The China Garden
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Clare is chilled by her mother's warnings to stay away from Ravensmere, but she knows she has to go there - it is not a choice but a compulsion. And she only intends to stay a few weeks anyway, just until she goes to university in the autumn.
Ravensmere is a strange, enchanting place, but Clare grows increasingly disturbed. How come the local villagers appear to know her? Why is she having odd visions? And who is the attractive, leather-clad stranger who is watching her? What is the power of the Benison and why must she visit the China Garden in the middle of the night?
Ravensmere casts a magical spell, drawing her into a mystery that stretches back over thousands of years. Clare knows that Ravensmere and the valley are in danger and that time is running out - but will she risk her future to save it?
The China Garden is a haunting novel of an ancient legend, family secrets and young love. Liz Berry, author of Easy Connections, Easy Freedom and Mel, is at her most readable here, in a heady mixture of romance and mystery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a jewel box with hidden drawers and compartments, this finely crafted, multilayered novel holds many secrets. Early on, events unfold at a leisurely pace at Ravensmere, an old English country estate where 17-year-old Clare intends to unwind for a few weeks before entering university. But questions and curiosities begin to accumulate, drawing the reader inexorably into a whirling mix of disparate, even outlandish elements-this is at once a ghost story, a romance and a coming-of-age drama, with psychic phenomena as well as historical and even ecological themes. In Berry's (Easy Connections) skilled hands, however, these motifs fall satisfyingly into place, piece by piece. The villagers seem to have anticipated Clare's arrival, and there is repeated, cryptic mention of the "Guardians" of the "Benison," an ancient treasure whose nature-the novel's deepest, most compelling secret-is not revealed until the final chapters. Only then does Clare learn the startling truth about her connection to Ravensmere and her strange, supernatural role in preserving its future. Berry builds a setting and atmosphere richly laden with mystery and suspense, in which the ordinary often masks unexpected interconnections and the extraordinary is natural to the story's wildly imagined terrain. Ages 14-up.
