Capability’s Eden

“Robert Boyd is a celebrated landscape designer, in a business which, he accepts, is often about dealing with people, not plants. He is at the peak of his career when he is offered a project no gardener could refuse – the re-creation of the Garden of Eden itself. This extraordinary challenge comes from an enigmatic couple, the Laceys – David, reserved and English; Virginia, flamboyant and American – who own a beautiful, strange isthmus of land near the Cornish coast. Though reluctant at first, Robert is soon immersed in the fascination of turning his clients’ dream into reality: planting trees, creating watery idylls, populating the island with deer and flamingos – all under the vigilant eyes of the charismatic Virginia and the secretive gaze of David’s estranged sister. But the harmony Robert seeks to create in nature finds no parallel in his own life: over the years his dedication has taken a toll on his family and on his own capacity for love. And even as he strives to construct his own representation of Paradise, he finds he is caught between frictions he has provoked in the real world – with shocking consequences. Robert, for the first time ever, is forced to examine the way he lives his life. What he discovers about himself is devastating…” – inside dust jacket.