Smorgasbord Blog Magazine Podcast – Tales from the Garden – Trouble in Paradise Part Two by Sally Cronin

I have been experiencing problems accessing my Anchor account through spotify and there have been a few issues since Anchor moved across. I am going to be recording more material in a few weeks to upload to Soundcloud but in the meantime I hope that new readers to the blog and those who have heard these stories before will enjoy the rewind.

Tales from the garden is a collection I wrote in tribute to our home in the mountains to the north of Madrid where we lived from 1999 to 2016. We inherited a number of statues from the previous owners that were too big to take with them, and I also found some discarded around the garden. Perfect characters for stories, some of whom moved on with us to Ireland and appeared in Tales from the Irish Garden.

This week the king of Magia faces the repercussions for his dalliance with a lady-in-waiting! You can listen to here to Part One

Sally Cronin – Smorgasbord Blog Magazine · Tales From The Garden – Trouble In Paradise Part Two

I hope you have enjoyed the story and will join me again next week for another story from Tales from the Garden.

©Sally Cronin 2023

One of the reviews for the book.

Robbie Cheadle An enthralling book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸

I really enjoyed Tales From The Garden by Sally Cronin. A collection of short stories about life and love in the garden, each tale is completely different and filled with mystery and delight. Two of my favourite tales were Trouble in Paradise and The Boy, His Dog and a Fairy Princess.

Trouble in Paradise is a traditional tale of a woman scorned except that in this particular case, the woman happens to be the Queen of the Fairies. This is a story of disappointment and retribution as well as love and forgiveness. The story is beautifully told and is full of lovely imagery. One particular sentence that I really like was “They were bitter drops of sadness and soon the lovely petals began to shrivel and fall to the ground before their time.” This sentence speaks such volumes and really describes anguish and pain.

I read the story of The Boy, His Don and a Fairy Princess to my 11-year old son, Michael. He was quite enthralled by it. Sally’s description of the gorgeous fairy and the boy’s secret glimpses of her completely fascinated Michael. This pleased me greatly as my Michael is a “real boy” who loves swords, pirates and drumming. I was delighted to see that he was able to appreciate the delightful story and writing. Michael was especially pleased when the boy got his own puppy. Michael loves animals and was very thrilled about the idea of the boy having his own puppy all to himself (Mike has a brother he always has to share with). I must add that the story impacted Michael to such an extent that he shed a few tears at the end.

Tales From the Garden is illustrated with some very special photographs that really match the mood and tone of the book. I would recommend this book for everyone from ages 5 to 99 years old.

Thank you for listening and if you would like to know more about my books and their reviews you can find them on my books page My books and reviews 2023