Portobello Book Blog

I don’t need to mention again how much I enjoy Kirsty Ferry’s books do I? I find them to be consistently enjoyable, feel-good and funny. Bea’s Magical Summer Garden was no exception and I’m delighted to share my review today. Watch out on Monday when I’ll have a guest post from Kirsty about bees, honey and a big black cat!

About the book

What’s not to love about Bea’s Garden?

Its higgledy-piggledy layout, fascinating plants and occasional resident black cat makes it the most charming place to visit on a sunny afternoon. Plus Bea has bees – and her Honey Festival is sure to create a buzz.

But not everyone thinks Bea’s Garden is the bee’s knees.

The Man at the Big House next door has been a thorn in Bea’s side for the longest time, with his unnecessarily snippy letters about her beautiful climbing plants ruining his ‘clean lines’. Could he and his poisonous project manager Carla pose problems for her Festival? Or can Bea rely on the Man’s cousin – and her newest annual pass holder – Marcus Rainton to fight her corner?

With bee best friends, big black cats, a secret garden gate and a surprising identity reveal, Bea’s Garden is surely in line for its most magical summer yet!

My Thoughts

If you’ve read the last book in this series, It Started with a Wedding, you’ll already have met Bea and some of the other characters and you’ll have visited her garden. In that book, Nessa gets married in Bea’s beautiful garden just outside Edinburgh with the wedding planning process having a most unusual helper – Schubert, Nessa’s big black cat. It puts me in mind of The Secret Herb Garden also just outside Edinburgh in the Pentlands which grows herbs and botanicals to use in its own bistro and also distil their own gin. I’m sure Bea would approve of that garden. It seems to me they have a similar ethos. (You can read about that here: The Secret Garden)

Glentavish House is right next door to Bea’s garden. In fact her garden used to be the walled garden for the big house. Bea is having some problems with ‘The Man’ who owns Glentavish House and doesn’t approve of her style of gardening. Bea is somewhat surprised that one of her new season ticket holders is Marcus-Rainton-from-the-television, cousin of ‘The Man’. Together, they try to discover a connecting gate between the gardens which is mysteriously elusive. With this lost gate, there was a bit of a feel of Hodgson-Burnett’s The Secret Garden to the set-up. Bea is very attracted to this handsome man who is equally attracted to her. But there’s something big which Marcus can’t quite seem to tell Bea…

Schubert has a significant part to play in this book again and he has to be my favourite functional feline – and I don’t even like cats. I think he’s worked his magic on me through the pages of the book. In fact, I know he’ll have a little smug look on his face right now! This time there is another animal with a touch of magic about it, Bea’s bee friend Bertie, very wise for such a small creature! 🐝

Bea is friends with many of the McCreadies, a large eccentric and ever-expanding family with a propensity for answering questions before they’ve even come out someone’s mouth. To outsiders this is bewildering, but best just to go with the flow as Bea says. These characters are quirky, fun and well, full of character!

Please Kirsty, can we have a story with Isa as the focus? I think that would be brilliant! I love the Schubert stories and I really hope this series continues. Bea’s Magical Summer Garden is so funny, more than a little mystical and very romantic. I loved it. Kirsty Ferry has worked her magic and written another irresistible book!

You can purchase Bea’s Magical Summer Garden here

About the Author

Kirsty Ferry is from the North East of England and lives there with her husband and son. She won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition and has had articles and short stories published in various magazines. Her work also appears in several anthologies, incorporating such diverse themes as vampires, crime, angels and more.

Kirsty loves writing ghostly mysteries and interweaving fact and fiction. The research is almost as much fun as writing the book itself, and if she can add a wonderful setting and a dollop of history, that’s even better.

Her day job involves sharing a building with an eclectic collection of ghosts, which can often prove rather interesting.

Follow Kirsty on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kirsty_ferry
Like her page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kirsty.ferry.author
Take a look at her website: http://www.rosethornpress.co.uk/