The Red Garden Pdf is a Historical Fiction and Magical Realism Short stories novel By Alice Hoffman. The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts, capturing the unexpected turns in its history and in our own lives.
In exquisite prose, Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters’ lives are intertwined by fate and by their own actions.
The Red Garden Book Summary
From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.
At the center of everyone’s life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. Beautifully crafted, shimmering with magic, The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.
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The Red Garden Book Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Not her best but worth the read
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 21, 2011
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Alice Hoffman and I have a bit of a hot and cold relationship. I absolutely adored her novel “The Blackbird House” and hold it as one of my favorite books. However, I find some of her other works to be less than fantastic. Still, I stand in line whenever one of her books comes out so I can get my hands on a copy. That’s why I pre-ordered “The Red Garden” and when I heard that it was similar to “The Blackbird House” I counted down the days until its release. I have to say that I was letdown a bit as it was not as good as “The Blackbird House” but it certainly surpassed some of her other works.
The town of Blackwell is located in western Massachusetts tucked into the Berkshire mountains. The novel follows the history of the town from its first inhabitants in 1750 until the present. The reader watches as the female founder struggles against the brutal weather to establish a homestead. You see years later how her descendants fought in the Civil War, WWII, and eventually in Vietnam. Many of the families from the original settlement are still in town over two hundred years later and have now intermarried with other founding families. Of course there are new people who come into the town and older members pass on, but the structure of the sleepy township has stood the test of time.
If you’re looking for a novel with several main characters, a firm plot, and a definitive ending…then you should pass on this. However, if you’re a fan of “Our Town” or novels about community…then you just have a new favorite read. Similar to “The Blackbird House”, which follows one house over two hundred years, “The Red Garden” details the growth of a town and its development. Throughout the years the reader meets Johnny Appleseed, experiences the death of a young girl, connects with gypsies along a riverbank, feels the sadness of outcasts, the courage of strong women, and the resilience of a community and way of life.
What puts this novel behind my favorite work of hers, are some of the individual stories. While most of them were fascinating, it seemed that many (too many in my opinion) centered around a strong woman who finds love in an unsuspected place and triumphs over her ghosts and the narrow-minded town. As a strong woman, of course I enjoy reading stories about woman like myself, yet it got a bit overdone when this is the plot of almost every story. Additionally, I thought that the novel was supposed to show the development of the community but stories that focused on the uppity and cliquey residents of Blackwell seemed to prove that the town didn’t actually change of time. This was disappointing for it was like reading an entire book and finding that the main character was exactly the same at the conclusion as s/he was in the beginning. Would I recommend this book, yes, but not as much as her previous novel.
TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars Looking for a Literary Treat You Won’t Be Able to Stop Reading? Indulge in This Enchanting Novel!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 6, 2021
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This is a rich literary gem. The story, a gentle blend of magic and realism, is so so so good that you’ll keep reading long after you should.
Written by Alice Hoffman, this is the intriguing story of people who lived in a very small town in the Berkshires in Massachusetts—from its founding 300 years ago to today. Even Johnny Appleseed and Emily Dickinson have roles in this town’s history. This is a novel, but each chapter is really a short story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end, yet each is connected with the others through shared characters and a mysterious garden where sorrows are buried. In this enigmatic garden, which has distinctly red soil, only red plants will grow. If they’re not naturally red, then they turn red.
This novel-short story hybrid is not the easiest format for a writer or a reader, but Hoffman is an expert, and each chapter seamlessly moves into the next for a compelling and engaging book. The story is held together with tall tales and legends of the past (but we readers know what really happened!) and secrets that are slowly revealed. There is love and heartbreak, births and deaths, struggle and survival, hurting and healing, evil and virtue, fear and courage, apparitions and reality. This is a powerful, compassionate story of life.
Meanwhile, the descriptions of the blizzards, the black flies, and the eels swimming in the river are so vivid you’ll feel the cold, hear the buzzing, and see the black oozing in the water as it rapidly flows downstream. If you’re looking for a literary treat, indulge in this enchanting novel.
About Alice Hoffman Author Of The Red Garden Pdf Book

Alice Hoffman Author Of The Red Garden Pdf is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The World That We Knew; The Marriage of Opposites; The Red Garden; The Museum of Extraordinary Things; The Dovekeepers; Here on Earth, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and the Practical Magic series, including Practical Magic; Magic Lessons; The Rules of Magic, a selection of Reese’s Book Club; and The Book of Magic. She lives near Boston.
The Red Queen pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information

- Publisher : Crown Publishers; 1st edition (January 25, 2011)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 270 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307393879
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307393876
- Item Weight : 1.18 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #237,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #340 in Black & African American Historical Fiction (Books)
- #2,975 in Folklore (Books)
- Customer Reviews: 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,463 ratings
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