Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Bette and Nina Crowdie have never been close – the ten-year age difference doesn’t help, and Bette’s rarely been home since she left for university at eighteen. When their father passes away and unexpectedly splits the family farm between them, Nina is furious and afraid. She’s been working at the farm for the past five years. It’s the only home her young son, Barnaby, has ever had, and she’s convinced that Bette will sell at the first chance she gets.
When they discover the huge debt their father has been hiding, Bette reluctantly agrees to help her sister. But that means they have to find a way to work together, and Bette must face up to the real reason she left all those years ago.
Could a long-forgotten diary and the discovery of a secret orchard on their land help save the farm – and the sisters’ relationship?
Many thanks to Simon and Schuster UK via NetGalley for my copy of The Secret Orchard to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Secret Orchard is the wonderful new novel from Sharon Gosling who is fast becoming a firm favourite author of mine. This is a story of family, specifically the relationship between sisters, but a tale also of secrets, love and second chances. Right from the first chapter, I became completely caught up in everything and found myself having read huge chunks of it in one go not noticing the chapters flying by. This is some feat considering my reading time has been curtailed recently and when I do get the opportunity to sit down and venture into a different world my attention span can be all over the place. But here there was a lovely relaxed and gentle feel to the storytelling with the most beautiful and vivid descriptions of the Scottish countryside and coastline that made me feel quite at home in the story. The land and the coastline play a significant role in the overall plot and as mentioned in the title the secret orchard becomes a focal point for a family in trouble but will it be the one thing that brings them back together?
Nina has spent five years living with her father Bern and young son Barney or Best Barnaby Barnacle as he would rather be known. This superhero persona is not just the innocence of a young boy thinking he can save the world as it will go on to have a very important role much later on in the book and boy did it work. Nina works their small dairy farm and when help is needed fellow farmer neighbour Cam steps in. The farm hasn’t been doing so well in recent years, but Nina is determined to keep everything going. But tragedy has struck with the loss of Bern and now with her distant sister Bette returning for the funeral things are about to change in a dramatic way. To say the relationship between Nina and Bette is strained would be an understatement.
Bette upped and left a long time. In her own words she says she scrambled away from it and has been doing so ever since. Visits are extremely rare as she has no longing to return to the farm. She much rather prefers her high flying job as a lawyer in the city and is just on the cusp of achieving a partnership in hr law firm. She is entrenched in work and loves every moment of it. It was all she had and everything to her. She doesn’t have a partner nor any significant friends outside of work and therefore she has dedicated everything to her career. It as evident from the first few chapters that the sister’s worlds couldn’t be further apart but would they ever be able to grow closer?
As Bette arrives for the funeral, she receives a lukewarm reception and you couldn’t blame Nina for this. For from her viewpoint she was abandoned at a time when sisters should be growing closer together and not creating a chasm that only widened with the years. Nina is happy and comfortable in the life she has established with Barney on the farm but now with the reading of Bern’s will and the revelations that ensue her security blanket is ripped from around her and any future she had planned seems uncertain to say the least. The two sisters have such opposing opinions and attitudes that it was impossible to figure out whether they could work together to save the farm considering the perilous financial situation that it faced. So much history and heritage was bound up in Nina’s love for it whereas Bette was coming at it from a more clinical and sensible stance.
Nina needed Bette and she didn’t realise how much and given there was a lot of mixed emotions flowing through her I understood how she couldn’t just change her attitude to Bette overnight. But at the same time, I could see that Bette was obviously running from something and had been for some time. The revelations around this when they came forth were surprising, but they made sense and I could see why the farm wasn’t a place where she could feel comfortable and at home. But yet family does always stand for something and deep down there was a little area in her heart that was melting and she knew Nina and Barney couldn’t end up homeless nor could something that has meant so much to her family for generations be lost without a fight.
Nina was clueless in what to do and I think if Bette hadn’t been there she would have buried her head in the sand hoping that the issues would somehow just miraculously go away. Bette has the knowledge and power to try and resolve the financial problems and save the farm and certainly some of her actions were selfless. When a change in her working situation arises it really sets the cat amongst the pigeons and I felt desperately sorry for her. She was trying to come up with solutions but there seemed to be so many obstacles thrown in her direction. Initially, she was like the ice maiden and you couldn’t get past the barriers she had installed around her but over the course of the main part of the book you slowly see her start to melt and the relationship she established with Barney was fabulous.
I loved how things weren’t so clear cut with herself and Nina. It wouldn’t have been realistic for the pair to run into each other’s arms, hug it out and let bygones be bygones. I enjoyed the tussle between them as they wrestled with conflicting emotions and that it wasn’t easy and they needed to realise working on personal things takes time and effort from both parties. Repairing a fractured relationship wouldn’t happen over night but forgiveness and understanding would have to come from both sides. Peace and understanding is challenging for the sisters to find but the discovery of the secret orchard of the title really got the story moving up another gear and if I wasn’t already enthralled by the story I certainly was now.I loved the historical element creeping in but also how important the discovery was in terms of how they could go about saving the farm and securing its future.
As the weeks passed, Bette seemed to become a new person. Yes, she retained some of her old qualities that were necessary in the corporate world but there was a softening of her. When she is forced to confront the past this too made me admire her even more. I do think in general I preferred Bette over Nina. I thinks she was better developed as a character and there were elements of myself that I could identify within her. The last quarter or so of the story was excellent and there were some dramatic moments which had me rapidly turning the pages. The connection back to The Lighthouse Bookshop, my absolute favourite book from this author was just brilliant and made me desperately want another book featuring those characters. It was just so nicely done and the perfect merging of the two stories. Of course, there had to be some romance and there was but to be honest I wasn’t that fussed about it. I was more interested in reading about the sisters relationship and whether the farm could be saved.
The Secret Orchard is another triumph from Sharon Gosling and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the time I spent reading it. It was a beautiful story very well written and perfect for curling up in the evening time as the nights draw in at this time of year. Overall, a lovely, genuine and heart-warming story that will satisfy many readers.
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