The Winter Garden

By: Nicola Cornick

Narrated by: Emma Craig

Sweeping across generations from the 1600s to the present day and inspired by the true story of the leader of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, Nicola Cornick’s latest historical mystery combines past and present story lines that fans of Philippa Gregory and Susanna Kearsley will devour.

1605: Anne Catesby fears for her family. Her son, the darkly charismatic Robert, is secretly plotting to kill the king, placing his wife and child in grave danger. Anne must make a terrible choice: betray her only child or risk her family’s security…and her very life.

Present Day: When her dreams of becoming a musician are shattered, Lucy takes refuge in her family’s ancestral home in Oxfordshire. Everyone knows it was originally home to the notorious gunpowder plotter Robert Catesby. As Lucy spends more time in the beautiful winter garden that Robert made, she starts to have strange visions of a woman in Tudor dress, terrified and facing a heartbreaking dilemma.

As Lucy's and Anne’s stories converge, a shared secret that has echoed through the centuries separating them will change Lucy’s life forever…

©2022 Nicola Cornick (P)2022 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Good story

Enjoyed the story very much.
I wasn’t as impressed with the reader.
She sounded very abrupt most of the time.

Good Listen

I enjoyed the story and I like that she linked characters from previous books. I thought it was worth listening to.

Tudor Mystery Fun

Loved this mystery that takes place partly in Tudor England and also nowadays. Characters are well developed and although the mystery wasn't that difficult to solve, the story carried me along without boredom. Once in awhile, the narrator was too bland and sounded as unemotional as though she were reciting a grocery list. But overall, I enjoyed her. Fun story and I definitely recommend.

Never got my attention

I struggled to finish this. In fact, I had to force myself to listen to the last 30 min. It's not terrible. It's just a little boring in my opinion. The whole ghost part wasn't exciting or even particularly interesting & didn't have a lot to do with the plot.

Another great historical fiction

This book had me breaking out the map, trying to follow along. I want to visit all the places that are talked about. I thought the dual timeline was effective. If I had one criticism, the narrator could work on her male voices a bit.

Anticlimactic

The story was not very good overall. It seemed like nothing was explained in enough detail for it to draw in the reader. Overall, disappointing.

Lovely story-well told

Nice to read Tudor history through 21st century lens. The story in engaging and the narration is excellent.

Awful narration

The Scotch accent was so bad. I tried to stay with the story, but I just couldn’t hang in long enough to bear it.

Review of winter garden

The interweaving of characters


ook a while to get used to. However the story was wonderful.

Not her best story

The storyline wasn’t that engaging or compelling. It was okay, I listened, but it didn’t grab me. The reader’s Scottish accent was irritatingly distracting.