Wild Designs

By: Katie Fforde

Narrated by: Vanessa Benjamin

Althea Farraday, a 38-year-old divorced mother of three, has a teenage son who’s a Buddhist, a hypercritical sister who knows how to push all her buttons, a job on the endangered species list, and a love life to match. Just as she’s settling in to a comfortable level of chaos, a near-perfect man enters her life. Equipped to steal her heart and help turn her passion for designing gardens into a new career, Patrick Donahugh may be too good to be true.

Amid wild roses, California poppies, scarlet flax, sweet rocket, love-in-a-mist, and of course, plenty of dirt, Wild Designs is a refreshingly honest and funny read that celebrates the almost-ready-to-bloom aspect of all of our lives.

©1996 Katie Fforde (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A delight…Althea copes with single-mom tribulations with such grace and wit that you wish she could move in next door.” ( Detroit Free Press)

“Old-fashioned romance of the best sort…funny, comforting.” ( Elle)

“A modern Cinderella tale about a good-hearted, underappreciated supermom in her late thirties…This British bestselling author has delivered a pocketful of posy.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Love Katie Fforde!

I find Fforde's books exceedingly enjoyable, relaxing, funny, romantic, and smart with realistic characters in delicious settings.

Perhaps a tad old-fashioned, but lovely!

I thoroughly enjoyed this romance novel, especially the gardening! Likable if a bit too self-deprecating heroine, dreamy hero with the patience of a saint, and the mature-with-children love interest was refreshing.

Awful and boring. Bad narrator.

I usually love Katie Fforde's books but this one is forced and unrealistic. The narrator is truly awful and boring. I fought to finish it and finally skipped 3 chapters at the end. Should have skipped the whole book as it was a waste of time.