Harriet Hunt finds herself living completely alone in her decaying Victorian home after the disappearance of her abusive father, her mother having passed under unfortunate circumstances years ago. She takes comfort in her bond with the home's garden; she and the garden understand and protect each other in a magical fashion. Harriet's sole purpose in life seems to be caring for the ivy, roses, and plum tree that grow there; she doesn't have much curiosity about the world around her or the events that happen to her. When a charming man seems to be the first person to see the true appeal of Harriet beyond her odd quirks, Harriet accepts his proposal and rushes into marriage, only to find that he is as sinister and scheming as her missing father.

Things I enjoyed about this book: the lush descriptions of the plants and their activity, the side character Amelia who isn't afraid to question or take action when Harriet seems perpetually hesitant. I like the air of mystery and wondering what would happen if she and the plants were pushed past their limits.

Things that didn't work: the main character is so passive and incurious. She basically accepts the abuse of the men around her without trying to escape for most of the story. We know she has power over the plants and they want to help her, but she doesn't harness them as she could. So much of the story was repetitive, cycling through angry men and a garden that responds to her. I would have loved if she took more agency in investigating all the odd occurrences around her, instead of seemingly just dissociating.

Thank you so much to Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley for this book!

This was a whimsical and enchanting read. The story unfolds in a magical garden, where Harriet discovers secrets that challenge her understanding of herself and her world. Iversen’s prose is beautifully descriptive, making the garden feel almost alive.

I loved the unique premise and the imaginative elements throughout the narrative. The character development was strong, particularly Harriet’s journey of self-discovery. However, there were moments when the pacing lagged, especially in the middle, leaving some plot threads feeling a bit unresolved.

Overall, this is a delightful blend of magic and introspection, making it a great pick for anyone looking for a charming escape into a world of wonder.

I loved The Witches at the End of the World. So of course I super excited to read The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen.
Loved the story, the setting, and the magic. This was well-written and easily consumed.
Iversen has created a captivating tale that weaves a spellbinding narrative. I found myself utterly engrossed, as the magic infused into every page kept me on the edge of my seat, eager to unravel the next twist in their mystical adventure.

When I picked this book up I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I have to say I really enjoyed it! It was this great mix of historical fiction and magical realism. I loved the world building and of course, Harriet’s garden!

Harriet Hunt has always been a little peculiar. She had a special connection to her garden and never wanted to leave her Victorian London estate. Her abusive father had been missing and frankly she couldn’t care less…until an inspector comes knocking and suggests Harriet may have something to do with his disappearance. She decides to marry a man who doesn’t mind her peculiarities to protect herself…but does he have even worse intentions than her father?

I really liked Harriet. She was smart and strong and perfectly peculiar! She just wanted to exist in her happy place and follow her passions but sadly as a woman she wasn’t able to do that. She always felt the pressure of pretending not to be different or “peculiar.”

My heart broke for her and the abuse she suffered. While this story does have some darker themes, I thought it was well written and felt very authentic. This story also has some great friendships and a very special garden.

No spoilers here, but I was very satisfied with the ending! We get to see Harriet fight to take control of her life and maybe she gets a little bit of magical help along the way.

✨What to Expect
🇬🇧Victorian Era London
🌷Historical Fiction
🌹Gothic Fantasy Vibes
🪻Magical Realism
🪴A Girl & Her Garden
💐Friendship

While I was reading this book it felt reminiscent of a different story but I couldn’t put my finger on which one and I’ve just figured it out a week later. It feels similar to We Have Always Lived in the Castle but not at all the same.

I LOVE when a man chooses to gaslight the wrong woman. It really tickles my feminine rage in such a satisfying way.

There were parts of this book that felt a little redundant but overall I really enjoyed it, especially the fact that the garden was like the best friend willing to do what had to be done.

Would you like to have a garden that takes care of itself? Takes care of any problems that come looking for you?

Harriet Hunt has one. The house she lives in might be in shambles after her father mysteriously left but the garden itself grows. It creeps and crawls and hides...things.

Harriet is used to being confined to her home so even with her father gone she doesn't like to venture beyond the gate. When she does she gets strange looks.

When an inspector begins asking questions about her father, Harriet must seek help. That appears in the form of a new friend and then husband. Soon though, it appears that her new husband might be worse than her father and that there's a dark plot created by the men around her. To free herself and discover the truth, she must learn to channel the power of her strange, magical garden.

This book is great for showing what life was like for women in Victorian society. It's atmospheric and the descriptions of the garden are lovely. The pace is a little slow for me but readers who appreciate immersion and detail and stories about women persevering will love it.

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for the chance to read!

I am officially a fab if Chelsea Iversen.

Once again, beautiful narration keeps you hooked to the story of Harriet Hunt and her magical garden. Darker and more peculiar than the witches novel they have, this was a different form of magic that i found very interesting. Chelsea writes fantastic endings and they really close out their novels beautifully.

