The Rose Garden

This novel is set primarily in Hampstead, London, around the end of the 19th Century and features several female characters: Olive Westall, a wealthy philanthropic spinster; Ottie Finch, daughter of an ambitious father and reclusive mother, Abigail; and Mabs Daley, a working-class girl who must find a way of helping her impoverished family.
 
The illiterate Mabs is thrilled when she is hired as companion to Ottie’s mother, but the job has its problems. There is some mystery as to why the Finch family left Durham for London and Abigail is notoriously volatile and unpredictable. Mabs has to find the best way to deal with the situation.
 
Twelve-year-old Ottie is highly intelligent, adventurous and skirts dangerous situations during one of which she meets Olive and forms a friendship with her.
 
In her late twenties, Olive is resigned to the fact she is unlikely to ever marry, but is longing to be a mother, so goes about adopting a child and also involving herself with other charitable ambitions.
 
Although the pace is a little slow at times and the novel isn’t strongly plot-driven, these characters are well-drawn and likeable, with their reflections on the status of women at all levels of society around this period of history:- Mabs trying to better herself, Ottie desperate to go to university, Olive defying upper class conventions, Abigail dealing with a difficult marriage. However, even the nicer men have chauvinistic qualities and there is a final mystery twist with a neat contrivance that provides an overly sentimental ending.
 
Readers may also notice something about the style of narrative. The experiences of Olive, Ottie and Abigail are in the first person, whereas Mabs’ story is written in the third person. It may not have been the author’s intention, but this carries echoes of snobbery in its own way, i.e. being middle or upper class equates with being better educated and therefore you can write for yourself; less educated and from the working class like Mabs and an omniscient narrator writes your story for you!
 
Three-and-a-half stars.
 
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Dymocks Australia

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