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| Image copied from NetGalley |
Oh my! Where to begin
with this novel? The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen is
one of the best gothic suspense novels I think I’ve read in sometime. It is set
in 1830s England at a time when women had no rights and were considered
abnormal for living alone or not following the rigid rules set for them by
society. In addition to the gothic elements and the mysteries surrounding
Harriet, it also weaves in elements of magical realism for both Harriet’s
garden and the house she lives in. I won’t say her home, because Sunnyside is
not and has never been a home for Harriet.
The story begins slowly, but builds quickly in its suspenseful elements. When we first meet Harriet, she is alone in a house that echoes it’s so empty. Her father has disappeared and left her with a mountain of debt that she must pawn most of her household goods to pay off. We immediately sympathize with her as in moving about the dark, gloomy interior of Sunnyside, we realize that despite its name it has been anything but sunny. In fact, Harriet’s neglect and abuse at the hands of her father and his housekeeper are reminiscent of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. While in her garden, Harriet is confronted by a police inspector named Stokes, who seems to suspect that Harriet had something to do with her father’s disappearance. He implies that she is unnatural for living alone and not seeming to miss her father, making her afraid that if she cannot prove her father left of his own volition, she might find herself committed to the insane asylum. During their conversation, Harriet watches the plants in her garden, trying desperately to keep her emotions under control. It seems that once Harriet lost control, causing her garden to do something horrible as a result in its attempt to protect her. Because of this, Harriet is convinced that even if her father never returns, she cannot leave Sunnyside, or the garden could run wild and cause others harm. This encounter with Stokes and Harriet's fear of what her garden might do, becomes the the catalyst for all of Harriet’s decisions for the rest of the novel.
What follows are more and more mysteries to be unspooled as Harriet begins her own search into what happened to her father. We learn that Harriet is not considered beautiful because of a terrible scar she bears on one side of her face. In reflecting on her life up to this point, we also find out that Harriet’s mother died when she was very young in some terrible way that Harriet blames herself for. At the same time, a man named Davies begins sending Harriet intriguing and ominous sounding missives, stating that he has crucial information about her family that he must share with her urgently. But in trying to reply to him, setting a time and a place for them to meet, Harriet encounters a handsome and earnest young man named Christian Comstock who seems to find her charming and fascinating. Comstock begins avidly pursuing her and all too soon convinces Harriet to marry him. She believes this will solve all of her problems by giving her a measure of respectability and protection from Stokes and his enquiries. However, rather than offering her the peace, freedom and companionship she was hoping for, Harriet finds in her marriage to Comstock, that she has traded one controlling abusive man in her life for another.
In reading this, as things went from bad to worse for Harriet, I found myself unable to put this novel down. I wanted to follow each thread in the story to find out why Harriet feels her garden could be such a danger to others, what happened to her when she was younger that caused her to have that mysterious scar, who is Davies and what does he know about Harriet and her family, what happened to Harriet’s father really and finally but certainly not least, why is Comstock so cruel to Harriet and whatever made someone who only seems interested in money and status decide she was worth tricking into marriage? All of these mysteries on top of Harriet’s more and more tenuous situation with Comstock made for a fast-paced and ultimately satisfying read. In the end, not only does Harriet learn to survive, she bravely faces down her personal demons from her past that haunt her and eventually learns to appreciate herself for who she is flaws and all, allowing Harriet to finally step into her own power to save herself. While many of the themes explored in this book are very dark, such as child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and discrimination, other more positive themes are given equal weight as well. Those include themes of friendship, loyalty, female empowerment, found family and learning to stay true to yourself in the face of great adversity. I give this book five stars and would happily read it again. However, I would warn anyone who finds some of the darker themes handled in this tale triggering to keep that in mind before reading it. I am very grateful to both NetGalley and Sourcebooks for giving me the opportunity to read a free ebook ARC of this novel in exchange for this honest review. For anyone who loves well-written gothic suspense, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt will be available anywhere books are sold in early December 2024.
Stayed tuned for my upcoming reviews for December which will be a young adult fantasy, The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie and my next NetGalley read, the young adult romance First Love Language by Stefany Valentine. Book covers and blurbs below copied from Goodreads and NetGalley, respectively.
Where fairy tales come to life with dark, deadly twists...
"Tell me again, Grandmère, the story of how I die."
The Midnight Forest. The Fanged Creature. Two fortune-telling cards that spell an untimely death for 17-year-old Clara. Despite the ever-present warning from her fortune-teller grandmother, Clara embarks on a dangerous journey into the deadly Forest Grimm to procure a magical book - Sortes Fortunae , the Book of Fortunes - with the power to reverse the curse on her village and save her mother.
Years ago, when the villagers whispered their deepest desires to the book, its pages revealed how to obtain them. All was well until someone used the book for an evil purpose―to kill another person. Afterward, the branches of the Forest Grimm snatched the book away, the well water in Grimm’s Hollow turned rancid, and the crops died from disease. The villagers tried to make amends with the forest, but every time someone crossed its border, they never returned.
Now, left with no alternative, Clara and her close friend, Axel―who is fated never to be with her―have set their minds to defying fate and daring to accomplish what no one else has been able to before. But the forest―alive with dark, deadly twists on some of our most well-known fairy tales―has a mind of its own.
Taiwanese American Catie Carlson has never fit in with her white family. As much as she loves her stepmom and stepsister, she yearns to understand more about her culture and find her biological mother.
So Catie is shocked when an opportunity comes knocking on her door: Her summer spa coworker, Toby, says he’ll teach her Mandarin. In exchange, she needs to teach him how to date so he can finally work up the courage to ask out his crush. The only problem is that Catie doesn’t actually have any dating experience. But she can fake it.
With her late father’s copy of The Five Love Languages and all his annotated notes, Catie becomes the perfect dating coach. Or so she thinks. As she gets dangerously close to Toby and to finding out what really happened to her biological mom, she realizes that learning the language of love might be tougher than she thought.
Stefany Valentine’s debut novel is both a fresh, fun romance as well as a profound, luminous story about grief, family, transracial adoption, and what it means to truly follow your heart.
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