<p>Praise for <i>The Insistent Garden</i>:<br /><br />"Blood feuds and family secrets boil under the respectable surface of 1960s small town England in Chard's second novel ... While the lead up is long, readers who persevere are rewarded with a satisfying and well-crafted dénouement."<br />~ <i>Publishers Weekly</i><br /><br />"The novel is populated by baroque characters, vivid in their oddity, but they are not allowed to distract us from Edith, for this is the story of a lonely, marginalized individual in transition, the beginning of the rest of a life."<br />~ Margaret Thompson, <i>The Coastal Spectator</i><br /><br />"The book has a timeless feel, and far from feeling cut off from culture, it suggests more connections every time I think about it."<br />~ Laura Frey, <i>Reading in Bed</i><br /><br />"Has all the simplicity and lingering menace of a Victorian fairy tale ... [i]t evolves quietly into a cross between rosy mystery and romance that carries its sheltered protagonist to the threshold of the bigger world."<br />~ Dave Williamson, <i>Winnipeg Free Press</i><br /><br />"If you take nothing away from <i>The Insistent Garden</i> other than the desire to plant a bed of blue flowers and a feeling of deep unease, you will know the conflicted heart of Edith Stoker, and Chard will have done her job."<br />~ Angela Hickman, <i>National Post</i><br /><br />"The tension never falters; secrets, enigmatic neighbours, revulsion and fear surround a uniquely dysfunctional family. I do believe Rosie Chard has created a new sub-genre: Neo-Gothic Garden Mystery."<br />~ Betty Jane Hegerat, author of <i>The Boy and Running Toward Home</i><br /><br />"A captivating, witty and beautifully written novel which probes the quirks and foibles of the English psyche."<br />~ Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Gardens Advisor, Historical Royal Palaces, London</p>