The Twilight Garden

A Novel

By: Sara Nisha Adams

Narrated by: Shaheen Khan, Mikhail Sen, Emily Stride

Two feuding neighbors unite to resurrect a neglected city garden in this uplifting and quietly joyful novel by Sara Nisha Adams, author of the beloved The Reading List.

In a small pocket of London, between the houses of No.77 and No.79 Eastbourne Road, lies a neglected community garden. It was a beautiful thing once, a little oasis in a bustling city for neighbors by day and the local foxes at twilight. Now it’s overgrown and neglected, an empty patch of greenery lost to time.

Once a sanctuary, the garden’s gate is now firmly closed. And that’s exactly how Winston at No.79 likes it–anything to avoid Bernice, who has moved in next door with her young son. Their houses may share the garden, but they’re not exactly neighborly.

But then a mysterious parcel drops on Winston’s doormat. It contains no note, only a bundle of photographs of the garden in bloom many years ago—vibrant with flowers, filled with people from every corner of the community. Is someone trying to tell them something? The seed of an idea is planted…

Somewhere out there, a secret gardener made a decades-old promise to keep the community’s spirit alive. Now it’s time for The Twilight Garden to come out of hibernation.

©2024 Sara Nisha Adams (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Amazing

This is a wonderful reflection of friendship and love. I rarely get teary eyed, but it happened more than once.

Lovely story

The Reading List was one of my top 5 last year so I preordered this as soon as I saw it. The story is lovely, well drawn characters from then and now with a unifying purpose, but not as spectacular as Reading List. Performances were excellent.

Such a warm and wonderful story

Great characters in a quaint garden setting. Moving between Maya and Alma creating a place for their neighbors to gather and Winston and Bernice battling for ownership of a neglected garden you find out just how important it is to feel like you belong to something or someone.

Fun and simple story with great characters

I enjoyed the two storylines coming together past and present. I enjoyed all the accents. I felt like I was right with them digging in the garden. A great listen.

Sharing helps

I needed this sweet story about the healing power of gardens. Life is hard and it’s easy to keep other people at arms length to protect our own vulnerabilities. Yet, by sharing in the simple task of tending our physical environment we can learn to accept our differences and help each other in our difficulties. Then life gets a wee bit easier if we can bring a bit of happiness to someone else.

Right down my alley!

I love gardening to start with. I’ve been to England and Scotland and seen gardens tucked away in the city, which I find compelling and I always wish I could go in and explore them. I was taken by the people who lived by and shared the garden. The variety of ages of the people and their differences and interactions. My Dad had dementia so I understood what was happening to Alma. I’m getting older myself so I related to Mia’s aging and needing to move away. I love a good gardening related novel and this is one!

Good

Very well written. Characters well developed and easy to relate to especially if you are person of older age. Also for older adults that relatability made this sad food for thought

A beautiful tale

I love this story of true friendships and life. The story grabbed me from the beginning and took me into this London neighborhood where some people lived for decades, and others lived there for only a few years.
Their lived intertwine as things change.
It made me cry at times and laugh at others.

Read her first book and skip this one

The Reading List was so good I read it twice. This was...lackluster.

Very little actually happens, which can be ok if the character development is deep. It's not. Winston is the most developed but even then...no spoilers, but he makes a couple decisions that are mentioned often and are huge but I was baffled about why he did what he did. The author just keeps regurgitating unsatisfying one-liners about why he did what he did. Ok, it was like if you ran someone over with your car on purpose and people asked you why and all you could say over and over was, "I was angry." Not exactly a satisfying explanation.

The dual timeline also didn't work for me. Usually I'm more interested in the one in the past. This time I actually skipped a few of those chapters. I also fell asleep here and there while listening. It's always a bad sign when you can skip something or nod off and miss nothing.

If you like gardening, that's mostly what the book is about.

I wanted to like this

I just felt the store was a bit slow. I really wanted to like this