Garden of Her Heart

Author/Guide: Zoe Richards

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A story of healing and recovery that will warm your soul…and get you into the garden.

ISBN: 978-1916747043
Genre: Fiction, Romance

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What you need to know before your trail

Garden of Her Heart is the story of one loner, two secrets, and three weeks at the Pinewoods Retreat. When Holly Bush (yes, she still hasn’t forgiven her mother for that combination) is made redundant with gardening leave, after a brutal attack, she decides to visit a retreat not far from home. There she finds friendship and a garden in need of love, she ends up doing literal gardening leave, bringing the community of guests together. Journaling her way through her holiday, Holly works on both her mental and physical scars and discovers an inner strength as her secrets are revealed.

Locations

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Travel Guide

Author Guide

Formby Pinewoods / Alexandra Road, Merseyside (The Lost Resort)

This is where the Pinewoods Retreat is that Holly goes to stay – the area where Pinewoods is imagined to be is a real place known locally as The Lost Resort, and there is a trail along paths that takes walkers around The Lost Resort. The cinder path outside Pinewoods exists in real life too, and there is a section that goes down to the beach from the house, as described in the novel. Alexandra Road is not really a road anymore, and the cinder path takes that road.

St Luke’s Church Road / Lifeboat Lane, Formby, Merseyside

This is not mentioned by name, but the bend in the road is where the gates are that are mentioned where the taxi driver dumps Holly when she’s going to Pinewoods. The second half of St Luke’s Church Road is a gated area, and whilst side gates are open for pedestrians to walk through, you need a code to open the gates to get a car down there.

Installation of iron men by Anthony Gormley

This where the guests go for a day trip – this is also where the rubble from the demolished houses after the war was taken.

Formby beach (Formby Point) and sand dunes, Devil’s Hole:

Devil’s Hole is the blow out (a blow out is a gap in the centre of a circle of dunes, usually created by wind, but in this case it is thought to have been started by a crater when a bomb was dropped during the Liverpool blitz in WW2).

This is the beach and dunes is where Holly and Hunter spend a bit of time in the novel.