Books
I currently have two series - The English Garden Romance series (romance with gardens/ environmental concerns thrown in) and my Duality series, which is about two stories, somehow connected. But watch this space - I have loads of ideas in my head!
Below you'll find the books and the novellas in order of reading or release.
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A Bouquet of White Roses
Arranging flowers is no fun when you're in love with the groom...
Florist Dawn Andrews’ business is to create beautiful bouquets, not to break up relationships. But when she’s asked to arrange the flowers for the wedding of an old school friend, it’s hard to ignore her budding feelings.
Dawn is the loveliest woman that landscape gardener Sam Winterson has ever seen. But as an engaged man, he dismisses the growing chemistry between them.
Until, that is, Sam has to rescue Dawn from an assault outside a nightclub. While he’s only doing what any honourable man would, Sam finds himself caring rather too much about the florist with the heart-shaped face and sherry-brown eyes.
With the wedding only five months away, can they dismiss their mutual attraction and carry on as ‘just friends’?
A prequel to The Garden Plot
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT
The Garden Plot - Book 1 of the English Garden Romance Series
A feisty garden designer with a green conscience. A successful, ruthless property magnate. A match-making teenager. What could possibly go wrong?
Desperate to keep her garden design company afloat, Sam doesn’t need a relationship – she needs business! All that stands between her and the commission that might save her company is reclusive businessman Jonas Keane.
Jonas Keane is not interested in the kind of woman who puts her career before her home and family. Been there, done that. Ordered to stay home to recuperate from illness is frustrating as hell – but it allows him to oversee the renovation of his own garden while staying a silent partner in a housing development. What he doesn’t expect is to run headlong into a budding romance with a blonde, pixie-faced gardener intent on upending his plans.
Jonas’ daughter Magda, fed up with her dad’s long hours and picture perfect girlfriends, believes bright, petite Sam is the perfect solution. When tension between Sam and Jonas mounts with the summer temperature, she’s thrilled. But a proposed housing development threatens Sam's beloved countryside, and suddenly, Magda's match-making plans hang in the balance.
Can Sam save the beauty spot from the bulldozers? Can Jonas put pleasure before business? And will Magda get her happy ever after?
Love in a Mist - Book 2 of the English Garden Romance Series
An artistocratic Englishwoman. A fiery Irishman. Two secrets they'd rather not share.
Ella Sanderson manages the farms and estate at Ashton Manor. She’s an old-fashioned girl who knows what she likes. And she doesn’t like the ultra-modern garden designed for the ancient house by horticulture’s bad boy, Connor McPherson.
Connor is just the type of man she’s learned to mistrust. Bright blue eyes and Irish charm may have captivated her employer Lady Susan—but not her! With all her protective instincts on high alert, Ella can’t overrule Lady Susan’s wishes for the garden, but she can just… not help.
Connor McPherson didn’t want the commission, but as the garden will host his best friend’s wedding, he couldn’t refuse it. If the wettest English weather on record hasn’t completely blown his chances of getting the build completed for the big day, he’s also battling the snooty estate manager who couldn’t be less enthusiastic.
The stage is set for fireworks between the hot-tempered Irishman and the cool, contained estate manager. As Ella fights to get the garden she hates built in time for the wedding she’d rather not attend and safeguard the manor from unwelcome publicity, she’s increasingly drawn to the tempestuous designer. Who, she discovers, has his own secrets to protect...
Not a novel, but a freebie!
When I originally started to draft The Garden Plot, I wanted to include my personal photographs with some information about the flowers which inspired and accompanied the novel, and indeed the trilogy, the English Garden Romance series.
Sadly, the ambition to create novels illustrated with beautiful pictures, while a lovely idea, soon became unrealistically expensive. For one thing, colour printing on Amazon’s Print on Demand was too expensive for even my mother to buy, and on e-book, the glorious colours of the flowers simply disappeared into black and white. So out they came - the photographs, the explanations of what the flowers ‘meant’, particularly in the Victorian era, when no-one spoke their minds, and the Latin names. As I became more embroiled in the writing, I gradually forgot about them and focused on creating pictures with my words and characters.
Until, in the COVID-19 pandemic. Some people clear out cupboards, I cleared out my photos…
And I remembered the work I’d done - trawling through books and the internet to find out more about the plants and flowers I’d chosen to link to a particular part of the story, even as a form of foreshadowing.
Which is what has led me here, to this (very) cheaply-produced document which shows a bit of my research, some of my photos and some wonderful images provided by some very talented photographers from Pixabay.
Love. Never out of style.
English teenager Lisbeth McAllen is determined to take on a little French polish – learn the language, get to grips with local customs and finally, nail that certain something that it seems all French girls have.
But the usually sensible Lisbeth has a hard time concentrating on conjugating French verbs when bad boy Henri is around.
When Henri is accused of stealing by guests in the hotel, she doesn’t believe it. Forbidden by her parents to get involved, and against all odds, Lisbeth sets out to prove his innocence.
Has she been blinded by her first real crush? Or is bad boy Henri honourable after all?
