Review: Josephine's Garden

Josephine's Garden by Stephanie Parkyn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Strong start that unfortunately fizzled out towards the end.

It's hard to pinpoint what exactly this book is about, which in itself is troubling. The star is Josephine, wife of Napoleon, but it's also about her garden, other gardeners and botanists, Napoleon and his leadership, his mistresses, Josephine's inability to conceive, and two other couples whose lives come into Josephine's orbit. It felt messy, with a lot of symbolism but no clear point.

I'm rather fascinated by French history, particularly around this time period, so it was a bit of a disappointment to me to be so uninspired reading about it. I really enjoyed the first section about their union and how they came together, but then the history disappears into a focus on the flowers and plants which can get a little tiresome. Then the focus jumps to marriage and children and it just becomes a bit of a pointless story, where we're just observing rather than hoping for any particular outcome or conclusion.

I never particularly warmed to Josephine, who seemed cruel yet frivolous to me. I understand her fixation on power, status and public opinion is rather true to this time period but I never really felt a lot of sympathy for her, which added to the story falling flat for me.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed reading about Anne and Felix, because they seemed more practical, normal sort of people. I liked that they were so devoted to one another as it was a spark of warmth in an otherwise icy cold story.

There is a lot about motherhood and children and the duties of a wife etc which, again, became really tiresome for me. At the same time, while a large point of this story was Josephine's inability to produce an heir, there was no real mention of any lengths she went to to increase her chances. I don't know if it was her or the story that wasn't really trying, but I never really got the sense that she was trying to do anything about it. Instead she simply gets weepy or pained when other children/pregnancies are mentioned and beyond that it's all childlike exuberance over her garden.

The historical aspect, too, is underwhelming because other than brief mentions of where Napoleon is, there's not a lot of exciting detail given. The general tone is that this was a pretty dull slice of French history, because while Napoleon is off doing military things, Josephine is obsessing over plants and flowers from Australia New Holland. Who cares about a couple of wars in other countries, right? Nothing exciting happening there. Sure, he decided to just be Emperor that one time, which was weird, but no big, really. *eyeroll*

I did really enjoy the early days of the novel but by about 300 pages in I was getting bored and it made the rest of the novel a chore to finish. Perhaps botanists, gardeners and the like will get more enjoyment out of it, as might mothers and those obsessed with motherhood, but for a novel set during the reign of Napoleon, it's not particularly enlightening.

With thanks to A&U for an uncorrected proof ARC

View all my reviews