3 stars

A beautifully written story with an ending I hated. A protagonist who is at times very sympathetic, yet at others incredibly hard to like. Overall, a tragic & obsessive tone. Very bleak.

[What I liked:]

•The writing is absolutely beautiful. That is the best thing about my reading experience of it. Wistful & subtle & pointedly observant. Poignant.

•I love plants, so I also really enjoyed reading about plants & gardening throughout this book! The parts when Rain works in Hollywood on movie sets was pretty interesting, too.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Some plot points are a bit hazy. Why was Lily stranded in France in a war zone at age 15? What exactly happened to Rain in his unit (some sort of hazing?) & why was he so ashamed about it? Why did the French gardener speak English?

•Why is Rain trying to do a new garden *every* day? Why not once a week, or once a month? That would be more plausible.

•I hated the ending. I absolutely hated it. Such a sarcastic, throwaway joke of an ending that didn’t fit with the rest of the tone of the story, & kinda ruined it for me. I don’t know, it felt so flippant & meaningless.

•I’m still not sure if I like Rain or not. He has goodness in him, he suffers & sacrifices so much & manages to retain hope, is creative & loves plants, & is so kind to a certain child. Yet he’s also creepy (he looks in his employer’s window when she’s undressing & jerks off, wtf), & is kinda delusional in thinking he can make a certain woman love him after decades of evidence to the contrary. He’s pretty pathetic in that aspect, & I wish he had more character growth; I wish he had learned to live in reality by the end, & to not let people walk all over him, but he never does.

CW: ableism, war, PTSD, minors being exploited for underage sex, human trafficking, infidelity, suicide, accidental death (drowning), racism, voyeurism, substance abuse

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

A wonderful book! To think that a garden can heal the wounds of war, and the love inspired from growing beautiful plants...Sensitive and moving, I recommend this book for any reader.

Thank you for Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press for this arc in exchange for a free and honest review!

I really enjoyed reading The History of Rain! I love and really enjoy reading historical fiction and The History of Rain is no exception. The premise, plot and language are all exceptional foundations for an amazing story and Stephens Gerard Malone has written an excellent book that I hope flies into the hands of multiple readers.

Horribly disfigured by shellfire, Private Rain is patched up in a French sanatorium. His salvation from despair comes from turning the muddy mess around the hospital back into the gardens that once were. A fellow patient, Major Lutyen, offers him a job as a gardener at his new house back in England. Lutyen’s wife Lily was who Rain adored back in France.
Rain creates stupendous gardens at Lutyen’s country seat in Yorkshire, but the financial crash of his employer makes Rain unemployed, Lily flee to Paris and Rain following her. Just like in real life (NOT!), Rain makes the acquaintance of a female black American bar owner in Paris, where the American film haute voleé is mingling.
All that name-dropping at the scenes in Paris and Hollywood (Selznick, Bankhead etc) is a bit tiresome, the American film star jargon feeling forced and exaggerated.
An okay story.

Unfortunately I was unable to read this novel as it would not download to kindle.

Description sounded great though so disappointed.