Our host for this month is Janet Shellenberger.

Our book is "The Victory Garden: A Novel," by Rhys Bowen.

As the Great War continues to take its toll in England, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and before long she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage.

When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden. The journals inspire Emily, and in the wake of devastating news, they are her saving grace. As Emily learns more about the volatile power of healing with herbs, the journals will bring her to the brink of disaster, but may open a path to her destiny.