This was a fun, magical, enchanting tale of a girl who must use her connection to her enchanted garden to protect herself from the men in her life who want to use her for their own selfish gain.

Unsettling and beautiful. This is a title that I will purchase and read again. My only regret is that I didnt read it earlier.

This is a haunting story set in the Victorian era. There are tropes for the sorts of sensational novels that some Victorians loved at that time along with this author’s unique voice and some magical realism in these pages.

Harriet does indeed have a peculiar (unusual and unique) garden that she loves. She will see how this important spot determines aspects of her life over the course of the novel.

Harriet, like many a Victorian heroine, has found herself alone in the world. When the story begins, readers know that her father is absent but don’t know why. Being a woman alone was a challenge in that era although Harriet does not seem to mind this. However, events conspire that lead her to marriage, plots and sinister events. What will happen to Harriet? Will she have a happy ending?

This book will be enjoyed by those who are interested in the period and who are willing to suspend some disbelief. Here is an original and intriguing read that I enjoyed.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for this title. All opinions are my own.

This was a strange little book but in a good way. I had no idea what to expect going into it and really enjoyed the unique journey. Harriet’s talent was original and the way she learns how to bloom (literally) is so sweet and satisfying. You love seeing a character who faced lifelong hardships getting the life they deserve in the end.

This was a really interesting concept for a book, having a garden bonded to a lonely, misfit girl. I found the first half a little slow, but by the end I was invested in Harriet and what would become of her. Enjoyed the end and the side characters as well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this copy of "The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt."

With a title like that (mysterious and magical), this book definitely delivered with a captivating gothic tale.

Harriet has lived her whole life in fear of her father, but he's vanished and she's alone in the Sunnyside house with her garden that responds to her and protects her.

But when a police inspector starts to ask about Harriet's missing father, she realizes how dangerous it can be for a female with no money and no rights (it's 1865).

So what happened to Harriet's mother and why does she feel responsible? And what are the mysterious letters she keeps receiving about a family secret? And why did I feel a little squeamish about the charming suitor who wants a hasty courtship?

Fantastic ending - I was cheering for Harriet! (I won't spoil it for you but let me know if you read it.)

Chelsea Iversen’s The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt is a whimsical and heartwarming tale that weaves together themes of resilience, community, and the magic of nature. This enchanting novel offers a delightful escape into a world where the unexpected blooms, and the beauty of connection thrives amidst challenges.

The story centers around Harriet Hunt, an unassuming gardener with an extraordinary gift: the ability to grow plants that reflect the emotions and memories of those around her. When a sudden tragedy strikes her close-knit village, Harriet's peculiar garden becomes a beacon of hope and healing, sparking curiosity and drawing people together in ways they never imagined.

Iversen’s prose is lyrical, painting vivid imagery of Harriet’s vibrant garden. The descriptions of the plants, each uniquely tied to the characters’ inner worlds, are stunningly imaginative. From a sorrowful willow dripping crystalline dew to jubilant sunflowers that hum faint melodies, the garden feels alive, almost like a character in its own right. The lush and fantastical setting is balanced by the book's emotional depth, exploring themes of grief, forgiveness, and rediscovering joy.

The character of Harriet is particularly compelling. Her quiet strength and humility make her a relatable and endearing protagonist. As she navigates her own grief while tending to the emotions of others, readers witness her growth and bravery in embracing her gift. The supporting cast, from the cynical shopkeeper to the inquisitive child who befriends Harriet, adds layers of humor and poignancy to the narrative.

While the story leans heavily on its magical realism, it also resonates with deeply human struggles. At its heart, the novel is a reminder of the power of small, meaningful gestures and the way community can provide solace in turbulent times.

If there’s any critique to be made, it’s that some subplots could have been more developed. A few characters’ arcs feel rushed, leaving readers wanting to know more about their backstories and connections to the garden. Nevertheless, the charm and originality of the narrative more than make up for these minor shortcomings.

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt is an evocative and beautifully crafted novel that invites readers to slow down and appreciate the magic hidden in everyday life. Fans of magical realism and character-driven stories will find themselves utterly captivated.

This book starts slow with Harriet living with her mean neglectful father and then he disappears. Harriet is left alone in her manor with her magical garden. Luckily she has her cousin Eunice who is recently married and with child.
The police are investigating her father's disappearance.

This book was fantastic I loved the magical garden and how it took care of Harriet. The writing was beautiful. The book was unique. I really enjoyed it.