A free, English Garden Romance novella, okay to read as a stand-alone, but which fits into the timeline of The Garden Plot and which sets up Lisbeth's story, the final book in the series.
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT.
The Glasshouse Effect - Book 3 of the English Garden Romance Series
Her dream job. Her too dreamy colleague…
Magda Keane has been waiting for this job her whole life – creating her design for the exotic gardens in the huge Arcadia glasshouse. This assignment could grow her developing reputation – even get her a partnership.
There are just two problems…
The first is enigmatic Vincenzo Mazzi, the Italian engineer in charge of the solar panels powering the glasshouse. She’s never forgotten how she threw herself at him, nor the humiliation of his polite rejection. The second is the unexplained failure of Vincenzo's system, which could blight her prospects quicker than an early frost.
For Vincenzo, Magda on site, in the flesh, is enough to give him sleepless nights. He’s been so intent on building his business, he’s kept his passion under lock and key.
Even worse, strange problems with his tried and tested system are giving him an almighty headache. Working with Magda threatens both his hard-earned reputation and his self-imposed restraint.
Will this shared pressure drive them further apart? Or draw them together to finally face the attraction that never went away?
A Wedding at Christmas
A friend is family you can choose
Magda has set her heart on marrying Vincenzo at Christmas, and Lisbeth, her long-time chum, is her maid of honour.
But preparations for the wedding seem to be cursed by disaster, with sick vicars and family arguments.
And then it looks like Magda may lose not only her perfect wedding, but her best friend. Will the Christmas spirit triumph...?
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT
A Wilder Heart
Is third time the charm?
An unexpected encounter with free-spirited artist Henri Jourdain makes environmental scientist Dr Lisbeth McAllen lose her legendary cool for the first time in a decade. Henri walked away from her when she was 17. This time, she leaves him.
Luckily Lisbeth has the perfect distraction—six months in Ferrandoch Forest advising a failing project to save the endangered Scottish wildcat. Within days she’s battling to secure the wildcats’ habitat, revitalise the struggling village, and preserve the barriers she built to advance her career. The barriers that keep her wilder side under wraps.
And then Henri arrives to paint a commission. She doesn’t need memories of a dreamy French summer and her first love affair. She doesn’t want his help. She certainly doesn’t long for his kisses…
The Highlands of Scotland cast a powerful spell, but will its magic convince Lisbeth she could have it all - a successful project and a soul-deep love with Henri? Will their romance be third time lucky?
A Wilder Heart is the final English Garden Romance book. If you like your women’s fiction with a twist of spice, a hint of the unknown and a spectacular backdrop, you’ll love the last instalment in Sara Sartagne’s series.
Hint: grab my freebies French Kissing for Beginners and A Wedding at Christmas to follow Lisbeth's story from the first book!
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The Visitor - a Duality Novel
Two outsiders connected by love. Four hundred years apart.
2019. Trainee teacher Stacie Hayward is spending the summer with her brilliant, academic family. And with her ghosts. It’s a strange gift that she’s had since childhood – and learned to keep quiet about.
When Stacie’s parents invite American professor Nate to stay, Stacie’s ghosts suddenly vanish. Then Stacie is visited by the ghost of a young woman who calls her cousin and who offers to protect her. But protect her from what?
1619. Sarah Bartlett, a young healer, is suspected of witchcraft. The only person to defend her is John Dillington, the new parson. But is he in love – or bewitched? And can he save her from the flames?
Alone and bewildered, Stacie uncovers more of her past and realises that choices made long ago are rippling through time to threaten her. History may be repeating itself – but this time, it’s Stacie who’s in danger.
The Visitor is the first in a new series of Duality Novels that always feature two storylines, somehow connected. It was awarded a Premier Reader Chill with a Book award.
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The Fern Keepers - a Duality Novel
Damaged. Defiant. Renewed.
2022: Finally free from a controlling relationship, author Cat Kennedy moves into her aunt’s old house. Rapidly running out of cash, she desperately needs to recreate the success of her first novel. When she discovers a Victorian diary buried in the garden, she’s inspired by the story of Emily, Lady Cleveland, and begins to rebuild her confidence – and the fernery.
But somebody is watching Cat and they want to see her fail. First, it’s anonymous text messages that grow darker and more threatening. Then a carefully-designed campaign of intimidation that rapidly escalates. Is Cat’s life in danger?
1862: Grieving the loss of her new-born son and suffocated by society’s expectations, Emily Cleveland flees from London and the manipulative Dr Schenley, who she holds responsible for the death of her longed-for baby. Designing the fernery in the peace of Cleveland House gives Emily new purpose, helping her recover the spirit and self-assurance she had when she was first married.
But even from a distance, Dr Schenley’s insidious influence over Emily’s husband, James, threatens not just her rediscovered independence, but her very liberty.
As Emily fights to convince James of her sanity, and Cat battles an unseen enemy, both women need to find reserves of courage they never thought they possessed.
Winner of a Premier Reader Chill with a Book award.
In planning for 2024
The Year of Yes and No : A Duality novel
Set in two timelines - contemporary and Georgian. More details later this year!