Sara Nisha Adams's second novel, The Twilight Garden, is a tender exploration of growth, loss, and the community that forms around a London backyard garden. With dual timelines centered on the same street in Stoke Newington, the narrative follows two sets of neighbors (decades apart) who share the garden space, gradually learning to care for both their plants and one another.
In 2018, Winston struggles with depression and the erosion of his relationship with his partner. Haughty Bernice moves in next door and needles Winston about the garden, finding fault with it (and with Winston) on multiple fronts. Winston, partly to spite her, begins restoring the overgrown space. But he soon develops a passion for it, which leads to his making tentative connections in the neighborhood. When someone starts putting mysterious flyers through his letterbox, Winston learns about Alma and Maya, two women who nurtured the garden together in the 1970s and opened it up to their neighbors. Adams (The Reading List) sensitively portrays the joys and trials faced by both sets of neighbors, including Maya's transition from Kenya to London and Bernice's struggles with single motherhood. Eventually, the novel's timelines intersect, leading to unexpected but satisfying outcomes for multiple people associated with the garden.
Full of quiet scenes in the garden itself, small daily acts of tending, and visits from mischievous foxes, The Twilight Garden is a tribute to what can grow in community spaces, given the chance: not just tomatoes and sweet peas, but compassion, connection, and love. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams