Reviewed by Gail M. Murray
Recently attended Edwards Gardens/Toronto Botanical Garden to listen to delightful novelist, painter and garden writer, Sonia Day tease us as she introduced the feisty women of her latest book, The Newfoundland Lunch Party: A Sisters of the Soil Novel with Recipes. These ladies of a certain age who met as the Amorphophallus Titanum (Corpse Flower) bloomed at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, bonded, all experiencing gardening in common; some as garden writers.
Day has a fun, playful, humorous side which comes out in her writing. We met these ladies in her first foray called, The Mexico Lunch Party. Although part of a series of three, this second book in the series works as a stand-alone.
Roslyn Chaffey, author, TV host and garden writer, christened Rhodo due to her passion for Rhododendrons, has inherited her great aunt’s salt box house overlooking Conception Bay, Newfoundland. She invites her “Sisters” for a September reunion just as the world is coming out of COVID. Hannah, a seventy-year-old British garden columnist and fine pastry cook, needs the distraction from her anxiety, colonoscopy and boring husband. Parisian Nathalie, author and horticultural historian, who adds the glamour, is excited to discover Terre Neuve. She elevates moose stew to élan bourguignon.
Day’s story is a blend of fact and fiction. Environmentalist Luke Keogh’s book, The Wardian Case, sparked her interest. Nathaniel Ward’s Wardian Case exhibited at Kew Gardens in England was an early 19th century terrarium of wood and glass which enabled plants to be transported to various countries and climates. Day has Hannah think she has discovered one of Ward’s cases in Rhoda’s neighbour Eunice’s dog kennel—a device to liven up the plot—becomes a project to discern its provenance. So while the ladies hike trails along the sea, discovering the rugged beauty of Cape St. Mary’s, sample traditional Newfoundland cuisine such as Toutons and Molasses at Madrock Café in Bay Roberts, and prepare specialties for their lunch of the title, including Hannah’s Potato Roses and Nathalie’s Plat Cabillaud; there’s a sinister undertone as Eunice’s grandson steals the case for ransom. Recipes are included at the back.
Through Day’s deft, fluid prose, the reader learns about plants, female friendship, life stages and The Rock. The wild, serene landscape is as much a character in the novel as the ladies.
If you’ve been to Newfoundland, this book will resonate; if not, you’ll be tempted to book a flight.
“Rhodo crossed her fingers that the fog would lift. Then overnight, as if by magic, it had…..diamond blue sky….. and the sea, smooth and flat, took on the form of a canvas of sweeping brushstrokes in sapphire and aquamarine.”(p136)
It's one of those comforting novels that engages and invites us in to join the camaraderie; it goes well with a hot cuppa or subtle Merlot.
The Newfoundland Lunch Party: A Sisters of the Soil Novel with Recipes is published by Friesen Press.
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