Anna Belfrage’s novel, Serpents in the Garden, has something for everyone. There is lots of romance and erotica, a fair amount of violence, some history and a lot of period details, and for lovers of fantasy, time travel.
The Grahams, Alex, Matthew and their growing family have fled Scotland due to religious persecution of the Covenanters and have settled in colonial Maryland of the 17th century. Alex was born and raised in the late 20th and early 21st century but she found herself in a time warp at a crossroads during a terrible thunderstorm and ended up in the 17th century. She was found by Matthew Graham. She and Matthew took to each other like Mandarin ducks and they married and have had ten children, nine of whom survive. She seems to have adjusted remarkably well to life in the 17th century.
The Grahams have a farm in Maryland, prosperous at these things go. At the beginning of the book, Jacob, the eldest son is apprenticed to a lawyer in Providence, and a younger son, Daniel, is apprenticed to a minister in Boston. Jacob has a great yearning to go to sea and see the world. After marrying the lawyer’s daughter, Betty, in a “hand fast,” ceremony, contrary to her father’s wishes, he stows away on a ship bound for England. Poor Betty is soundly whipped and packed off to the Grahams.
Graham’s Garden, as the farm is called would be a paradise, but, as the title suggests, there are serpents in the garden. There are, of course, Indians, always a concern, and there are also the brothers Phillip, Walter and Steven Burley, scoundrels of the lowest sort. Matthew has killed their youngest brother in self-defense, and the surviving brothers have sworn revenge. Throughout the book the encounters between the Grahams and the Burleys become increasingly violent.
The family is also plagued by domestic strife. Matthew has a son, Ian, by his first marriage who is married to a woman named Jenny and lives on a nearby farm. Jenny’s father, Peter, has married a much younger woman named Constance who is as nasty as they come and she and Jenny fight like cats. On top of that, their bond servant, Patrick, seduces Jenny and she becomes pregnant, not knowing whether the father is Patrick or Ian.
Serpents in the Garden is a very rich and engaging novel which held my interest throughout. I’m not a great fan of the use of time travel or other violations of the laws of physics in historical novels, but, as Diana Gabaldon might attest, there are many readers who are.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Elizabeth Gayle FellowsReviewed in Canada on March 15, 2017
Serpents in the Garden
- Helen HollickReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 3, 2014
... totally engrossed in this Saga - the plot is good, the characters believable and very likeable (well the ...
