Nick Newman’s THE GARDEN

Dark. Haunting. Surprisingly Uplifting.

The Garden will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Nick Newman, the adult pen-name for children’s book author Nicholas Bowling, has expertly crafted a dark, transportive, literary mystery, THE GARDEN.  From behind my keyboard, I am cheering his move into the adult fiction market!

Just pages into the story, I fell in love with sisters Evelyn and Lily, and in some ways envied their isolation from the outside world. But always in the background was an overshadowing—a knowing and not knowing—of what threats existed beyond the garden walls. When a strange boy appeared, those threats became real, and I found my loyalties vacillating between Lily, Evelyn, and the boy, with each of their stories vying for my allegiance.

I asked the author why he chose two elderly women as the novel’s protagonists, and Nick explained:

"I'd felt for a long time that the elderly, as a marginalized group, were not really getting their due in the push for diverse voices in fiction. Too often they're represented two-dimensionally, as cliches or ciphers - to be pitied, to be laughed at - and I really wanted to show two elderly characters who were as complex and fully-fleshed and red-blooded as characters of any age. It was also important to me that they be sisters, in the context of the book - the garden they tend is a sort of latter-day Eden, but the crucial difference is that both its custodians are women. I wanted to play out an origin myth that had two Eves, if you like, rather than an Adam and an Eve."

Complex, suspenseful, and filled with double meanings, this novel is sure to spark lively discussions between friends and fellow book club readers. Nick Newman’s writing is both elegant and captivating, and I’ll be recommending The Garden to all my friends.

Happy Reading, Writing, and Sharing!

Suzan

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