THE WALLED GARDEN

Run of the mill-town first hardcover for British writer Enright, this featuring a dutiful little wife who, married to a scoundrel, takes wing, moves to a lovely English village, founds her own business—and hits happiness head-on. Diana Neville, married to financier Michael and mother of teenager Yolanda, is suddenly homeless after her handsome, domineering husband is sent to prison for embezzlement. Houses, cars, and stables are all whisked away—but, luckily, Diana has an odd inheritance from an aunt: the small holding of Gilbert's Tower, tucked into the beauties and arable land of Yorkshire. There, with the help of sturdy yeoman Albert Sedgely, Diana will create English Gardens—an organic food business with ``very small growers'' as suppliers, retired people, mostly, happy to sell their home-grown produce. While English Gardens takes off, a young agriculturist, Alisdair Strang-Stecle, comes aboard, and a dewy love develops between him and Yolanda; even stronger sparks will fly between Diana and Alisdair's dad, Philip, a wealthy widower and competitor who sprayed his way to the top of local produce distribution. But both are united in opposition to their offspring marrying. Meanwhile, in the slammer, model prisoner Michael has written a book and, out on good behavior, returns to Diana to muck up all her good work, pull a major dirty trick, and even slug it out with good Albert Sedgely. It all ends, of course, with a sunny close. Routine throughout, with Yorkshire and inhabitants as quaint as can be.