The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

From the author's website.."When Eva’s filmstar sister Katrina dies, she leaves California and returns to Trelowarth, Cornwall , where they spent their childhood summers, to scatter Katrina’s ashes and in doing so return her to the place where she belongs.
But Eva must also confront the ghosts from her own past, as well as those from a time long before her own. For the house where she so often stayed as a child is home not only to her old friends the Halletts, but also to the people who had lived there in the eighteenth century. When Eva finally accepts that she is able to slip between centuries and see and talk to the inhabitants from hundreds of years ago, she soon finds herself falling for Daniel Butler, a man who lived – and died – long before she herself was born.
Eva begins to question her place in the present, and in laying her sister to rest, comes to realise that she too must decide where she really belongs, choosing between the life she knows and the past she feels so drawn towards."

Susanna Kearsley is a new-to-me author. All I can think is what took me so long to discover her?!? The good news, though, is that there are several Susanna Kearsley for me to discover...yay!

The Rose Garden is so well-written that I now understand why a lot of book bloggers were so enthusiastic about The Winter Sea. It is always such a great feeling to read the work of an author who really cares. Ms. Kearsley's story has some of my favorite elements... romance, an English setting and strong characters and even a "gothic" feel. I loved it all... including the time travel aspect. Even though Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is one of my favorites series, I am a little leery of time travel romances. If they are written poorly, it is a bad, bad thing! But, much to my delight, The Rose Garden is a very good, good thing! That part of the book is just as integral to the plot as anything else and I could tell the author took great care to write it. As a discerning reader, I so appreciate that.

~Thanks to Sourcebooks for sending me a copy of this wonderful novel in exchange for my review.~