Title: Romance of the Enclosed Garden: Song of Songs
Author: Andrea Oliva Florendo
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 978-1662850509
Pages: 140
Genre: Christian, Romance
Reviewer: Lily Amanda
Hollywood Book Reviews
Imagine love as a quiet garden blooming in sacred stillness where the soul meets the Divine. That’s kind of the feeling author Andrea Oliva Florendo brings to life in Romance of the Enclosed Garden: Song of Songs. This is a short, gentle, but deeply enlightening book that will get you thinking about how God’s love isn’t just found in church or scripture, but in the small quiet things like nature, marriage, or even in the deep places of our own hearts. Through the Song of Songs, Florendo wants readers to see love as something tender, symbolic and holy. She compares it to a garden, not loud or obvious, but one that’s waiting quietly to be discovered, something sacred and hidden that you can’t see right away, but one that is quietly growing slowly beneath the surface, the kind of thing we might miss if we’re always rushing or distracted by all the noise around us.
Florendo captures the attention of readers early in the general preface where she talks about love as a gift from God that is meant to be pure and holy. She, however, warns that many people today confuse love with desire, forgetting that it is supposed to be sacred and needs care and patience just like a garden. Her tone here is firm and urgent, offering a clarion call to return to the kind of love that God intended from the beginning.
The book itself isn’t laid out like a formal Bible study, but instead it feels more like a quiet, personal journey through the Song of Songs, guided by someone who has spent a lot of time sitting with it, praying through it, and letting it speak to her. Florendo reflects on each section of the biblical text through themes like longing, intimacy, silence, and the symbolism of the enclosed garden, which is not just a poetic phrase but a beautiful analogy that readers are invited to discover.
Readers will appreciate the inclusion of beautiful photographs and watercolor illustrations sprinkled throughout the pages as the way the author does not try to explain everything right away but instead allows them to move slowly through her thoughts. There is something gentle and unique about the way she writes. At times it feels more like a quiet prayer than a lesson and that actually makes the book feel more personal and more real. Reading it feels like she is inviting you to sit with the words and let them settle into your heart over time and in doing so, she creates space for silence, reflection and trust. This makes the book feel less like something you have to study and more like something you carry with you and return to whenever your spirit needs rest, or your heart needs to remember what sacred love feels like.
Romance of the Enclosed Garden by Andrea Oliva Florendo is not the kind of book you read once and move on from, but a unique offering to the Christian-faith community and the world at large, that one may need to keep near their bedside or prayer space. It is like it does not try to impress with big words or complex arguments and that is exactly what makes it so moving. Although some parts are deeply symbolic and maybe a bit hard to grasp right away, there is something in the way Florendo writes that makes you want to linger and just be present with it. This book is especially for those who are drawn to silence and reflection as well as those who long for a deeper experience of love rooted in God and not just feeling. I really admire what the author has done here and her courage and tenderness to write like this and to trust that quiet words can still reach people. I think she has made something truly beautiful. Romance of the Enclosed Garden is a call to deeper intimacy with Jesus, full of spiritual insight, lyrical prose, and heartfelt revelation.
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