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The Garden

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In a place and time unknown, two elderly sisters live in a walled garden, secluded from the outside world. For as long as they can remember, Evelyn and Lily have only had 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. So, when a nameless boy is found hiding in the boarded house at the centre of this new Eden, the reality of their existence is irrevocably shattered. Who is he? And where did he come from?

‘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.’ Emerald Fennell, Oscar-winning director of PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN and SALTBURN

© Nick Newman 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Dystopian Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Small Town & Rural Suspense Thriller & Suspense

Critic reviews

This climate-change horror story, reminiscent of John Wyndham, combines a bleak message and often brutal action with absolutely exquisite writing
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.
The Garden is a seductive modern fairytale that glitters with menace and mystery. Newman writes beautifully about isolation, confinement and contagious fear, while tending a plot that is as tangled and twisty as Evelyn and Lily’s beloved wilderness. This is a gorgeously imagined novel about growth, retreat and the sacrifices we make to protect our beliefs - and the people we love.
I was enchanted by this spooky, dreamy novel. Expansive and claustrophobic in equal measure, The Garden is an eerie testament to the power of narrative to shape our reality — and the lengths we’ll go to in order to protect what we believe.
[An] intriguing mix of psychological mystery and dystopian gothic.
'A dreamy, evocative novel that reads like a grown-up fairytale. Just like the garden that Evelyn tends, this story grows in meaning with every word. It asks the big questions about what makes us who we are and who to trust. And, like the best fairytales, the answers are often as dark as they are revealing.
A gothic novel of weird sisters in the vein of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Nick Newman’s alluring debut twists and slithers into its own mysterious, compulsively readable shape. I loved it!
With shades of Shirley Jackson and Susanna Clarke, The Garden is a shapeshifting fable that will stay with you long after you leave it behind.
A dark, fairy tale-like novel of creeping dread
Part fable, part literary thriller, wholly unmoored from genre convention, The Garden may be the elusive inheritor to the weirdness of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.
All stars
Most relevant
As title suggests- a beautifully written (and narrated) novel of weird, sad wonder. Their garden occupies a place in my mind now, and will never be forgotten.

Exquisite stuff.

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Sisters, Evelyn and Lily, are two lonely spinsters who dwell in glorious isolation in a small part of a massive deserted house. Lily has the kitchen and Evelyn the sprawling garden, trapped within the walls that barely keep out the existence of the rest of the world. Lily loves to dress up, to play and cook and Evelyn tends to the garden and takes her labours very seriously. Yet the memories of the past haunt the house and the threat of storms and of visitors overshadow everything. Resilience is fragile, and strange occurances start to crack the bones of their lives.

A beautifully told speculative tale that explores ideas of isolation and loss. The two sisters are exquisitely drawn, protagonists that are both caught in patterns of denial and dependency, emotionally brittle and yet still capable of love despite stunted opportunity and loved experiences that dictate their lives.

When push comes to shove, will they hold strong to the garden and eachother, or will they fall apart?

Told through the lens of Evelyn, a tough as old boots narrator, it's wonderful to explore a world through the eyes of an older protagonist, although I couldnt help but hold a soft spot for Lily, a much more carefree character. The bickering and tenderness between the sisters is carefully drawn and the shifts in time, echoing the power of the maternal creates an overwhelming claustrophobia that even the expansive garden can't overcome.

Unusual and distinctive.

Cuts to the Bone

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