The Garden

De: Nick Newman

Narrado por: Nicolette McKenzie

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.

©2025 Nick Newman (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A fairy tale which gets you by the throat and doesn’t let go. The Garden is both a horror story and a meditation on love at the end of the world. It’s a testament to Newman’s extraordinary gifts that its creeping dread never overwhelms its tenderness. The cool restraint of the writing only compounds its devastating power."—Emerald Fennell, director of Promising Young Woman and Saltburn

“Like [Cormac] McCarthy in The Road, Newman doesn't seem much interested in the causes or details of the apocalypse. . . as with the exploration of vulnerable and often quite affecting characters [as] they try to negotiate strategies of survival between a dark past and a diminished future.”—Locus Magazine

“This climate-change horror story, reminiscent of John Wyndham, combines a bleak message and often brutal action with absolutely exquisite writing.”—Daily Mail

Interesting story and characters

I loved the book. Four stars because I would've liked more background on the storm.

A lovely, full and rich story.

Once in a while you stumble upon a book that you know you'll think back on for years to come. This is one of those.

unease and uncertainty

4.25 stars for The Garden by Nick Newman - such a clever little unraveling. With statements like, "Nothing had come over the wall in a long time," the reader isn't quite sure of what is going on or where this story is going which made it so fun. Recommend for readers who enjoy uncertainty in a novel.

Absorbing...draws you into and places you in...

...the world the author has created.

And the first 5 star audio I've heard lately.

These days, I look for something that doesn't bore or annoy me with stupid tropes, obvious literary devices, convoluted (and ridiculous) plots, and doesn't want to make me open a vein because it's so depressing, etc. There's not much out there. And then I stumbled across this.

Ok, it's not exactly a cherry scenario but the smallness of the 2 sister's world in the garden allows for such character building and specificity. And there's also the free-wheeling, old-lady Lilly to add levity.

There's a bit of mystery (some solved, some not) as to what exactly happened to put Lilly and Evelyn in this position, which is told mainly in flashbacks. We never do know much about how the world ends up this way, but I found I didn't care. I was more interested in the story of the two sisters. I did wish there was more about the boy--where he came from or, ahem, his name--but it wasn't much of a hindrance to my enjoyment.

If I were anyone else, this would be 5 stars.

Read this if you want to be completely removed from out present dystopian 2025 reality and dropped into another one that feels distant enough (unless you're an old lady in the UK with a sister living in a big house in the middle of nowhere with a garden) to transport you elsewhere.

Disappointing

I'm not sure what to make of "The Garden". Gothic horror? Post-apocalypse sci-fi? Delusions? The plot is so thin that it is hard to tell. The story does not solve its own mystery and the plot is stalled for 7 of the 8 listening hours. Only in the last hour are some hints found about what has happened and is happening. This is another book that might have been twice as good had it been half as long. On the other hand, the narration is excellent but it could not save the story.