Welcome to the first One Woman Book Club review of 2026, featuring the January book club pick, The Restoration Garden by Sara Blaydes. This was my first book by this author, and I must say that I was not disappointed. In fact, I was totally unprepared for what this book turned out to be. In a good way!
This is a dual timeline historical fiction set in 1940 during World War II and the present day. Julia is the main female character in the present day timeline, while Irene is the historical MFC. I was expecting things to revolve around Julia, but it turns out that Irene's story is the real focus of the novel. Julia, while what I would consider more of a secondary character, is integral to understanding Irene's story. And what a story it is.
Here's a brief summary: In 1940, Irene falls for and marries a decommissioned RAF pilot, resulting in disownment by her family. Irene's husband is accused of treason against Britain, selling secrets to Germany. Irene, also branded a traitor, disappears in the fall of that year, never to be heard from again. Meanwhile, in present day, Julia is hired by Andrew, the godson of Irene's half-sister, Margaret, to restore the gardens of Irene's family's home. In order to restore the gardens to their former glory, Julia must dig up the past, which brings Irene's story into the light.
The stories are not really parallels -- as in there are very few similarities between Irene/James and Julia/Andrew. However, the timelines are set up so that the 1940 scenes occur just before or right after an important discovery is made in the present day. Essentially, the present day timeline is being used to help fill in the blanks of the past, and the author does an excellent job with this.
In order to tell this story effectively and briefly, I'm going to focus on the timelines separately. I think this will keep things from getting confused and make the review flow more smoothly. However, keep in mind when you read the actual book that the timelines are interwoven, and some of the truth of what happened in the past can only be revealed through the present day discoveries.
To avoid spoilers, skip to the end of this post.
***Spoilers***
Although the book itself starts in the present, I think it makes more sense for us to start in 1940 and tell this thing in chronological order.
Irene is our leading lady. She is the oldest child of John Clarke, a scientist who is working on a top secret project for the British government to try to counteract the German air force. Her mother died when she was young, and Irene and her father moved back to England so he could marry his real love, the Lady Montgomery. This union produces Irene's half sister, Margaret, who receives all of the love and affection from their parents. As you can probably guess, Irene never truly feels like a part of the family.
The Clarkes live at Havenworth, where the manor becomes an essential part of the war effort. The family takes in the children of families who believed they would be safer in the countryside, including Charlie, who becomes almost like a brother to the girls, and with whom Margaret forges a life-long friendship. The family also works with the Women's Land Army, a group of volunteers who use the family's land for farming.
Irene is an amateur artist. She only draws flowers and has created a florilegium documenting the gardens at Havenworth. It's her dream to attend a prestigious art school in America, but when she gets accepted into the program, her father denies her attendance, furthering the already deep divide between them. This isolated feeling is instrumental in everything that happens next.
The family has a dinner party in honor of a cousin who serves in the RAF. He brings an injured friend with him, James. James immediately sets his sights on Irene, who is isolated and naive enough to be easily seduced. Unbeknownst to Irene, James is a traitor working for the Nazis. His latest mission is to discover what Irene's father has been working on, and he plans to use Irene to do so. Irene does confide in James what her father is working on, a device known as the cavity magnetron, though she doesn't know anything more.
James convinces Irene to run away to London with him, despite him having been arrested on suspicions of treason; he was only released due to the influence of his affluent uncle. They pay off some officials so she can marry him without parental approval, and her family, having already expressed concerns over James' suspected fascist sympathies, disowns her.
Not long after arriving in London, Irene is coerced into working for an MI5 agent, Roger. He somehow knows that she is who told James about the cavity magnetron and threatens her with imprisonment if she doesn't spy on James. Roger claims that Irene is the only person who James won't suspect. With no other options, Irene agrees. She somehow manages to discover how James has been sending his messages and learns that James not only knows about her father's coming trip to America with the cavity magnetron but has deadly plans to prevent it. She also discovers that he's planning on getting rid of her, soon.
The week of her father's planned trip to America, the entire family comes to London, despite the Blitz being well underway. Margaret, who was sick when Irene left, hasn't gotten any better, and they've come to see a special doctor. Irene tracks them down and tries to warn them, but the family rebuffs her, believing that she is no longer loyal to Britain.
That same afternoon, the Germans launch an air attack. Irene uses the chaos to break into her family's hotel room and steal her father's briefcase containing the cavity magnetron. She leaves a secret message for Margaret on the last page of her florilegium, but it will not be discovered, and the family will believe that she betrayed them.
Irene tries to take the device to Roger, but when she arrives, James is already there confronting him. James ends up killing Roger and tries to kill Irene, but she manages to escape and lose him in the chaos of yet another German bomb attack.