I loved reading this and honestly couldn't put it down once I started! Harriet Hunt has been a victim of many unfortunate events throughout her life, and finds solace in her garden. Parts of the story were so difficult to read because I just didn't want her to endure any more hardships! Harriet was such a strong FMC and I'm so thankful I was able to read her story.

*3.5 Stars. I enjoyed this but I felt due to the pacing I wasn’t always able to read it for a long time or wanted to pick it up. I really loved our MC Harriet and her connection to nature. I loved getting to explore her magic and how it evolved throughout the story. I have to say that this book made me yet again want to throw hands with fictional men. I absolutely HATED some of the men in this book but I’m thrilled they got exactly what they deserved. I’m so happy Harriet got her happy ending because she really went through so much in this book. I have to say I really loved the inclusion of female friendships in this book, I adored her relationship with Eunice and Amelia. My main complaints really about this book was the pacing of the story, the last 1/3 of the book was so good with the twists and turns but I found the first 2/3 drug a bit.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. “The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt” is now available for purchase.

I’m particularly impressed by books that manage to be both cozy and harrowing, and this one does an exceptional job at both.

There’s a menace to this story that comes both at and from the protagonist, an interesting dichotomy between the men seeking to control and use her and the way she controls the garden. As things get progressively worse for Harriet, her connection to the plants also gets wilder, and it’s interesting to see how these things come together repeatedly throughout the story and most meaningfully in its conclusion.

The setting here is very well rendered, and the atmosphere feels alternately snug and oppressive depending on what is happening at the moment in the story. I really liked how the author used sense of place here to amplify the emotion of the plot and its central character.

I loved this book.

I'm a huge fan of magical realism and fantasy fiction so this was a book description that really spoke to me when I saw it. I loved Harriet. She was a vulnerable character, and her garden is her backbone in a way. I felt like her world was small yet so big to read through. I will say at first this was a book that was hard to get into but once I did, I really liked spending time with Harriet in her garden.

I think this would make a fantastic book club book, because there's so much character development to discuss throughout. At the end of the novel, I was a little sad to leave Harriet behind.

Wow what a crazy read! Not at all what I was expecting, a bit slow in some parts but well worth it for that ending. I love a female rage book especially one with a magical cottagecore element mixed in-- I was hooked. Everything about this book was SUPER atmospheric! Has a lot of dark and whimsical garden vibes--definitely for fans of Weyward and the TV show Buccaneers. Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC! :)

This book started out so promising. I loved the wild garden; however, I got to the middle of this book and just did not care about the characters or what was happening with the plot. The main character, Harriet, was too much of a pushover for my liking. Therefore, I decided not to finish this book at the 50% mark.

DNF at the end of Chapter 5. Unfortunately this book seems entirely focused on telling a story about all the ways that women can be vulnerable and abused during this time period, and while I don’t like my books to pretend like things were hunky-dory for women in history, I’m also not keen to dwell on them for what feels like it will be the entire novel.

This was such a beautifully written story of overcoming. Harriet has been beaten down her entire life and yet she is the most tender yet resilient bloom in the garden. This wrapped up in the most wonderful and fulfilling way.

This book, unfortunately, didn't hit the mark for me.

I kind of expected female empowerment, a magical garden, and a main character who is a bit of a social recluse, by choice. What we get instead is a lot of abuse of the female characters in the story, a garden with unclear magic, and a bit of a doormat main character who pines for more, but doesn't take action.

I think this book could've been cut back a lot. Everything is so painstakingly snail-paced. It takes so long for the story to get anywhere, and it's overly wordy. I'm a lover of a slow burn, but so much of this book felt like filler. The characters don't do anything, and the story just unfolds around them. They aren't dynamic, and they all fall very flat. The plot lines felt weak to me; there are quite a few incidences where the driving factor of the plot is just an irrational dislike of our main character. The story relies a lot on a historical - victorian - plot line of women being labelled hysterical by male figures in their lives, but it just didn't feel convincing here.

Almost all of the male characters are just terrible for no reason, and almost all of the female characters just revolve around that terribleness. Harriet (our FMC) has so many nudges in the right direction, and she just gives up again and again, but it feels like it is just to drive the plot forward. There's also an attempted SA that feels very brushed off while also being a driving factor for the plot. The book is marketed as Harriet learning to harness the power of her garden, but she mostly ignores it, wills it to be tame, and then simply runs away when the going gets tough... and relies on her garden to save her.

