#ancestry n' gardens

Monogamy Twist... another slant.

I'm a wannabe historian: a wannabe gardener.

Exactly what do I mean by that? I could also be named a hobby historian since I love to read about virtually anything that relates to the past. My love of ancestry can be explained easily by that same statement because I’ve really been taken by the facts I’ve uncovered about my own background. They are definitely the stuff of a novel, perhaps even a biography if more evidence is uncovered.

I used my interests in Victorian and Edwardian history, and my fascination about ancestry in my novel Monogamy Twist. It was an easy task to create a simple ancestral tree for the Greywood family which provided sources for Rhia Ashton. A historian and family tree researcher, Rhia is the perfect person for Luke since she's able to delve into Amelia Greywood's background to find the reason that Australian Luke Salieri has been left Greywood Hall, by the recently departed Amelia Greywood. Rhia has a lot of fun tracking down the answers but Luke isn’t so sure of where her research is leading…though to say more here would give the game away.

And where does my love of gardening fit in? I want to be a good gardener but to be that doesn’t just take being deeply interested in all things floral. It takes time and effort and most of all…opportunity. 

I do spend a lot of time tending my garden but as everyone who has a patch of grass knows, it’s a very weather dependant occupation when it comes to lawn care. And sometimes reconstuctive garden jobs are just too much for one person. 

In Monogamy Twist, Rhia loves the idea that she could possibly help to restore the gardens at Greywood Hall. Luke realises very quickly that she knows a lot of the planting and can gauge when the kitchen garden was laid down.

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhododendron_and_trees,_Conservation_area,_Kew_Gardens_-_geograph.org.uk_-_176637.jpg?uselang=en-gb

He has no hesitation in having her work alongside the professional gardeners he hires to restore the past grandeur of Greywood Hall's extensive gardens.

I wonder if the readers of Monogamy Twist can work out where some of my plot ideas come from?

Happy reading, happy ancestral researching if that’s your fancy… or even happy gardening! 

Slainthe!