I might not have to be away from home as much, but that doesn't mean that I haven't booked up every free minute. Ever crazier is that June, which was supposed to be a slower month has already filled up, too. The end of the month has been littered with a slew of weddings and holiday barbecues and other such social occasions that have had me driving all over the state. Perhaps even crazier than I had anticipated. I knew this month was going to be crazy, and it has been. A happy camper with a growing pile of books to review, but a happy camper nonetheless.

My car is littered with old MapQuest directions, my odometer is cruising toward the 200,000 mile mark with unprecedented speed, and I am a happy camper. I think I'm through being a vagrant for at least the next few minutes. 'About this title' may belong to another edition of this title.Wow. Ages 14-up.Ĭopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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. Only then does Clare learn the startling truth about her connection to Ravensmere and her strange, supernatural role in preserving its future.

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. In Berry's (Easy Connections) skilled hands, however, these motifs fall satisfyingly into place, piece by piece. 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. 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. Like a jewel box with hidden drawers and compartments, this finely crafted, multilayered novel holds many secrets.

The China Garden by Liz Berry