Overall, the garden was pretty cool. Some of the resolutions felt satisfying. I do like how the author writes, and I liked some of the concepts. I just think that this story wasn't well executed, and I often felt bored while reading because I couldn't get attached to the characters or plot.

𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓽𝓸 𝓝𝓮𝓽𝓰𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓮𝔂 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓢𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓬𝓮𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓴𝓼 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓪𝓷 𝓐𝓡𝓒 𝓬𝓸𝓹𝔂 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓴, 𝓲𝓷 𝓮𝔁𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓰𝓮 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓶𝔂 𝓱𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀.

I want to start by saying I've seen book marketing that classes The Peculiar Garden Of Harriet Hunt as cosy fantasy, and it's not that. Please check trigger warnings for domestic violence and SA before you read this one.
Centred around Harriet, our main protagonist, who must use her magical ability with plants to save herself from the ill-intentions from the men around her, this is an enchanting and magical story
Harriet is all alone after her abusive father disappeared, leaving his debts behind. The only company Harriet has is her garden, which responds to her emotions. Deemed too peculiar for victorian society, Harriet prefers the solace of the crumbling walls of Sunnyside house.
When suspicion grows around the disappearance of her father and whether Harriet is involved, she marries a charming man to help protect her, but looks can be deceiving, and she may have just unwillingly drawn herself into an even more dangerous situation.

I was immediately captivated by Harriet's story and felt great empathy for her. She's not had an easy life at all, and as a reader, I wanted to see her break free of the abuse she's suffered desperately.
I loved the magical elements in this book, and the imagery of the garden was written beautifully. There's plenty of twists and turns in the plot, and I didn't anticipate the ending at all, which I always love. The ending was also brilliant, and I love it when you finish a book and feel satisfied, which this one gave. Overall, I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it if you like historical fiction with a dash of magic. It's very readable and I would be interested in reading more by Chelsea in the future.

Although in the end, all of the loose ends in this story were neatly tied up, getting to that point was quite difficult. To start, there were too many plot lines going on and rarely were they ever really explained. Harriet Hunt is a woman who is alone in the world. Her father is missing, her only friend is moving away, her mother died when she was young. Her freedom (and loneliness) takes a turn when an inspector shows up at her door asking about her missing father. Harriet decides to take it upon herself to find him and get the inspector out of her life and this is when the story truly begins. The reader is introduced to the missing father plotline immediately, but all we know is that he’s gone. Then there’s a random man who proposes to her within about 2 hours of them knowing each other. This is weird and not really explained. We learn that Harriet’s mother died in a terrible accident that had something to do with Harriet herself, but that’s all we know and it really isn’t explained. There are some odd letters arriving from a man named Nigel Davies, but the letters explain very little nothing comes of them until the last fifteen pages of the book.
On top of the multitude of shallowly explained plot lines, the main character is annoying. She makes rash decisions and takes a “woe is me” approach to everything she encounters. If she had taken the opportunity presented to her by Eunice at the beginning of the story, the rest of it would have never happened. She makes excuses for her husband’s abuse, at one point describing it as “erratic behavior” and tells herself she deserves it for what happened to her mom (which is still unclear to the reader) years ago. There wasn’t one point in this book where I thought Harriet was standing up for herself or making decisions in her best interest.
She also was clearly not socialized as a child because ANY and ALL situations in which she needed to have a conversation with someone, it looked like this: *character says something to her* “Harriet had no idea what to say, so she said nothing.”, “Harriet tried to think of something interesting or cool to say and couldn’t so she said nothing.”
Annoying.
The reason I’m giving this two stars is because everything ended up being tied up and there was a twist that I didn’t see coming at the end.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC and my sincerest apologies that I am so bad about reviewing things on time. :,)

This book starts out with a newspaper article detailing the disappearance of one Christian Comstock and his wife. Where have they gone? What has happened to them? To answer these questions, we must hit the rewind button and begin six months earlier. That's the set up for what turns out to be a novel with a very interesting concept. A lonely woman, a missing father, a once luxurious house now barren of extravagances, and, we mustn't forget, a wild garden that is far more than it seems; these are the elements that make up the center of a twisting, turning plot line. Are you intrigued? If so, I encourage you to travel with Harriet Hunt through her garden to discover its mysteries and its secrets, but don't let your guard down or you just might be in for a surprise.