Some authors remain popular for decades after they stop writing. Some get forgotten very fast. And the quality of writing has nothing to do with it in a lot of cases. Jon Godden is one of those forgotten authors - out of print for the most part and never mentioned. And if I judge by this book, this is a very wrong thing to happen.

"In Her Garden" had been first published in 1981 and could as well had been set in the same timeframe (or a decade earlier). Almost nothing in the narrative is giving away the exact timing - it is a few decades after the war but beyond that, it is almost timeless. As is the main character Grace - the 75 years old owner of a huge house with a magnificent garden. The book opens with a prosaic enough picture of Grace's step-daughter trying to convince the old woman (just don't call her old in her face... old starts at 80 after all) to sell the house and the garden and to move to London to be closer to her relatives. Which Grace is not exactly keen on doing... although she admits that she needs some help. And help there will be - because as if out of nowhere materializes Ben - the guy that will become her gardener.

It is a slow burn of a novel - we are halfway through the book before anything actually happens (even though the first half of the book contains the magnificent descriptions of the garden and the seeds of a forbidden love - the kind that is frowned upon and that, if not kept in secret, can ruin reputations) And the tone is light and full of sun and summer - you almost feel transported inside of the story and do not want anything to change. But at the same time it is the peace and silence of the English novelists that tell you that something is about to happen. And it does happen - a death and a will turn the silent village into something a lot more sinister. And it coincidences with the end of the summer and the autumn falling on earth. The love story that lies in the middle of the book takes a lot more sinister feeling - especially considering how little actually happened.

Despite the fact that the culprit is pretty clear as soon as the bad things start happening, the story works. Because it could have been someone else. And because the sudden change from a slow and summer story into a dark and autumn one is executed so masterfully that you do not even realize it changed until you start seeing the same people behaving differently (although a few don't change). I wish she had done a bit more foreshadowing but then, the lack of it does not ruin the book.

I am not even sure that a lot of the readers nowadays will read the book to the end - it is for the people that can appreciate a build-up and that don't want everything to happen now. But for the ones that appreciate the novels of yesterday, it is a magnificent book. And I am going to try to find a few of her other books. ( )