Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
Garden story continues, 26 Sep 2000
By A Customer
I loved Earthly Joys and was eager to read the sequel. I wasn't disappointed! Virgin Earth is the story of John Tradescant the Younger's adventures in the New World. As he tries to survive in a harsh environment, he finds romance. Will he ever return to Tradescant's Ark where his brave wife Hester fights to save the family tradition? (This is also the story of the beginning of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.)This novel has it all, passion, history, tragedy, and a great villain.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Virgin Earth - Stunning, stunning, stunning, 14 Feb 2006
After reading the magnificent Earthly Joys I clammered to get my hands on this to see what became of the Tradescant family. I was not disappointed. Philippa Gregory certainly interprets history in a way that helps her weave a captivating story but there are no far fetched assumptions in this book. Her books are like the best history lesson you have ever attended, they catapult the reader to the 1600's as though it were the most natural thing in the world. John Tradescant Junior is an opposite in everyway to his father but carries some of the characteristics that we so admired about JT senior. His life twists and turns in such a way that you fight within yourself whilst working out which route he should take; and then supporting his choices. The detail in this book is magical, one minute you can smell the exotic plants of Virginia and the next you feel as though you are being ravaged by the Civil War.
An inspirational book - will make you search engine crackers for every drop of information that can be had about the Tradescant family.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
One man, two countries, two wars, two families....., 16 May 2007
John Tradescant the younger is the King's gardener in an England that is on the brink of civil war. To escape the troubles John travels to the colony of Jamestown in Virginia to search for new plant species but he finds that this Virgin Earth is not uninhabited and has troubles of its own.
The white settlers are helping themelves to the Native Indian's land at will, burning crops and trying to drive the indians out. So begins a bizarre series of events that sees John fall in love and enter into a marriage with a young Native girl called Suckahanna and begin to live as a native. John becomes fully absorbed in the native culture until war looms and John is forced to make a brutal choice between his Indian wife and tribe and his own people.
John returns to England to find that his family are caught in the midst of the war. It is impossible to remain neutral in such times and the divided loyalties are threatening to tear the family apart. Will John ever be able to decide where his loyalties truly lie? and when he does will it be too late to save those that he loves?
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