The Last Camellia: A Novel
Written by Sarah Jio
Narrated by Justine Eyre
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
"Terrific...compelling...an intoxicating blend of mystery, history, and romance, this book is hard to put down." -Real Simple
On the eve of the Second World War, the last surviving specimen of a camellia plant known as the Middlebury Pink lies secreted away on an English country estate. Flora, an amateur American botanist, is contracted by an international ring of flower thieves to infiltrate the household and acquire the coveted bloom. Her search is at once brightened by new love and threatened by her discovery of a series of ghastly crimes.
More than half a century later, garden designer Addison takes up residence at the manor, now owned by the family of her husband, Rex. The couple's shared passion for mysteries is fueled by the enchanting camellia orchard and an old gardener's notebook. Yet its pages hint at dark acts ingeniously concealed. If the danger that Flora once faced remains very much alive, will Addison share her fate?
More audiobooks from Sarah Jio
The Violets of March Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bungalow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Last Camellia
Related audiobooks
The Secrets of Roscarbury Hall: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The All You Can Dream Buffet: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Simplicity of Cider Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll See You in Paris: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Room Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Hours Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spring House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Honeysuckle Season Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Glimmer as You Can Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Summer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Falling Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beach Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beautiful Strangers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Glass Kitchen: A Novel of Sisters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oleander Sisters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Woman From Paris Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Coming Up for Air Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Folly Beach Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Life Should Be: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secrets She Carried Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Place at the Table: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emily and Einstein: A Novel of Second Chances Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Between Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Driftwood Summer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boardwalk Summer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between the Tides: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Words We Whisper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Summer of Good Intentions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories We Tell: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wicked Widow: A Wicked City Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Mystery For You
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Woman in the Library, The Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Lies in the Woods: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silence of the Lambs: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unexpected Guest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The River We Remember: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did I Kill You?: A Thriller Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Tender Land Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Altered Carbon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marple: Twelve New Mysteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finlay Donovan Is Killing It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death on the Nile: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Going Rogue: Rise and Shine Twenty-Nine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths: The Best New Original Stories of the Genre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heaven’s Crooked Finger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tell No One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother-Daughter Murder Night: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl, Alone (An Ella Dark FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1): 01 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Word is Murder: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Last Camellia
26 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Camelia is a story that's hard to put down…and figure out. There's a lot going on at once: a story of a young baker's daughter who only wishes to do right and help her struggling parents. From NYC to England, we follow her as she becomes embroiled in a fire-thieving ring, falls in love, uncovers intrigue, and realizes she must do what's right, no matter the cost to herself.The modern day story is a woman in a similar plight and from NYC to England, we join her and her husband as they tiptoe around each other, each keeping secrets—hers a long bigger than his. Just how long can she hide her past, especially with it hot on her heels in the form of threatening letters, mysterious flowers, obsessive phone calls, and stalking?I couldn't bear to put the book down and often found myself reading until the wee hours of the morning, until my eyelids could stay open no longer. It's well-written and gives us just enough to keep us interesting and yet not so much that we figure out the ending and conclusion asap. I wouldn't call this a love story, but a historical/time slip mystery. Regardless of what one wishes to call it, it's a great read. I could really relate to both heroines, I felt as though I were there within its pages no matter whose POV it was. My only quibble would be I did at times grow confused when the POV first changed, even though they were chapter by chapter.Five stars and I received this on LibraryThing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5True rating 4.5Jio has done it yet again. She had written an original, engaging and unputdownable book. With the true talent Jio possesses she weaves a story where past and present collide and secrets long buried are revealed. You will become invested in finding the truth and preserving the past. You may also grow a fondness of Camellias as a result of this fantastic novel. I highly recommend this book!