Nick Newman

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.

Araminta Hall, author of OUR KIND OF CRUELTY

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.

Sara Flannery Murphy,  author of GIRL ONE

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.

[A] shape-shifting novel, an enigmatic fable. . . Newman's gifts lie in the quiet accumulation of his novel's unsettled atmosphere, its changeable nature. . . This eerie, thought-provoking novel combines sisterly love and end-of-the-world horrors in an unforgettable pair

An uneasy and brilliantly drawn folie à deux ... like Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In The Castle

This strangely satisfying speculative tale pulls you in quickly and leaves your head spinning.

The Garden by Nick Newman reminds us that the true meaning of postapocalyptic fiction isn’t about how the world ends, but how we live after.

Gripping yet emotionally suffocating . . . [A] stiflingly beautiful blend of the personal apocalypse of Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World with the mysterious introspection of Susan Fletcher’s The Night in Question.

The Garden is a gorgeous tragedy of a book, highlighting the fear of loneliness and the toll self-sufficiency can take on a family that has no other choice.

[The Garden] drew me in with its intimate, slow-burn focus on two elderly sisters... What haunted me afterwards was the implicit question this climate fiction fable asks: Is it better to focus on the daily duties of life or on its beauties? On survival or on meaning? And can you have one without the other?

A literary twist on The Secret Garden for fans of Shirley Jackson, Piranesi and Unsettled Ground 
 
‘Extraordinary... it already feels like a classic’ Emerald Fennell, Oscar-winning director of SALTBURN 
 
‘Glitters with menace and mystery’ Emma Stonex, bestselling author of The Lamplighters 
 
‘An intriguing mix of psychological mystery and dystopian gothic’ Guardian 
 
‘Part fable, part literary thriller…The Garden may be the elusive inheritor to Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi’ Vulture 
 
____ 
 
Nothing had come over the wall for a very long time. …. 
 
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 came before the garden, they have forgotten; what lies beyond it, they do not know. 
 
Each day is spent tending the bees, planting the crops, dutifully following the instructions of the almanac written by their mother. 
 
But then one of them makes a startling discovery. 
 
What if their carefully curated life is an illusion? What if the walls no longer keep them safe? 
 
‘Reminiscent of John Wyndham….absolutely exquisite’ Daily Mail 
 
‘Darkly beautiful… a Gothic, dystopian inversion of The Secret Garden’ Good Housekeeping 
 
‘A brilliantly drawn folie à deux ... like Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In The Castle - SFX 
 
READER'S RESPONSES to THE GARDEN: 
 
‘Definitely one of the most original books I’ve ever read and I loved every moment of the reading experience’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘LOVED this. Reminiscent of Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived In The Castle” and Susanna Clarke’s “Piranesi”’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Newman's writing style and world-building are poetic and evocative, yet also eerie and suspenseful.’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘WOW! I was absolutely engrossed in this genre-bender for two days straight.’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Fans of Emily St. John Mandel, Lily Brooks-Dalton, and Charlotte McConaghy will enjoy this book.’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Part Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, part Lord of the Flies, part Shirley Jackson : all itself’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Nick Newman’s distinctly creepy, quirky, mountingly tense post apocalyptic Gothic Garden of Eden novel is definitely weird, and remarkably wonderful.’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Gave me a mixture of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and I Capture the Castle vibes’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Outstanding. I was hooked on the story from the beginning. It had such a weird, evocative vibe from the beginning.’ 5-star reader review 
 
‘Whatever else I read in 2025, it's definitely going to be one of my top ten.’ 5-star reader review

Nick Newman

Praise for The Garden

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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