The Wishing Garden
Grade : B+

Occasionally I'll read a book with passages so bizarre or poorly written that I'll mark them with Post-Its. More rare are those books with passages so beautiful that I'll mark them with Post-Its. The Wishing Garden is such a book, and yet, it took a comment from one of my fellow reviewers here at AAR to help me realize there is a flaw in this book that is so important, that despite the beauty of the writing, I cannot grant it Desert Isle Keeper Status.

Savannah Dawson is an eternally optimistic divorced advertising executive/Tarot card reader living in San Fransisco with her 15-year-old daughter, Emma. Emma is an unhappy and rebellious teenager already in the "I hate my mother" stage of adolescence. When Savannah learns that her beloved father Doug is dying of cancer, she takes a leave of absence and, with Emma, makes the journey to Arizona to be with her parents. Savannah has long been estranged from her mother Maggie, who is an extremely difficult woman. When they arrive at her parent's home, she meets a mysterious man named Jake who is building her father a special carved bench for his garden. Jake has a helper, Eli, a troubled young man who is quite familiar with the local sheriff, a man who befriended Jake years before, knowing that somewhere, Jake has a secret.

Though author Yorke tells an interesting story, The Wishing Garden is really about relationships, about feelings unexpressed, and how love can be dangerous as well as healing. Though much of the heavy drama surrounds the relationships formed between Emma and Eli and Savannah and Jake, this is not per se a romance novel, although parts of it are so romantic that readers will be moved to tears. The most romantic moments are very bittersweet, and have more to do with the strangely sentimental relationship between Maggie and Doug than they do with the characters you'd expect to care the most about.

The relationship between Maggie and Doug is one big paradox. When Savannah arrives at their home in Arizona, it is freezing - Maggie can no longer tolerate the oppressive heat and keeps the house like an ice cube. Doug, on the other hand, as is the case with many cancer patients, can never seem to get warm anymore. Does that stop Maggie? No way - she likes being mean because it keeps her from thinking about losing her husband.

Truth to tell, though, Maggie has been mean for years - ever since she gave up her dream of being a fashion designer to marry Doug. And, when he took up gardening and it overtook his entire life, she got really mean. As for Doug, his garden is how he expresses his feelings for Maggie. True, he has poetry in his heart, but he hadn't written the words until he was dying. The garden seems to grow especially for him - plants and flowers that ordinarily won't grow in the harsh climate, do so in Doug's garden. Even though Maggie resents the garden, she's always sneaked around in the middle of the night replacing dying plants so Doug won't know they've died. What Maggie doesn't realize is that he knows what she has been up to, but has never said a word about it. This type of reverse symmetry abounds in the book, and it's wonderful.

Savannah and Jake are drawn to one another like moths to a flame, though for the eternally optimistic Savannah, she's quite the pessamist when it comes to her relationship with Jake. The Tarot readings she gives to her parent's neighbors help them see, smell, feel the loved ones they've lost. The magic Savannah creates can be quite lovely, but it can have adverse reactions as well.

All the relationships take quite a turn when Savannah's family moves up to Jake's isolated cabin in the mountains. Some relationships come out for for better, and some for worse. There is healing to be found at the cabin - but not for everyone. Will Jake's secret be revealed?

Rather than going into detail about the story, I'd rather go into detail about the writing and the characterizations. There's Sasha, Jake's oldest dog, who narrates a couple of scenes with such incredible clarity and beauty that I literally had my breath taken away. The relationship between Savannah and Jake, while not as compelling for me as that between Maggie and Doug, also has great beauty in it, as do the sacrifices Eli eventually makes for Emma.

However, and this is where I must thank Andrea Pool, who read and reviewed Ms. Yorke's previous novel, Magic Spells, as much as I enjoyed reading the prose and found these characters compelling, none were particularly likable. Maggie really was mean, Doug was neglectful, Savannah was too ethereal to be real, Emma was too into rebellion, and Eli was so "bad" that even his redemption was sorrowful. The only character I found likable was Jake; though loyal, Sasha the dog was nearly as mean as Maggie.

Still, the magic found between the pages of The Wishing Garden can't be dismissed, and I heartily recommend it for those readers looking to get lost for several hours.

Reviewed by Laurie Likes Books
Grade : B+
Book Type: Women's Fiction

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : July 2, 2000

Publication Date: 2000

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