The White Garden by Stephanie Barron; (4*)

The White Garden is an alternate telling of the last day in the life of Virginia Woolf. It begins with the writing her of her last note to Leonard Woolf and her leaving the house and walking to the river, planning to commit suicide by drowning herself. As she walks she hears a lone bird whose song sounds to her as if it is singing "Life! Life! Life!". "In Latin, the word would be vita." And so ..... she turns, going to the village station and on to Sissinghurst and her dear friend, Vita.
In the book 'the white garden', which one day is created at Sissinghurst, comes about as a creation of the mind of Virginia Woolf. Also I would be remiss if I did not share that the intrigue imposed with the pages of the story have stuck in my mind even days after completing this read. In my mind's eye I can see 'the Apostles', Leonard Woolf and Harold Nicholson plotting and planning the demise of the already thought dead Virginia.
This biographical novel sucked me in right at the beginning. Mind you, this is not great literature but is instead an interesting piece of fluff mystery with bits about these great legends of literature. I found the 'journal' to be interesting along with the portions of the story relating to the gardens & gardening. ( )

I enjoyed this book and read it very quickly. I was attracted to it because of the gardening connection and ended up learning a great deal about the White Garden of Vita Sackville West. Not being a Virginia Woolf fan, I wasn't expecting to be that interested in the mystery surrounding her suicide, but that part was well done, I thought. ( )

I'll wait for the book club read to finish before I do this. ( )

cozy, boring - but loved the historical part about the gardens. ( )

I really liked the notebook sections, and ended up skimming through most of the modern-day chapters. Would have loved to have read a whole book focused on the author's version of the last days of Virginia Woolf.