The White Garden

August 10, 2009
Barron, a pseudonym for thriller writer Francine Mathews, puts her talents for suspense to good use examining the death of Virginia Woolf from the vantage point of present-day England. The story begins when American Jo Bellamy sets out to study the White Garden at the estate of Virginia Woolf's lover, working for Long Island clients who want to recreate it. Her mission also has a personal component: figuring out why Jo's beloved grandfather, who worked at the garden as a youth, killed himself. After the head gardener passes Jo a journal he found in the tool shed, which may be Woolf's work, Jo embarks upon a wild tour of Woolf's old stomping grounds, tracking down answers and missing pages. While leaning on convenient stereotypes—the headstrong but clueless American; the femme fatale (with eyes like “liquid pools”); stuffy Brits—Barron invests the text with a quick pace and an absorbing plot, making this a dynamic thriller with a well-tempered literary fixation.

August 1, 2009
In her latest offering, Barron, the author of nine popular Jane Austen mysteries, turns her attention to another female literary iconVirginia Woolf. As the novel opens, American gardening guru Jo Bellamy arrives in England to study Sissinghursts famous White Garden, the brainchild of writer Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson. (A wealthy New York businessman hired Jo to re-create the blooming wonder at his estate). But Jo cant leave past woes behind, namely the tragic suicide of her grandfather, Jock. She soon discovers that Jock once tended to the very soil upon which she stands, and a notebook she finds on the property even mentions him by name. Dead-set on determining its authenticity (Could it have been written by Sackville-Wests one-time lover, Virginia Woolf?), Jo teams up with a debonair Sothebys executive, who has an agenda of his own. The two embark on an adventure that takes them to Rodwell, site of the country residence where Woolf reportedly drowned. While Barrons novel has an intriguing premise and will certainly attract literary mystery fans, some readers may become frustrated by the plots belabored pace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)