“As lush and inviting as the gardens created by its heroine, this novel…will wrap you in captivating, high-stakes drama.”—People Magazine (Best Books Summer 2023)

“A great portion of [Hedge’s] magic lies in how it turns a radical corner, gaining speed and burning urgency—then slowly becoming something else: deeper, denser, wiser. Readers will (and should) trust it to take us where we need to go—even if not where we expected.”―The Washington Post

Featured in Oprah Daily’s Spring 2023 Reading List and Kirkus Reviews

An emotionally charged, richly observed novel about a woman balancing the demands of motherhood and marriage with her own needs.

Maud is a talented garden historian and devoted mother to daughters Ella and Louise. Motivated to reinvigorate her career and escape her troubled marriage, she accepts a summer job restoring the garden of a lush, nineteenth-century Hudson Valley estate.

While waiting for her daughters to join her at the end of their school year, Maud meets coworker and archaeologist Gabriel Crews, whose passion for landscape history matches her own. When their immediate and intense friendship ignites, it sets in motion a seismic shock that will profoundly change Maud’s life, as well as the lives of everyone she cares about.