I pushed myself to read 100 pages but then broke down and read some reviews because I was so bored. An author has to give some sort of clue by this point in the reading to keep readers interested.

First published in Great Britain in 2025; published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on February 18, 2025

Global warming stories dominate the current crop of post-apocalyptic novels, perhaps because the harm that will inevitably result from climate change is obvious to all but the willfully blind. The Garden, however, is more a novel of domestic drama than one of survivors struggling with the consequences of an overheated planet.

Evelyn and Lily are sisters. For many years, they have lived together in the kitchen of their family home. Apart from the kitchen, boards have been nailed over all the windows and doors. The sisters spend their days alone, tending a large garden and harvesting honey from beehives. Occasionally they play a game of hide-and-seek. They don’t recall how old they are, but they are feeling the effects of aging. They take direction — when to prune the trees, when to plant and harvest — from an almanac compiled by their mother. The sisters quarrel and bicker but they’ve been doing that their entire lives. They particularly argue about whether they have wasted their lives following their mother’s instructions.

The backstory reveals something of their history. At some point in the past, fierce storms required them to dig out and replant their garden. There were once several people living on the estate, apparently operating as a co-op, but they all left, perhaps at their mother’s insistence. Their mother apparently went mad before she died. Their father abandoned them, or so their mother told them. Their mother boarded up the rest of the house and forbade the sisters from entering it because it is filled with dangerous things — men’s things. Their mother had a bug up her bum about men. The sisters only knew one man (their father), and their mother viewed him as an exemplar of poor male behavior.

A wall around the estate needs repair. The sisters know nothing of the outside world because their mother told them that they shouldn’t look over the wall. “The land outside was so dry and so bright it could blind you at a glance, Mama had said.” The sisters are certain that danger lurks inside their boarded house and outside the walls of their estate. “Their mother forbade them from even thinking about exploring the countless halls and rooms that made up the rest of the house.” Nick Newman eventually supplies a plausible explanation for their demented mother’s instructions.

The sisters finally meet a male when a boy of indeterminate age makes his way over a collapsed section of the wall. The sisters debate whether to kill him (he’s emaciated and would be easy prey), but Evelyn feeds him, thinking they need an able-bodied worker now that their aging bodies are less adept at performing chores. Lily eventually takes a shine to him, leading to another round of quarrels and setting up the novel’s defining conflict.

The story is slow-moving and only sporadically interesting. It fails to build tension and the sudden arrival of tense moments is insufficient to give the story the weight Newman must have intended. The apocalyptic background is underdeveloped, I suppose because it is only a means of setting up the odd relationship between the sisters. The story contains only one surprise, but it’s a good one. Another unexpected twist in the story is less surprising but sets up a final confrontation between the boy and the sisters.

Nick Newman’s prose is stylish. I can’t say the story seemed plausible. Nor can I say that I cared much about the sisters, both of whom seem intolerable, although I suppose post-apocalyptic isolation would not be a formula for a winning personality. Still, Newman didn’t make me warm up to the sisters. The boy is a more sympathetic character but he’s more an empty vessel than a clearly defined character. In its effort to give literary heft to post-apocalyptic fiction, The Garden is a cut above the dreck that permeates the genre but it never gives the reader a reason to care about its characters.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Garden by Nick Newman
Writing: B
Story: C
Characters: C+
Setting: B-
Best Aspect: Interesting plot and the start was good.
Worst Aspect: It just went no where for so long, I was bored. I expect though some will love this.
Recommend: Maybe
Available now. Thanks NetGalley

Evelyn and Lily live behind the wall on their father's property that, at one time, was a commune operated by their parents. The sisters reside only in the kitchen of the old mansion and never leave the property. They follow their mother's handwritten almanac for planting and go to her gravesite to talk with her spirit. Evelyn begins to notice shadows, beehives askew, and finally, a missing apple pie. Soon the sisters find a boy who has climbed over the wall onto the property. The novel details the rift between the sisters because of the boy and Evelyn's cryptic comments about how boys become men. The novel will appeal to an audience who appreciates detailed descriptions of everyday gardening life life and quirky characters who live in their own world.

This book was stunning, really much more than I expected from the cover. I was so completely hooked and invested in it from the first. It was like a blend of Kate Morton and M Night Shyamalan. I think it would make an incredible movie. I truly couldn't put it down. It was so tragic but also beautiful. The only thing I would have changed is a little bit more clarity about like what year they were children it kind of felt like now or near future when they were children, and what was happening outside the garden that caused everything to fall apart. But that's a minor wish

This book was a wild ride through the garden. Evelyn and Lilly lived there with their mother and father. The father left said the mother and then blocked off the entire house and the three of them lived in only the kitchen. There were no other people left so they existed in only the garden. They tended it and lived on. Then a boy appeared and they took him in, not without some resistance from Lilly.

This book was a trip to read. The ending was great! So worth the read.

I want to thank NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this advance reader copy. This is my honest review.

I was so so excited for this, but it was messed up formatting wise and so I will have to look for a finished copy to reread. I'm sure I missed a lot.

