Keegan and his spoilt young model wife Amber, she finds herself on an emotional rollercoaster. Brody is ignorant but passionate about the gardens; Amber however is so uninterested that she thinks `Who needs a vegetable garden with Waitrose six miles away.'

The history of Maddon Park and gardens makes this novel more than just another love story and I found the historical gardens aspect fascinating. I love gardens and gardening and always enjoy visiting places similar to Maddon Park.
I did feel at one point though that maybe Prue Leith was struggling to keep to the plot and tie everything together. For example about two thirds of the way through there is an episode concerning Annie, Lotte's eldest, a motorbike and a helicopter! I have been unable to understand the relevance of this episode and wonder if it was just padding, or did I miss the point?

I would certainly recommend this to any gardening enthusiast as that aspect is well written and interesting, though the love story intertwined is rather predictable. A good mixture of gardening and romance.