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a wonderful read, with a mystery I thought I had figured out early on but was pleasantly surprised that I had not. This book reads like an old fashioned mystery and love story my mother, who gave me my love of the book, would have read, loved and then passed on to me.I enjoyed the idea for the story as well, I am a garden dreamer and you have me thinking about plants in general and Camellias in particular which is so sad because on this day where I live we are having yet another snowstorm… in April!I like the story that weaves back and forth in time between Flora and Addison, two women who at first seem not have much in common but, as the story unfolds we come to see they have much that binds them together besides the elusive beauty, The Middlebury Pink Camellia. In 1940’s America It seems a ring of international flower thieves is on the hunt for the Camellia and they find and seduce Flora, an amateur botanist with dreams of making big money so she can help her family’s ailing bakery. Flora is told all she has to do is travel to London and pretend to be a nanny for a wealthy family on the country estate thought to be hiding the prized “Middlebury Pink” and secretly search for it.Once Flora gets to know the new family she realizes she can not betray them by letting the greedy flower thieves steal from this family she has come to love. What follows is a mystery that only Addison in present day New York can solveNewly married garden designer Addison is having problems with a painful past and a dangerous man that has come back to haunt and threaten her new life. Addison decides to take her husband up on his offer of escape to his family’s gorgeous estate in London for a much needed vacation, and in doing so leaving her dreaded past behind. Much to her dismay her past has come with her and as she agonizes over her decision to not share with her husband her past she stumbles upon the long buried secret of the Middlebury Pink Camellia that started so long ago on the once lush and large Camellia orchards on her husbands family estate.Addison & her husband share a love of mysteries so when she comes upon an old garden journal that hints at strange and troubling acts committed long ago on this very estate they dig deeper into the mystery and in doing so Addison finds the strength to confront her past as well as managing to solve an age old crime, a mystery and a love story as well as her own love story all with the help of the beguiling and beautiful “Middlebury Pink”
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Camillia twists two separate tales, divided by time, together into a one story. There's Flora, who left her home in New York City, on the eve of WWII, to go to England. Though her family believed she was headed to work in horticulture, she was really a pawn for an international flower smuggling ring. Her task was to find the last known specimen of a rare camellia, thought to be in the gardens of a country estate. Posing as the nanny for the children of the household, Flora digs up real dirt, in the form of criminal activities happening on the estate, above and beyond the caper with which she is involved. Add in romance, and mystery, and Flora's story is rather compelling, as she tries her best to unravel the intrigue and not become tainted by evilness.The modern day thread revolves around Addison, a successful garden designer, who, frightened by the ghosts from her past, escapes with her husband, to the English country estate his parents recently purchased. Once there, while trying to keep her own history a secret, she begins to try unraveling the mysteries of the manor, and just why locals think the place is trouble.The tales were well told, though a little abrupt/choppy in places. I never particularly warmed to several of the main characters, and at least for Addison, wanted her to talk to her husband directly, to be honest. But then there might not have been a story. Ah well. For a while we had a garden design business, plus living in Charleston, where Camellias are plentiful and adored, I was interested in some of the botanical and horticultural aspects. That one of the main characters was from Charleston was sort of fun, but the references to the city captured none of the flavor. (In fact, one reference, which may be gone in the final edition, since what I read was the ARC) jarred me enough that I lost the train of the story. But I slipped back into the worlds of Flora and Addision and walked with them as they tried to find truth, and keep clear heads and hearts.I will keep my eyes open for more of Jio's work, for even though I wasn't entirely swept away by the novel, the journey I did take was pleasant, and has given me a bouquet of thoughts. And that's a good thing to come away with when reading.Many thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program and the publisher for sending me this copy of the book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the third book by Sarah Jio that I have read. I am really grateful for the chance to read this one. This book follows Flora, an American living in England in the 1940s, and Addison, a garden designer who goes to England to try and escape her dark past.It took me longer than the other books by Sarah Jio that I have read to really get hooked into this one. It just took me a little while to connect with the characters. I really enjoyed that while Flora and Addison's stories were different eventually we get to see just how similar they really are. As far as the mystery as to the events that occurred at Livingston Manor is concerned I felt that at least half of it was easy to figure due to some foreshadowing in chapter nine (I don't want to spoil anything but all I am going to say is it involves a dog). I do have to admit that there were some twists about the events at Livingston Manor that I didn't see coming from a mile away.Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was filled with characters that I really felt for, and it has some masterful twists that had my jaw dropping. I am definitely excited to read more from Sarah Jio.[I received this book from a Librarything Early Reviewers giveaway. That does not affect the content of my review in any way.]
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An intriguing plot. Didn’t expect everything that happened. Very good story. Would recommend.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved to story line but the narrators voice was a bit distracting at times. Almost to the point where I stopped listening to the book