Susannah's Garden - Debbie Macomber

I have just finished reading another wonderful novel by Debbie Macomber. It has been raining the whole morning and it is so nice snuggling in bed reading a good book. I had borrowed the book from the library and "Susannah's Garden" tells the life story of Susannah Nelson before she quits her teaching job and moves to Blossom Street to open a flower shop. Susannah is one of the characters in the Blossom Street series and she and her flower shop appears in the book "Back On Blossom Street" and i'm sure fans of the series would enjoy reading her story like i did :> Susannah's flower shop was just next door to Lydia Goetz's shop, A Good Yarn and i had finished reading "Back On Blossom Street" recently and throughly enjoyed the book and getting to know more new residents of Blossom Street.

Back to "Susannah's Garden", when Susannah Nelson turned eighteen, she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Jake—and never saw him again. She never saw her brother, Doug, again, either. He died unexpectedly that same year and her relationship with her father had never been the same again.


Now, at fifty, Susannah finds herself regretting the paths not taken. Long married, a mother and a teacher, she should be happy. But she feels there's something missing in her life and Jake kept appearing in her dreams and mind. Not only that, she's balancing the demands of an aging mother after the death of her father and a temperamental twenty-year-old daughter Chrissie whose boyfriend had just break up with her.


Her mother, Vivian, a recent widow, is having difficulty coping and living alone, so Susannah goes home to Colville, Washington. In returning to her parents' house, her girlhood friends and the garden she's always loved, she also returns to the past—and the choices she made back then. What she discovers is that things are not always as they once seemed. Some paths are dead ends. But some gardens remain beautiful….


I really enjoyed reading how Susannah manage to renew her friendship with her childhood best friend Carolyn whom she had lost touch with after marriage more than 30 years ago. It was heartwarming reading how they support each other in their journey to discovering the truth behind Doug and Jake's death and disappearance and also how Carolyn was always there for Susannah and vice versa whenever they faces any problems. It was also an emotional and painful period for Susannah and also her mother when Susannah had to convince her to move from the only home she knows into an assisted-living home and for her mother to accept the changes in her mental and physical health and to try relying on outsiders to help her in her daily activities. I also like how Susannah finally realised that her late father had loved and cared for her through her handling of Chrissie's budding romance with a guy who was just toying with her. The ending was great and there was a good twist which i did not expect.




(Source: http://www.debbiemacomber.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=nnp&pageID=32)
(Source: http://www.debbiemacomber.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=nnp&pageID=113)