Part of Series
A standalone contemporary novel with no companion volumes.
From the Publisher
Published by Harrowgate Press in a clothbound edition with a printed slipcase.
Print length
368 pages, set in a generous size for reading aloud.
Publish & Reading age
First published November 2019. Written for adult readers.
Why You’ll Love “Winter Garden”
A story inside the story
The folktale their mother tells in fragments is a complete novella in itself, and it is devastating.
Sisters who sound different
Meredith and Nina are drawn so precisely you can tell who is speaking without a dialogue tag.
Earned sentiment
The book goes to hard emotional places and never asks for tears it has not paid for.
Reader Testimonials
What Readers Are Saying
I finished The Dragon's Embrace on a Tuesday and started it again on the Wednesday. Elena writes the kind of sentence you read twice — once for the story and once because you cannot believe she got away with it.
5 out of 5
Darlene Robertson
Bookseller, Coldharbour Books
I have run a book club for eleven years and I have never seen a novel split a room so happily. We argued about the ending for two hours and everybody was right.
5 out of 5
Arlene McCoy
Book club host
The research never shows, which is how you know how much of it there was. The city in these books feels older than the plot that walks around in it.
5 out of 5
Cameron Williamson
Editor, Marginalia
My teenager took The Enchanted Realm off my nightstand and I did not see it again for a week. That has never happened with anything I recommended out loud.
5 out of 5
Jenny Wilson
Librarian
I came for the mystery and stayed for the two people arguing in the kitchen on page ninety. Nobody writes a small scene better.
5 out of 5
Ronald Richards
Reviewer, The Paper Lantern
I read a lot of thrillers for work. This is the only one this year where I did not guess the turn, and I went back afterwards and found it had been signposted three times.
5 out of 5
Esther Howard
Podcast host, Second Draft
Whispers of the Forgotten is the book I hand to people who tell me they have stopped reading. It has a ninety percent success rate.
5 out of 5
Guy Hawkins
Bookshop owner
I saw Elena read at Northgate last spring. She read the chapter nobody likes, on purpose, and by the end the room liked it.
5 out of 5
Kristin Watson
Festival programmer
The craft book is worth it for the chapter on revision alone. It is the first time anyone has described what cutting actually feels like.
4 out of 5
Brooklyn Simmons
Writing tutor
FAQ
Questions about “Winter Garden”
It is a serious one. There is grief in it, but the last fifty pages are about repair rather than loss.
It borrows the shape of several Russian wonder tales, and the historical siege at its center is real. The author's note gives the sources.
Yes, twelve questions bound into the back of the paperback and available free on the author's site.
The middle section depicts wartime starvation and the death of a child. The publisher prints a note before the first page.
Yes, with two narrators, which suits the book's double structure unusually well.
Success Story
A word-of-mouth novel that reached its widest audience two years after publication, carried entirely by reading groups.
130k+
Copies sold
5k+
Reader reviews
19+
Book club editions