Nick Newman's "The Garden" is a hauntingly beautiful and utterly original tale that lingers long after the final page. Newman crafts a world both claustrophobic and expansive, where two elderly sisters, Evelyn and Lily, exist in a delicate balance of routine and fear. The arrival of a mysterious boy shatters their carefully constructed reality, forcing them to confront the dark secrets of their past and the true nature of their isolated existence. With prose that is both lyrical and unsettling, "The Garden" weaves a tapestry of gothic undertones, dystopian echoes, and psychological suspense, creating an unforgettable reading experience that is as mesmerizing as it is deeply moving. This is a five-star gem that defies easy categorization and leaves you breathless.

Literary dystopian horror! We Have Always Lived in the Castle meets The Secret Garden! All of my favorite things!

I spent my red-eye to Athens reading this book (instead of sleeping in my upgraded lie-flat seat) because I simply could not put it down, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I loved every page of this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Interesting, strange, ultimately unsatisfying for me. My thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

This book although short, was very good. It was a slow pace to start and I wondered why the book was considered horror. But there were a couple twists at the end of the book which I love. If I can’t guess the ending or get surprised that’s a huge bonus cause it happens rarely. I give this book a 4.25 and recommend it to anyone looking to read a short thriller.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the arc of this book.
I truly enjoyed it.

It began with an interesting storyline. I was hoping to get more information as to why the two sisters were isolated as to the event that caused a before and after. It was well written, but felt like a bit more information as to why there were storms would have helped me to enjoy it better.

I originally requested The Garden because the description reminded me quite a bit of Grey Gardens. I didn’t realize it was going to have dystopian elements, a genre I really don’t care for, but it didn’t bother me. Newman pulled off a feat by making the repetition of essentially the same day in the same room/garden for decades feel intriguing. Evelyn and Lily were complex yet stunted, and the flashbacks were heartbreaking. I had to sit with the ending for a bit and then I understood. I was really hoping for more, though. Still a very good read and I’m glad I tried something different.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for kindly providing this arc in exchange for my honest review.

I could never quite get into this book and thus won't be posting a full review. I enjoyed the prose, but it was a bit too slow-moving for me to stick with.

In this eerie and fascinating Gothic-like novel, readers follow elderly sisters Evelyn and Lily in their daily lives in their walled and secluded garden, away from the outside world. Not knowing anything other than the garden, the appearance of a nameless boy in the boarded house at the center of the garden totally disrupts their lives, the two sisters must confront the dark truths about their lives and their home as well as their growing suspicions of each other and the boy. Creepy, intense, and strangely beautiful, the sisters’ dynamic and its evolution is particularly fascinating and complex, while the ways in which their relationship is tested is particularly well-written and interesting. The limited setting and the small cast of characters forces the readers to get into their mindsets and live that small life that Evelyn and Lily are so used to, which helps them understand how their relationship can be so tested by the appearance of a single boy. With its fascinating premise and brilliantly lifelike characters and setting, readers will not be able to put this new release down. Entertaining, intense, emotional, and incredibly well-written, the stakes of this book and the fascinating character development and dynamics make this an unforgettable and totally unique read.

I understand the appeal to write or explore this idea and world but I think it would have been better suited as a short story. I kept waiting for something big and interesting to happen but only fairly small, not terribly exciting changes happened. I think the way that Evelyn and Lily live together and their isolated life are interesting but not interesting enough for an entire novel to be about them. I like that we will never really know what happened with their father and their mother’s reasoning behind closing the house off and what really happened between them, it ties in with Lily and Evelyn's forever unlimited knowledge of it. I really liked the ending to this book. This feels like a really big world that’s been left unexplored. There are a lot of questions and a lot of things that are unclear about what happened outside of Lily and Evelyn’s garden. And I think it would be neat to get short stories from this world and time period. I like the timelessness feel.

Two elderly sisters live in a walled garden and they have never known anybody else but each other. They tend their garden and each other but when they find a boy hiding in there they want to know who he is and what does he want. Their life begins to change.

I don’t need all the answers but I would like some. Most of this book I just assumed the sisters parents were fearful or eccentric. However there was actually something bad going on in the outside world? I’m still not sure.

3.5 stars
Post-apocalyptic story of two elderly women who live alone in only the kitchen of a large house, surrounded by a walled garden. They are self-sufficient and never venture beyond the walls. We're never really sure what kind of catastrophe happened in their world or whether their walls protect them or imprison them. One day they discover a boy inside the garden and we see how they cope as everything changes. Interesting reading but unsatisfying.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

I really enjoyed this! I first saw it advertised as "an adult fairy tale" and while I certainly wouldn't call it that, it did have an airy, dreamy quality to it that I enjoyed.

The narration was really well done, and did a great job of communicating the odd mentalities of the main characters and how they developed in an extremely unique situation. I also enjoyed the flashbacks, and felt they did a great job of communicating just enough information each time to keep you guessing and theorizing. There were a few twists that I guessed at but was still surprised by!

All in all, it wasn't what I was expecting, but I really enjoyed the experience!