The Garden by Nick Newman
The Garden
by Nick Newman
Fantasy | Dystopian | Horror
304 Pages
Released February 2025
Rating: ★★★★ 1/2
Goodreads
Content Warnings
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) for a copy of this ARC! It was an intriguing delight from start to finish!
What an unexpected treat this book was! I came across The Garden in NetGalley after having finished up my other ARC reviews. The premise (and gorgeous cover) pulled me in so I was delighted when the publisher approved my request!
This book follows two elderly sisters, in the aftermath of a nameless event that leaves them isolated at their family’s crumbling estate. Evelyn and Lily have spent their whole lives following their mother’s strict guidance to survive — meticulously maintaining the property’s orchards, bees and gardens to keep up their larders. They only have each other. But when a mysterious young visitor crashes their carefully maintained bubble, the sister’s relationship is put to the test.
This book was not on my radar at all until recently but I’m so pleased I stumbled upon it because it was right up my alley. This book was an unexpected and refreshing take on post-apocalyptic fiction. The atmosphere was fantastic, I really felt the isolation that the sisters grew up in. There’s a lot of mystery going in and I enjoyed the way their environment and situation is slowly revealed over the course of the novel. The pace was also great, this story had just the right amount of tension building to really keep me hooked from start to finish.
I really loved Evelyn and Lily as characters. They are both elderly, though uncertain of their exact ages. However, they also have a distinct childlike quality to them which, I think, does a fantastic job reflecting the environment they grew up in. I enjoyed their complex relationship and watching it get put under strain with the introduction of a new character. I particularly appreciated the way we are introduced to them as adults and over time slowly see more and more glimpses of their childhood which explained a lot of motivation and mannerisms in the two.
This story also has some wonderful shock moments that I feel like I should have seen coming but was not expecting at all! I think some readers might be dissatisfied with the ending but I thought it was rather fitting with the overall theme of the story. I wish there had been a little more detail, in the end, but that’s a minor complaint.
If you love character-focused, post-apocalyptic fiction I think you’ll really enjoy this unusual take. It’s not something I feel I’ve read before, which is really hard to say these days!
This book will be released February 18th, 2025