LEOTA'S GARDEN BY FRANCINE RIVERS

LEOTA'S GARDEN by FRANCINE RIVERS is a book about family relationships, forgiveness, restoration and the importance of communication between family members.
Nora Gaines, Annie's mother, is the product of a difficult childhood where she felt unloved by her mother, and for that reason she is determined that her children will have everything she never had as a child.  She is compulsively controlling, and has no idea that she got pretty close to destroying her daughter, Anne-Lynn.  Fortunately Annie went to a Christian camp with her friend Susan, and gave her heart to the Lord.  She is determined not to hate her mother and to never become bitter like Nora.  Annie yearns for her mother's unconditional love and acceptance in much the same way that Nora longed to be loved by Leota.
After being "encouraged" to excel at school, gymnastics, piano and other activities Nora felt were essential for her daughter's education, Annie runs away from home and studies art instead of going to the prestigious college that Nora has always wanted her to attend.  Nora is furious and does all she can to force Annie to come home and obey her.  In a way Nora is living her own life vicariously through the life she envisions for Annie.  Nora is not a Christian although she feels the church owes her a lot as she is a church-goer and has given large sums of money to the church.  She is furious when Annie speaks about her love for the Lord, and even more furious when her pastor tells her she needs Jesus in her life!  She is a very selfish and proud woman who lives a life totally focused on her children's success, and on the family's social success. She has quite a martyr complex, and is always complaining about all she has sacrificed for her family.  Her third husband Fred loves her dearly, but he is firm with her and is embarassed by the way she behaves.
Annie is a sweet and gentle girl of eighteen who is trying to follow her Lord in all things.  She feels it is not the Lord's will for her to go to Wellesley, but that she should follow her talent for art.  Her mother is very disparaging and says she has no talent and should rather go to a college where she will meet the "right" people.  She is very unkind in her criticism of her daughter and is prepared to do anything to bring her back home.  Annie has spent eighteen years trying to live up to her mother's expectations, and realizes no amount of success on her part will ever satisfy Nora.  She is afraid of coming to hate her mother and keeps quiet rather than answering her back in case she says something she will regret.  She cannot converse with her as Nora always knows best!
Neither Nora, whose real name is Eleanor, nor her brother George have any time for their mother, Leota Reinhardt.  George because he is too busy making money, and Nora because she feels her mother never had time for her when she was growing up.  
When the reason for Leota's perceived neglect of her children comes out, Nora's hard, unloving attitude starts to melt, especially when she realizes how much her mother sacrificed and how much her mother loved her.
Annie Gaines goes to live with her friend Susan in San Francisco.  She is afraid of upsetting her mother and is afraid of disobeying her and going to see her Grandma Leota, who she has only met a few times in her life.  She has been warned by her mother that her grandmother is a selfish woman who never loved her children and left them to be brought up by their German grandmother so that she could live her own life.  Annie loves her grandmother immediately and Leota, who had nearly given up hope of any family interaction, is happy at last, although she is afraid that her granddaughter will soon tire of spending time with such an old woman.  They have a very special relationship, and together with Corban Solsek, a student who starts out hating Leota for her bluntness, and Susan's brother Sam, they get the garden looking lovely again.  Leota has always loved her garden and found great solace there.  She was always inviting her children to come and work in the garden with her, but they resented her for spending so much time there and didn't realize she was reaching out to them.
Corban starts out with Leota as a project for a social study so that he can get better grades.  He has an idea that old people who are poor would be better off living in state funded facilities, and volunteers to take Leota shopping every Wednesday in order to get to know her.  It is only when Annie comes into Leota's life that she opens up at all, and Corban comes to genuinely love the old lady as well. 
The theme of the garden is throughout - the pruning, manuring, planting, watering, weeding and preparing the soil is very like what God does with His children in order to make them fit for His purpose in their lives.  The fruit trees that have been pruned will bear fruit again, and we see the fruit, good and bad, that is borne by the characters because of the choices they make in their lives. Annie makes the garden a blaze of colour and adds artistic touches of her own to make it a fun place to be.  She paints some of the drab old walls of the house and generally brings life to the place.  We are reminded of the importance of gardens in Scripture and all the important events that happened in a garden.  We see Leota's garden becoming a place of beauty once again, and even as a place of entertaining, as neighbours and friends are drawn there. Leota's garden is now a happy place, full of friends, children and laughter,thanks to Annie.  
We see Leota's loyalty to her husband Bernard and to his secret, and also to her father-in-law who she didn't want to humiliate by telling anyone the truth of their situation, in spite of the fact that her mother-in-law treated her with disdain and open hatred and poisoned the children against their mother, in very much the same way that Nora has tried to poison Annie and Michael against Leota.
Throughout the book we see the Lord bringing restoration and life to the situation, largely through Annie's obedience to Him and her love for Grandma Leota. It is a sensitively written story where the characters' struggles are very real and beautifully portrayed.