Marcus is gay, but the books don't reduce gayness to a trope.

And let's stop for a moment and talk about that. Gwendolyn, Kathryn and Marcus are all enormous fun, and their scrapes and foibles are endearing and relatable. Turnbull has achieved the holy grail of historical novelists - turning mastery of the material into an engaging and delightful story. But don't think that makes these books dry historical tomes. The few movie history details I know (ah yes, that was in Conquest with Garbo and Boyer, wasn't it?) are tossed off so casually that I am certain that everything I don't know is equally well researched. It's clear that his mastery of the material is encyclopedic. When it's perfect it looks easy, and Martin Turnbull makes it look easy.īut it's not, of course. It's so perfect that it looks effortless, always the intention of authors but as difficult to do as the perfect triple in figure skating.

Every last detail of life in the twenties and thirties is exquisite. Not a cup of coffee, not a palm tree, is out of place. It was tangential to what I was researching, but I'd read just enough about the Garden of Allah to be fascinated, so I gave it a try.īoy am I glad I did! This book - this whole series - is fantastic! The setting, the place and time, the worldbuilding and the detail, is perfect. I was doing some research on Hollywood in the thirties for an upcoming book of my own, and The Garden on Sunset looked interesting. I picked up The Garden on Sunset because it came across my Amazon suggestions. This is a completely legit glowing review from a reader. Nor does he share the same publisher, so this is not one of those obligatory reviews one-author-to-another I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine reviews that you often see.

The Garden on Sunset by Martin Turnbull