Theme

In the second section of my book Gwen Davis has discovered the lost garden for which this book is named, but she doesn't call it this. There is a rock in the middle of this garden that has the word "Longing" etched on it. As it turns out, this is the theme of this book.

Ms. Davis longs for many things, one of which is love. She craves this because with her insecurities that formed when she was a child she has never been terribly close to anyone other than her abusive mother. She becomes attracted to the Canadian officer named Raley in this section and longs to come closer to him. She longs to find the perfect fit with the girls in the house where she is stationed, and towards the end of this section they do grow closer to one another. They form a bond while trying to overcome the obstacle that is the rock-hard soil in on of the larger gardens.

What Ms. Davis doesn't realize though is that she has already grown attached to someone through a friendship, Jane. And what Jane longs for is for the return of her fiancée who has been missing in action for what seems like an eternity to her.

Every character in this novel that I have been introduced to thus far longs for one thing more than anything else; their old life before the war. As London is being ravaged by German bombings, they are taking care of an unfamiliar land in order to supply potatoes for the soldiers. They know that things will never be the same as they were before the attacks started but they can't help longing for the comfortable something they once knew.

They long for change, an end to war.