I loved this. The heroine is such a great, nuanced character - I really enjoyed all her family relationships and her work, and I was rooting for her. This was such an enjoyable summer read. It made me want to get out in the garden, but unfortunately, I was far too busy reading to manage that!

This is a lovely book— a low-stress, opposites attract contemporary romance in a beautiful English setting. The romantic leads are Sam, a left-leaning garden designer who’s struggling to keep her business afloat, and widower Jonas, a wealthy, conservative, workaholic property developer who’s on forced sick leave. Sam is commissioned by Magda, Jonas’s match-making teenage daughter, to revamp the garden of Jonas’s recently acquired country house and (with luck) revitalize Jonas too. High jinks ensue. Rural Derbyshire is beautiful. It’s a place where community is strong and people tend to be blunt but warm-hearted. The Garden Plot captures this vibe, and the rhythm of the Derbyshire dialect, perfectly. There’s a wide cast of characters and they’re fun to read. Jonas and Sam are both entrepreneurs. He’s head of a billion-pound company, she’s running on a shoestring, but they think alike, which made me believe in their romance. I also lapped up the garden and plant descriptions, because Sam is so passionate about her work. The conflict arises around a property development. Sam is vehemently and overtly against it. Jonas is involved but keeps his role secret. The revelation causes the inevitable black moment, but the fallout and reconciliation are handled with intelligence, honesty, and maturity. The thing that I liked most was that the characters screwed up but were adult enough to admit to their mistakes and try to learn from them. That’s probably more of a fairy tale than a billionaire romance, but I loved it. If we read fiction to figure out how to deal with the real world, we could use more stories like this. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I’m looking forward to Love in a Mist.