Description

The Garden is not thriving In fact it is withering away Once a little orchid haven now after the worst hurricane ever seen in Florida it is wrecked greenhouses creeping mangroves and dangerously idle men So when Romeo an expert breeder of the lucrative ghost orchid arrives from Honduras keeper of the Garden Blanchard and his Irish righthand man Swallow believe the winds of fortune are blowing their wayBut Romeo is not who he seems and Swallow cant shake the feeling that the newcomer will threaten his position in the Gardens flimsy hierarchy And the ghost orchid is rare a delicate and endangered species hidden deep in a sweltering and treacherous cypress swamp the Fakahatchee Strand To capture it Blanchard and Swallow must strike a deal with the leader of the local Seminole tribe and his dangerously unpredictable nephew Logan The tribe are the only ones exempt from the laws protecting the endangered species of the glades but Logans wounded pride and the looming threat of violence may just uproot any hope of success As Blanchards obsession distracts him from what is truly precious Swallows own longburied traumas test his ability and desire to prevent the lust betrayal and murder that engulf the GardenUnder a scorching sun Paul Perrys debut solo novel is a tale of smothering power with loyalty and agency thwarted by the tragic patterns of memory and behaviour Told in spare exact prose The Garden is a modern fable and a warning about trespassing against nature in the name of profitAn urgent eloquent rebuke to our pillaging of nature The Irish TimesPaul Perrys ambitious and atmospheric first solo novel is fascinating and disturbing in equal measure The Independent Ireland