Praise for The Insistent Garden:

“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.”
~ Publishers Weekly

“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.”
~ Margaret Thompson, The Coastal Spectator

“The book has a timeless feel, and far from feeling cut off from culture, it suggests more connections every time I think about it.”
~ Laura Frey, Reading in Bed

“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.”
~ Dave Williamson, Winnipeg Free Press

“If you take nothing away from The Insistent Garden 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.”
~ Angela Hickman, National Post

“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.”
~ Betty Jane Hegerat, author of The Boy and Running Toward Home

“A captivating, witty and beautifully written novel which probes the quirks and foibles of the English psyche.”
~ Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Gardens Advisor, Historical Royal Palaces, London