The Gardins of Edin

A Novel

By: Rosey Lee

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

When the bonds in their family begin to fray, four Black women fight to preserve their legacy, heal their wounds, and move forward together in this heartwarming contemporary debut novel with loose parallels to beloved women from the Bible.

“The surprises and heart in this fast-paced family drama kept me turning pages late into the night.”—KJ Dell’Antonia, New York Times bestselling author of The Chicken Sisters

The four women of the Gardin family live side-by-side in Edin, Georgia, but residing in tight proximity doesn’t mean everything is picture-perfect. Ruth runs the family’s multimillion-dollar peanut business, a legacy of the Gardins’ formerly enslaved ancestors. But tensions have intensified since the death of her husband, Beau, and she feels like an outsider in the very place she wishes to belong.

Sisters Mary and Martha fuel the family tension. Martha’s unfounded mistrust of Ruth causes her to constantly seek ways to undermine Ruth’s decisions with the business, while Mary, trying to focus on her new restaurant that serves healthy comfort food, is dragged into the family fray by Martha.

For years, Naomi, the matriarch who raised the sisters after their parents’ death and supported Ruth in her grief, has played peacemaker. But as she decides to take a step back, hidden truths, life-and-death circumstances, and escalating clashes finally force the Gardin women to grapple with what it means to be a family.

A heartwarming Southern story of family and all its many complexities, The Gardins of Edin delivers a thoughtful portrayal of four women trying to hold on to their secrets. Women who just might—if they can only let go—find the peace they seek by holding on to one another.

©2024 Rosey Lee (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“In a clever twist, debut author Rosey Lee plucks four women inspired by the Bible and sets them down in a tension-filled contemporary Black family struggling to find answers to messy and pesky questions. As they sort out relational fireworks, will they figure out how to stay a family and also be their best selves? It’s a loving and lovely journey from an exciting, talented new author willing to explore the meaning of family in intriguing ways.” —Patricia Raybon, Christy Award-winning author of the Annalee Spain Mystery series and two critically acclaimed memoirs, My First White Friend and I Told the Mountain to Move

“Rosey Lee’s The Gardins of Edin testifies to all what it means to be family. It conveys the passion, heartbreak, faithfulness, and conflict that come with loving the people closest to you. Readers will wish they owned a cottage on the Gardin estate or lived close enough to witness firsthand all the goings-on in Lee’s fascinating saga.” —Robin W. Pearson, Christy Award-winning author

“Nothing complicates a family more than a family business. The Gardins of Edin by Rosey Lee is a gorgeous debut that freshly examines the painful past of two sisters and their matriarch, their cousin by marriage, and their successful peanut farm. With courage and ambition akin to the casts and epic dramas of Tayari Jones, Lee has written a page-turner of grief and hope.” —Melissa Scholes Young, author of The Hive

Great Story with an Unexpected Twist

I loved the characters, the colorful descriptions and the development of the story. I smiled a lot listening to this book!

Love the family interactions

Great book, love the characters and the complexity of each of the females specially Rose and Naomi.

the family dynamic

I liked the setting the family estate was in. liked the ending. it all turned the way it was supposed to.

cohesive dysfunctional family

the voices were way off... annoying. The storyline was great. The voice overs were awful. Their knowledge of the medical and business termonology was very good.