The Garden
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4.0 • 20 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A darkly beautiful, eerie, hypnotic novel about two elderly sisters living alone at the edge of the world.
In a place and time unknown, two elderly sisters live in a walled garden, secluded from the outside world. Evelyn and Lily have only ever known each other. What was before the garden, they have forgotten; what lies beyond it, they do not know. Each day is spent in languid service to their home: tending the bees, planting the crops, and dutifully following the instructions of the almanac written by their mother.
When a nameless boy is found hiding in the boarded house at the center of their isolated grounds, their once-solitary lives are irrevocably disrupted. Who is he? Where did he come from? And most importantly, what does he want?
As suspicions gather and allegiances falter, Evelyn and Lily are forced to confront the dark truths about themselves, the garden, and the world as they’ve known it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Newman, a pseudonym for children's author Nicholas Bowling (The Undying of Obedience Wellrest), debuts with a chilling speculative fable. Elderly sisters Evelyn and Lily rarely venture beyond the kitchen of their dark, moldering family home. They certainly don't leave the walled-off boundaries of their property, adhering to rules written down by their mother after dust storms ravaged the world and their father abandoned the family. As the sisters' supply of preserved meat starts to dwindle, however, Evelyn wonders how long they can afford to remain isolated. One night, a nameless young man breaks into the house, upending the duo's routine and pitting them against each other. Evelyn fears the intruder and bristles at the way his presence forces her to face her loneliness, while Lily views him as the ticket out of a prison she longs to escape. As tensions rise between the trio, the sisters are forced outside into an unwelcoming world, and skeletons from their past threaten to sully their mother's memory. Newman impresses with his atmospheric prose and sharp exploration of obedience and isolation. This will haunt readers long after they've turned the final page.
Customer Reviews
Leib
End times but never learn what is was/is. Lovely gardens, good characters.
Confused
It took me a whole month or longer to finish this book.. the story line seems like a great one but doesn’t really explain why things, or how things are the way they are.. and then left on a dead end..