A dual timeline historical mystery that shifts between Cornwall and then Valparaiso in Chile in 1886 and Sydney in 2017. The author was born in Singapore, raised in the US and the UK, and now lives in Australia.

The story begins with Anna Jenkins in Sydney, renovating the house she has inherited from her late grandmother, when she discovers a mysterious antique box containing an old diary and some botanical sketches. This sets her on a journey to Cornwall to uncover the identity of the artist and what the connection is to her own family. The other part of the story involves Elizabeth Trebithick, who leaves her family estate in Cornwall, to travel to Chile in search of a mysterious flower, the devil's trumpet, to fulfill her father’s dying wish that she find this dangerous and powerful plant before it falls into the hands of the ruthless Mr Chegwidden.

I love the premise behind this story: a historical mystery, a lost diary and adventurous women crossing the world. The author is also obviously in her comfort zone writing about plants.

What I didn’t enjoy as much was the writing style. The dialogue was clunky and awkward. Elizabeth should have been a brave woman defying the conventions of the time but just came across as stubborn, petulant and imperious. In one scene she dismounts her horse and hands the reins to Thomas: why, is he the groom now? Then there was the whole insta-love romance, practically five minutes after declaring herself to be Miss Independent who doesn’t need a man.

Anna was a very vanilla heroine. I wouldn’t be keen to date a man who asks me if I want a “hot toddy” before bed, then wishes me nightie-night “hope the bed bugs don’t bite.” Also she could have solved the whole mystery very easily had she just bothered to finish reading the diary and spent ten minutes on Google! The reveal really wasn’t much of a reveal, it was fairly obvious, and the villain came across as unconvincing. I wasn’t sold on the audio narration by Caroline Lee either, it probably added to the awkward feel of the dialogue. So, overall I’ll go for three stars mainly for the story and the idea. ( )

The writing is very choppy and the structure unimpressive but the plot itself is fairly interesting. If I didn't feel obligated to read this for book club, I would have noped out 50 pages in. ( )

I have to admit to this book not really being my cup of tea but we chose it for our gardening book club and so I wanted to read it. There is nothing awful about it apart from the romances which are bit players in the story, but nor is there anything earth shattering or terribly unique.

The story is a dual narrative, Elizabeth who in 1886 lived at Trebithick Hall in Cornwall and Anna who in 2017 lived in Sydney Australia. Anna is left a house by her Grandmother and when she knocks down a wall, a box is found that contains botanical paintings,a photograph, a necklace and some seeds in a bag. She germinates half of the seeds and plants them and then sets off on a quest to find out more about the paintings and people.

Elizabeth's father is a botanist who travels abroad regularly but who recently died. He asked her to make the journey he had planned for after his death and to look for a plant that was very dangerous in the wrong hands but also very useful if you knew what you were doing with it. On one of her first trips to a valley in Chile where she was staying for a while, she found the plant but had no way of going back to get it for a long time. Damien Chegwidden was also on the hunt for the plant and he was not going to let anything get in his way.

The two narratives run parallel for some time but eventually start to cross over and link with both women finding love, staying in a country they hadn't originally planned on staying in and having the seeds to a plant that others want. There are no hidden meanings in the book, no depths to explore - what you see is what you get which does not make for a great discussion. I have struggled to even come up with any questions that we could get started with.

Did the descriptions of the places conjure up any images for you?

In an interview, the author mentioned that there were lots of red herrings in the book. Did you think there were? What were they? ( )

This dual timeline story reminded me of Kate Morton’s novels and I really enjoyed it 4.5* ( )

Really enjoyed this book, particularly the dual timelines written concurrently. It kept my interest right through, and liked the topic of it - botanical drawings. ( )