The Winter Garden

Description

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Welcome to the Winter Garden. Open only at 13 o’clock.

You are invited to enter an unusual competition.

I am looking for the most magical, spectacular, remarkable pleasure garden this world has to offer.

On the night her mother dies, 8-year-old Beatrice receives an invitation to the mysterious Winter Garden. A place of wonder and magic, filled with all manner of strange and spectacular flora and fauna, the garden is her solace every night for seven days. But when the garden disappears, and no one believes her story, Beatrice is left to wonder if it were truly real.

Eighteen years later, on the eve of her wedding to a man her late father approved of but she does not love, Beatrice makes the decision to throw off the expectations of Victorian English society and search for the garden. But when both she and her closest friend, Rosa, receive invitations to compete to create spectacular pleasure gardens – with the prize being one wish from the last of the Winter Garden’s magic – she realises she may be closer to finding it than she ever imagined.

Now all she has to do is win.An entertaining and thought provoking fable—SFX

Compelling reading in this dark but enchanting historical fantasy

—Daily Mail

An enchanting and moving story of love, loss and rivalry . . . the perfect novel to read as autumn settles upon our gardens and the icy chill of winter begins to creep in—Culturefly

A mesmerising, stunningly crafted story of loss and the importance of dreams—Waterstones

Interweaves darkness and whimsy, using the contrasts of painful reality and sparkling magic.—Fantasy HiveAlexandra Bell was born in 1986. She studied Law at university and signed her first book deal at nineteen. Since then, she has written books for both adults and young people, including the Zoella Bookclub pick, Frozen Charlotte, and The Polar Bear Explorer’s Club series, under the name Alex Bell. She lives in Hampshire in a house ruled by Siamese cats.GB