Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Night Garden
    The Night Garden
    The Night Garden
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Night Garden

    Written by Lisa Van Allen

    Narrated by Amy Rubinate

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Nestled in the bucolic town of Green Valley in upstate New York, the Pennywort farm appears ordinary, yet at its center lies something remarkable: a wild maze of colorful gardens that reaches beyond the imagination. Local legend says that a visitor can gain answers to life's most difficult problems simply by walking through its lush corridors.

    Yet the labyrinth has never helped Olivia Pennywort, the garden's beautiful and enigmatic caretaker. She has spent her entire life on her family's land, harboring a secret that forces her to keep everyone at arm's length. But when her childhood best friend, Sam Van Winkle, returns to the valley, Olivia begins to question her safe, isolated world and wonders if she at last has the courage to let someone in. As she and Sam reconnect, Olivia faces a difficult question: is the garden maze that she has nurtured all of her life a safe haven or a prison?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 7, 2014
    ISBN9781494570828
    The Night Garden

    Related to The Night Garden

    Related audiobooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires

      Mar 25, 2020

      RELEASED 7 APRIL 408 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Grady Hendrix Publisher Quirk Books Grady Hendrix writes women beautifully, never more so than in his terrific coming-of-age horror My Best Friend’s Exorcism, so it’s an absolute joy to re

      1 min read

    • Article

      Holiday Time In The Highlands

      Aug 19, 2020

      THE most appropriate footwear for lawn tennis in the Highlands is a pair of Argyll Wellington boots—the black ones with the red band around the top. Not only will they keep your feet dry on the inevitably squelchy court, but they are loose enough at

      2 min read

    • Article

      ‘The End of the Day’: Featured Fiction from Bill Clegg

      Sep 30, 2020

      An excerpt from a novel Kirkus called "A moody, atmospheric domestic drama with a mystery novel somewhere in its family tree." The post ‘The End of the Day’: Featured Fiction from Bill Clegg appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    • Article

      By the Horns

      Aug 28, 2017

      By the Horns
      13 min read

    • Article

      A Shed Fit For Chelsea

      Jun 5, 2022

      A Shed Fit For Chelsea
      2 min read

    • Article

      Suspicious Circumstances

      Aug 10, 2022

      Suspicious Circumstances
      7 min read

    • Article

      Suspicious Circumstances

      Aug 10, 2022

      Suspicious Circumstances
      7 min read

    • Article

      We All Live in Uncertain

      Jul 30, 2020

      “Think of Caddo as a maze of lakes within lakes,” says John Winn, proprietor of Caddo Outback Tours, as the two of us settle into a small Go-Devil boat roped to a dock in Uncertain, on the border of northern Louisiana. For two decades, Winn has given

      6 min read

    • Article

      For Whom The Harebell Tolls

      Jun 7, 2023

      For Whom The Harebell Tolls
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Parrots of January

      Nov 25, 2023

      The Parrots of January
      3 min read

    • Article

      Emu Dreaming

      Jan 30, 2018

      Emu Dreaming
      7 min read

    • Article

      Sissinghurst Castle

      Jun 2, 2022

      Sissinghurst Castle
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Strange Death Of Our Village House Martins

      Sep 22, 2021

      As the mighty Colorado River has been reduced to a mere trickle, so my marriage is now measured in small acts of mutual kindness. I bring the wife meals on a tray and drive at 20mph. In return, she mends my expanding man-trouser buttons and thoughtfu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Following a Thread

      Sep 19, 2019

      Following a Thread
      6 min read

    • Article

      Drowning in Reverse

      Jun 4, 2020

      Drowning in Reverse
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Countryside For All

      Jun 29, 2023

      IT WAS ONE OF THOSE dinner parties that didn’t feel like it was going particularly well. Someone had just broken up with their girlfriend for want of someone else; my little puppy wouldn’t stop howling in the hall, and one of our guests was strung ou

      3 min read

    • Article

      Second Language

      Aug 14, 2017

      Second Language
      9 min read

    • Article

      All On Show

      Mar 1, 2022

      All On Show
      2 min read

    • Article

      Afterglow

      May 14, 2020

      Afterglow
      10 min read

    • Article

      In The Thick Of It

      Feb 23, 2022

      In The Thick Of It
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Prayer

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Lost Prayer
      10 min read

