A story of Love, Rivalry and Spectacular Gardens

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12501905-queen-elizabeth-in-the-garden" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Queen Elizabeth in the Garden: A Story of Love, Rivalry, and Spectacular Gardens" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327939958m/12501905.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12501905-queen-elizabeth-in-the-garden">Queen Elizabeth in the Garden: A Story of Love, Rivalry, and Spectacular Gardens</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1985574.Trea_Martyn">Trea Martyn</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/364393373">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Why four stars when I continually fell asleep reading this book. First, it's about gardens we can no longer see so there are no photographs. If anyone had asked me, I would have suggested line drawings of the plants and flowers, garden layouts and fountains, many no longer known even to long-time (United States) gardeners. Such poetic or since it's Elizabethan, raw names. Ok, still to support the four stars, so much therefore is left up to the imagination that it's a good read anyway. I would have liked at least to see Dudley's totem as a line drawing, that must be around the British Museum somewhere. Dudley, William Cecil, not to mention the royal suitors, vying for ER-one favors with grandiose precursors of Disneyland is entertaining history. THE Queen plays her cards so well, saving pots of money, progressing around England each summer 'visiting the great houses' with her entourage of hundreds. I am so glad she did and the records remain. And it was a brilliant on her part to keep all the bigwigs busy improving their real estate in anticipation of her visits. Rather than fighting or marrying her.<br /><br />I preservered with this book because I had just finished a novel about her youth <i>The Tudor Wench</i>, seen a Brit film with Stewart Granger as Dudley, Deborah Kerr as Catharine Parr and Jean Simmons as <em>Young Bess</em>.<br /><br />Then came the Epilogue, delightful, worth stumbling through the heavy handed prose of the chapters which read like research lists. The voice changes, the tone lightens, and I was left fully satisfied with reading the book.
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New leaf for this blog about just published novel

This tree, called Scripta Divnia, is ancient yet grows new leaves.  Inspiration has been my keyword to resting in this tree since I first started writing at age nine. Sometime I will tell you that story, which I later learned was a retelling of the Evaporation Cycle. But for now, I am not so much inspired to share thoughts about the novel but compelled. 

Inspiration can be compulsion. You just know you have to write. Sometimes I sit at the laptop (or journal or old scrap of paper or electronic in the car) because an idea has winged itself in, over the brambles and through the other trees in the wood, to impress itself into my writing mind. Other times, such as during meditation, I watch these beautiful leaves, often in colors of the spectrum, waft on by, saying "Please come back when I am in writing mode. Now I am practicing being quiet. Thank you, you're good but this is not the time. The desktop awaits you."

All this to say, please take a look at my new novel on Amazon or my webpage www.garnettearledge.com.  On Amazon, you can turn over at the arrow  on the book cover and read some sample pages. If you choose, please like the LIKE button, so they know you were there. That click helps the book.
I wrote this novel in a high state of listening to those words and ideas that showed up politely as asked at the laptop later. Here's the blurb from the back of the book:

One Hundred Thousand Lights

A love song to India

By Garnette Arledge
 
HighTech Journey to India Grows Mystical
 
Leaving behind a two-timing fiancé and job stealing colleague, carrying only her smart phone and a spiritual guidebook, Grace Avery lands alone in India to a Mumbai strike, Trivandrum riot, wild Chennai bus ride, the beauty of Pondicherry, the peace of Tiruvannamalai, the brilliance of Puttaparthi and reconciliation in Bangalore. Guided from one mystical experience to another, surrounded by found compassionate friendships, deep spiritual teachings and love, she finds inside the real meaning of her name, Grace. 

HINDUISM’S VERSION OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE –

RICK JAROW, Ph.D.,