"As gardener to His Majesty, Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie is master of his own domain, the royal fruit and vegetable garden. Louis' generals might proclaim the power of France abroad, but La Quintine's espaliers and vegetable plots assert nothing less than man's mastery over nature; a garden that can feed a thousand at a sitting, standards of pruning that in three hundred years have never been surpassed."--Jacket.
A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life—with potentially fatal consequences—in this gripping standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden. And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades. Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents—monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye. Could the skull belong to one of his victims? To Raquel—a woman who knows all about colorful pasts—the bones clearly seem linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate’s archives to look for signs of his presence, what she unearths begins to take on a dark reality all of its own. Everything she finds keeps bringing her back to Rob Gardener himself. While he might be a gray-haired recluse now, back then he was a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate. But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer when the commune mysteriously fell apart: a young woman, her child, and Rob’s brother, Fort. The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case—before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.
Presents an illustrated account of the creation of one of the world's most dazzling and extensive gardens, the gardens at the palace of Versailles, noting the unique four-decade friendship between Louis XIV, the creator of the garden, and Andre Le Ntre, the gardener.
#1 New York Times bestselling author and “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory brings to life the passionate, turbulent times of seventeenth-century England as seen through the eyes of the country’s most famous royal gardener. John Tradescant’s fame and skill as a gardener are unsurpassed in seventeenth-century England, but it is his clear-sighted honesty and loyalty that make him an invaluable servant. As an informal confidant of Sir Robert Cecil, adviser to King James I, he witnesses the making of history, from the Gunpowder Plot to the accession of King Charles I and the growing animosity between Parliament and court. Tradescant’s talents soon come to the attention of the most powerful man in the country, the irresistible Duke of Buckingham, the lover of King Charles I. Tradescant has always been faithful to his masters, but Buckingham is unlike any he has ever known: flamboyant, outrageously charming, and utterly reckless. Every certainty upon which Tradescant has based his life—his love of his wife and children, his passion for his work, his loyalty to his country—is shattered as he follows Buckingham to court, to war, and to the forbidden territories of human love.
This useful book instructs gardeners in all aspects of designing with perennials, from color schemes to matching different styles of gardens. Full color.
In this Christian fantasy novel for children of all ages, a young boy embarks on a perilous adventure to save the creatures of a magical forest. When fourteen-year-old Matthew Robinson enters the Forest of Pellanor, he and his brother and sister have no idea what’s in store for them. All of Pellanor has been waiting for them to rescue its creatures from a danger that threatens the forest families and the life they have known. But to defeat the evil deceiver Argon, Matthew must first master his courage—and his faith. Noted devotional author Michael Phillips delivers a delightfully engaging Christian allegory in the tradition of George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis.