Irene flees with the briefcase to Havenworth, where she discovers the house completely empty and closed up. She decides to hide the briefcase in the folly, but while she is in the process, a German plane drops a bomb right over the Havenworth gardens, killing her. No one knows she was there, and her family assumes that she fled with her husband to Germany. James, for his part, was eventually caught by MI5 in 1967 and spent the remainder of his life in prison.
Skip ahead a few decades to the present day. Margaret is back living at Havenworth, along with her godchildren, Andrew and Helen (they're Charlie's grandchildren). The gardens that Irene once loved are falling apart, and Margaret is determined to see them restored before she dies.
Andrew hires Julia, a historic garden restoration expert in need of a fresh start. She's just lost her job with a prestigious firm after her sister was caught stealing. Believing that her sister's renewed drug use was the root of the problem, Julia forced her sister to go to rehab where she overdosed, leaving Julia with her young son, Sam.
As part of the restoration process, Julia must research the history of Havenworth. In the process, she discovers Margaret's half sister, Irene, whom neither Andrew nor Helen have ever heard of. When they question Margaret, she tells them that Irene was a traitor during World War II, and that she has no idea what became of her.
Julia feels like there's more to Irene's story, especially when she discovers Irene's florilegium hidden under a mattress in a room that's being used for storage. The florilegium is exactly what she needs to restore the gardens to Margaret's expectations, but the book also reads like a sort of diary, using the language of flowers to convey messages without words.
Meanwhile, throughout the process, Julia is growing closer to Andrew, and Sam is starting to come out of his shell with both Andrew and Margaret.
Eventually, it is Sam who discovers the secret message that Irene left for Margaret at the back of her florilegium. In it, Irene confesses that she'd been working with MI5 and why she'd taken the briefcase. Margaret realizes that her sister is the reason why they missed the train that was attacked by the Germans, killing everyone on board. The revelation is too much for her, and she's hospitalized.
Around that same time, Julia's old boss reaches out to offer her job back. Turns out, her sister wasn't the thief responsible for stealing $10,000 from the company, and he wants to make amends. After Margaret is hospitalized, Julia accepts the offer and prepares to leave Havenworth. Sam does not want to leave and runs away, hiding in the old folly, where he gets stuck. Julia and Andrew manage to get him out, but Julia makes a huge discovery inside: John Clarke's missing briefcase and the remains of Irene.
The book ends with an epilogue set one year later. Julia and Sam are still at Havenworth. She and Andrew are dating, and Margaret has recovered as much as a woman her age in her condition is able. They hold a memorial for Irene, and Andrew asks Julia to stay at Havenworth for good. She says yes.
***End Spoilers***
This book had pretty much everything I hope for in a historical fiction, including an author's note that is worth reading. Obviously, this is a work of fiction, so not everything is true to fact, but there is quite a bit of historical significance.
Irene's father is based on a real historical figure, though he's not named for him. The invention of the cavity magnetron in 1940, which allowed for British planes to be fitted with radar, changed the tide of World War II in their favor. The mission that Irene disrupts in the book is also based on history. Great Britain did not have the means to produce the cavity magnetron, so they reached an agreement with the United States. During the mission to get the device overseas, one of the team members actually lost it; thankfully it was found easily and things proceeded as planned.
The author's note only mentioned the historical figure that Irene's father was based on, but I couldn't help but do a little research on my own in regard to James. He's not likely to be based on any person in particular, but I did learn about Operation Lena, which took place in 1940. It was a largely unsuccessful effort by Germany to infiltrate Great Britain with spies in order to gather intelligence to launch an invasion. Clearly that didn't happen, but I like to imagine that in the book, James would have been part of that endeavor.
There were some other historically significant events included in the narrative. First, Operation Pied Piper allowed English families to relocate their children to so-called 'safe zones.' Havenworth served as one of those places. The Blitz was also a true event. It lasted for eight months, between September 1940 and May 1941, and devastated London.
So, final thoughts. I really enjoyed this story from a historical standpoint, but I must admit that I found the character development to be a bit disappointing. For Julia to be such an integral part of restoring Irene's standing in her family, she was woefully flat, as were Sam and Andrew. Really, all of the present-day characters faded into the background for me, and a lot of what they were going through outside of the parts they played in Irene's story felt distracting. For instance, Julia and Andrew's romance was mentioned just enough to make me want more.
While the past timeline was much more developed than the present timeline, there were some issues there, as well. Irene, in particular, left me scratching my head. So much of her own self-characterization was centered in her art, but that particular element of her character felt under-developed. She also was a bit of a contradiction that I never was quite able to pin down.
There was also one thing throughout that kept getting mentioned but never explain regarding Margaret. She was sick as a child, to the point that it caused the entire family to worry about her, but we never learn what her illness is. That plot hole bothers me a bit. She's also an integral character to the story but is treated as a side character. I just felt like she deserved a bit more page time.
So overall, I would give this novel four stars. The story is so interesting, and I love the dual meaning of the title. If you like historical fiction based around World War II, give this one a shot, and let me know what you think of it!
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