Pineapple. Jill Marshall YA Collection, #1

Based around the true stories of the Lost Gardeners of Heligan and the Muslim Tommies who fought in the trenches during WW1, best-selling author Jill Marshall tells a bitter-sweet tale of lost love and liberation from the past, as war, comradeship and personal hurts twist into one mystical 21st century summer. When Poppy Moss is sent by her parents to an unconventional art school over the summer, she knows it is just a means to escape her past.
But the past is all around in the exotic gardens of the country estate in which she's meant to just paint, breathe in beneficial fresh air, and share insights with the other teenagers ...... like the mysterious Tariq, who really does seem to be there for the art, although he's spending an awful lot of time trying to uncover an old family mystery. And Robbie, the gardener who cherishes his family, his workmates and his beloved pineapple so much that it steals her heart, even though he seems to think they are living a century apart.