Angie Of The Garden by J.E.Hall ~ PUYB Blog Tour with review

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (June 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1468557297
• ISBN-13: 978-1468557299

Synopsis:

Angie of the Garden is a story about a psychiatrist named Hollis SImms. He is an affable individual who is dedicated to his patients, and his family. Hollis is married to a provocative and welathy woman named Olivia: their irrepressible teenage daughter is named Annabelle. His wife used her considerable resources to purcahse the estate called Fairhaven for them to live on. As a boy Hollis found a diary writtien by a woman named Angie Barton buried in a garden. The journal told of the hardships and deprivations suffered by this woman from Boston as she traveled on the Oregon Trail. She became his first love. One evening as Doctor Simms walked past a garden on the estate he encountered the spirit of Angie Barton. Hollis learns that she worked at Fairhaven as a house servant after returning from the west. he cannot fathom how this adventurous woman could have come to such a station in life. Hollis decided that Angie must have experienced some kind of trauma. During her subsequant appearences he entices her into recounting the long trek westward in order to discover the cause of her malaise. Hollis' obsession with the woman from the past begins to strain his relationships with the living.

My take on this book:

"Angie Of The Garden" is the story of Hollis Simms a psychiatrist who becomes obsessed with a woman who lived during the 1800's. 

John Simms was the caretaker of Fairhaven estates while his children Hollis and Sebastian (Sam) were growing up. When Hollis was sixteen years old his father had him digging up some soil in the garden when he discovers a diary written by Angelica Barton a woman who had traveled west during the eighteen hundreds and somehow became a house servant at Fairhaven, Hollis was often kidded by his brother that Angelica had become his first love. Fast forward Hollis becomes a psychiatrist, who marries Olivia Reese who comes from a wealthy family. She decides to purchase Fairhaven and make it their home. When Dr. Simms sees a woman in black with long flowing hair, looking for something in the garden he decides to try and talk to her. He learns that she is Angelica Barton, or actually the dead spirit of Angelica Barton who still believes it is the early 1800's, and she is looking for her diary. Hollis feels as if Angie is suffering from a malaise, and sees her as a potential patient that he can help. 

This book started off a bit slowly for me, I think it was because there were so many characters to learn. After a few chapters I fell into the pattern of the story, especially once Angie showed up in the garden. There was the secondary story of Sebastian and the issues going on in his life, I was really surprised that he took a job in a bagel shop. The author provides an interesting twist at the end of the book that I really didn't see coming, and had me rethinking what I believed, that is until I read the final sentence.

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