The Lemon Grove
The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh, published by Doubleday in 2014, is a 200-page novel that delves into the complexities of relationships and desire. Set during a summer holiday in Deia, Majorca, the story follows Jenn and Greg, a couple married for fourteen years, as they navigate the arrival of Greg’s teenage daughter, Emma, and her boyfriend, Nathan. The narrative unfolds over a week filled with sun-soaked days and unexpected emotional turmoil, exploring themes of obsession and the intricacies of marital dynamics.
Readers will find an intense exploration of attraction and moral dilemmas as Jenn becomes increasingly drawn to Nathan, leading to a compelling interplay of risk and consequence. The novel addresses various subjects, including female sexuality and the challenges of blended families, while maintaining a balance between tension and introspection. Walsh’s writing invites readers to reflect on their own choices and the nature of desire, making The Lemon Grove a thought-provoking read.
Official synopsis Publisher
“Walsh’s pacing is brilliant, her writing a combination of William Trevor and Erica Jong, as she fearlessly explores the complexities and nuances of a woman surprised by her own feelings…. Gripping…..Can mutual peace really coexist with wild chaos? Walsh’s readers will find themselves eagerly turning the pages, racing to find out.”
–The New York Times Book Review
A highly charged, sultry, beautifully written and compulsive one-sit read, The Lemon Grove is an intense novel about obsession and sex–the perfect summer book.
Jenn and Greg have been married for fourteen years, and, as the book opens, they are enjoying the last week of their annual summer holiday in Deia, a village in Majorca off the coast of southern Spain. Their days are languorous, the time passing by in a haze of rioja-soaked lunches, hours at the beach, and lazy afternoon sex in their beautiful villa. It is the perfect summer idyll . . . until Greg’s teenage daughter (Jenn’s stepdaughter), Emma, arrives with her new boyfriend, Nathan, in tow.
What follows, over the course of seven days, is a brilliantly paced fever dream of attraction between Jenn and the reckless yet mesmerizing Nathan. It is an intense pas de deux of push and pull, risk and consequence . . . and moral rectitude, as it gets harder and harder for Jenn to stifle her compulsion.
This is a very smart novel about many things: the loss of youth, female sexuality, the lure of May/December temptation, the vicissitudes of marriage and the politics of other people’s children. It is simultaneously sexy and substantive, and Helen Walsh’s masterful, even-handed tone can’t help but force the reader to wonder: “What would I have done?”
Beautifully written with the tension of a rubber band just about to snap, The Lemon Grove is a book that will have people talking all summer long.
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