    • Article

      Water, Water Everywhere

      Jan 25, 2023

      Water, Water Everywhere
      3 min read

    • Article

      THE Dark Light

      Oct 28, 2020

      THE Dark Light
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Night Garden

    3.5/5

    51 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I generally read psychological thrillers and true crime. This was quite a diversion for me and while it was delightful and fun I cannot say it was a “page turner” . I enjoyed the characters and the mystical themes and if you regularly partake in this type of genre I’m sure it will be enchanting for you to read.
    • 3/5
      Finally an author that's telling stories like Sarah Addison Allen. She doesn't quite manage the lyrical writing that I prize in the other Allen's books, but she makes up for it in scale of imaginative community. It's a beautiful thought, the garden maze where you find your heart's answers. And this is a love story caught within the maze.
    • 3/5
      I needed a light, easy read and this seemed to fit at first. Ultimately disatisfying, though: the father's role in the poison-skin was not explained very well and the garden wasn't as magical as it might have been.
    • 3/5
      Good first half, not so much the second half

      Pennywort's have lived in Green Valley for over 100 years. It's a small town and every family is know for something. For Olivia Pennywort it's her families farm, especially their maze. For Sam Van Winkle his family have always been heroes. But so far he isn't. Olivia and Sam have always been friends - at least until Sam goes away. Can they rekindle their friendship.

      I really enjoyed the first part of the book but then it got a little muddled for me. Part of that has to do with one of the Penny Loafers (a group of women who stay at Olivia's farm) and part with the end, it was almost as if the author just wanted the book to end.
    • 4/5
      This is a magical story of a garden and the powers it holds.
    • 5/5
      A very whimsical, magic trip through a garden maze of rooms, all named to help you find answers that you seek. Where I live it's deep winter here in New England and reading about fresh vegetables from the farm stand and the woods, wondrous mushroom gardens, made me love this book all the more.
    • 3/5
      “To visit the Pennywort farm was to be reminded of everything in the world that was beautiful and bountiful…luxurious and endlessly good.”In upstate New York, Olivia Pennywort tends the family farm and the remarkable garden maze that she has created as a haven at its heart. It is said that the maze offers its visitors the answers to their most difficult questions, but it affords no such benefit to its caretaker who harbours a secret that forces her to keep everyone at arm’s length. Over the years, Olivia has schooled herself to accept that there is no solution to her problem, but when Olivia’s childhood best friend and sweetheart, Sam Van Winkle, returns to town, her fiercest desires are rekindled and she is compelled to ask herself if the garden she has created is her protector, or her prison.Van Allen’s prose is often lyrical, with vivid imagery of the garden and its surrounds. I could easily visualise the bordered up house, the stone walled garden of poisonous plants and the ramshackle cottage where Olivia’s father made his home, though I wish I had a better knowledge of horticulture to fully appreciate the individual design of the maze.” As she approached the garden maze, she saw that it too had gone wild with the joy of the rains. The smell of flowers was so thick it crossed the line from pleasant into nearly repulsive. Inside, Olivia wound through the twists and turns, admiring how rambunctious and joyful her maze seemed, as if it were spring instead of late summer. Morning glories the size of dinner plates stayed open all day long, and thickened beds of coreopsis gave off a mustardly glow. There was a slight breeze that carried the faintest scent of autumn, and far beneath the sweetness, the mineral scent of winter.”Though billed as magical realism, the magic wasn’t grounded in the way I would expect from the genre, and instead I feel the story had more in common with a modern reinterpretation of a fairytale like Sleeping Beauty. Olivia, beautiful and beloved by all, lives alone at a top of a tower, is essentially trapped in stasis, and is eventually rescued by her Prince Charming, who has to hack through wild overgrowth to save her.The romance between Olivia and Sam, which began when they were childhood sweethearts, and is reignited on his return, is touching and soulful. I sympathised with their hopes and fears for their relationship, I believed in their yearning to be together and I could feel their frustration at not being able to have skin contact.” And then he was threading his fingers into the mass, twisting and untwisting it in his hands. She didn’t even try to make conversation while he touched her; the sensation was too exquisite, too painful and pleasurable at the same time. He combed his fingers through her hair from top to bottom, and each time he caught a tangle it was like a little bite, a small and precise blast of desire like the spark from flint and steel.”In terms of plot, however, the neighborly conflict seems forced and fizzles out, and though we are told the garden can offer help to those seeking answers, Van Allen never really shows this. The overall conclusion too is unrealized, almost as if Van Allen couldn’t figure out how to solve the conundrum herself, and so just hoped the reader would would accept vague assurances of ‘love conquers all’.A tale of loss, grief, desire, love and hope, I enjoyed the story of The Night Garden.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book and highly recommend it. It's full of magic and mystery. I loved reading about the gardens, the maze and what was actually in the secret garden. I wanted to read more about Sam and Olivia's life together. I loved reading about the back stories of the characters- Sam, Olivia and Arthur. I would have liked a little more about Olivia's mom, all we know is what brought her to Green Valley and how she died. Lisa Van Allen's books remind me of Sarah Addison Allen's and Suzanne Palmieri's books, which I loved. I can't wait to read more of her books.