After her fathers mysteruous appearance, Harriet only finds comfort in her garden. Once married - to a man she may have been wrong about- she also comes to find safety in it as it protects her... So much imaginative/magical realism is experienced through the pages of this slightly darker undertoned book you just have to read it to understand why it's good!

I liked this one it was intriguing with gothic aspects but overall it was a good read and I. Enjoyed .it . The author has a way with depicting a sense of place .
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review book

'True magic is found among the bluebells and brambles" and true magic is found on the pages of this book. This book took me on a journey right along with Harriet Hunt. I love the writing and the fact that it kept me reading, kept me enthralled and on the edge of my seat says it all.

I love teh quirkiness of not only the characters but of the story itself. There was plenty of mystery, there was intrigue and at times it was a bit of a guessing game, not knowing where the story was going or what the characters were up to. A great read and I enjoyed it immensely.

Thank you NetGalley adn Sourcebooks Landmark for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Harriet lives a solitary life after her dad leaves mysteriously, stuck in the house she grew up in, haunted by her past. She's viewed as a danger to herself and those around her because Peculiar things happen with her garden... Harriet has to save herself and embrace her wild magic.

I got this ARC the day before the book's release... and i read it in one day, I could not put it down! I ran to Barnes and Nobles the next morning and bought a physical copy! The story moves slowly at first, in a dreamlike way... lulling you in before it sinks its claws in. I really enjoyed the pacing, I think it worked well for this story and for our main character, Harriet. It's part mystery part dark fairy tail. You spend most of the book wondering what's happened in Harriets past and what will happen with her future. Side note: I've never been so envious of a garden in my life!

The men around her startle me. They noticed this floating wraith of a girl (term used advisedly) at all. She wanders lonely as a cloud around her unhappy home until, at the bitter end of this slogging tale, she has blinding revelatory things occur to her.

Women not in charge of their own lives aren't a lot of fun to read about, however period-appropriate this reality might be. When events finally goad her into action, she *still* drifts! Pretty sentences do not make up for a vacuous passive heroine (Victorian sense heavily implied) to this old man reader. YMMV, and you might see this book's feminism, so three stars.

4.5⭐️s rounded up.
Story- 4⭐️s
Narration-5⭐️s

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the eARC!
I read this arc in tandem with an advanced copy of the audiobook, narrated by Anna Burnett (highly reccomend!).

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt is a gothic-adjacent, magical realism tale centering around Harriet Hunt herself.
Abandonment, isolation, verbal and physical abuse are only a few of the horrors Harriet experiences at the hands of men that should love and care for her. The garden is her only constant friend yet also a huge source of anxiety. It was cathartic to follow Harriet's journey in opening herself up to trusting others and herself, all while avoiding an asylum and the limitations that society forces on women.

This would've been a complete 5 star read for me had we got to spend more time with Harriet's garden. Regardless, I'm still going to need a physical copy.

Mostly set in the 1860’s in Upper Holloway. Harriet Hunt lives alone, her father has disappeared, and she thinks he went to overseas. For seven months Harriet supported herself by selling items in the house to a pawnbroker.

A mysterious letter arrives where Nigel Davies wants to meet Harriet. The same day Inspector Stokes is trying to discover what happened to her father. Harriet feels afraid of Inspector Stokes and tries to find out what happened to her father before Inspector Stokes comes to see her again.

I loved the magical garden around Harriet’s house and the way the roses, ivy and thorns were attentive to Harriet’s feelings, always trying to protect her.

This was a mystery with lots of secrets and twists and turns. Very creepy and lots of nasty people.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for a chance to read this E-Book. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I have mixed feelings about this book. This is basically if Elsa from Frozen controlled plants instead of ice. Also there are themes of Beauty and the Beast in the way Harriet is locked away and they threaten to put her in an insane asylum. This book is written well and the premise is interesting but I think the actual plot points and dialogue needed more refining. There are conversations that are flat where characters have no situational awareness. For instance Harriet shows visible signs of being injured and the two characters she's speaking with ask her if she's been hurt.

Thanks to Netgalley, Chelsea Iverson and Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me to read this ARC.

A lovely premise but it gets weighted down by slow character development and worst explanations. This one is slow, slow, slow.

I was intrigued by the title and the blurb of this book and was very interested to see how it would play out. We are introduced in the start to a poor mite called Harriet who has suffered an enormous amount of trauma in her life, mostly be her father. I wasn't expecting this to be a sinister, emotional ride but I think it was definitely a genre bender for me. I was expecting a paranormal book reticent of a Cinderella tale but got a lot more than I bargained for.

For most of the book, I tried and failed to get to know Harriet and like her. She just wouldn't open up or show backbone and all of the times I thought her character would shine, she made stupid choices and did the equivalent of a girl in a horror movie who, when chased, runs up the stairs. I must admit that this book did get good in the end but only the last 40%. I'm still a little in the dark at the ending of a few plot points and the beginning was so slow, I had to force myself to pick it back up again.

A really novel idea, but it didn't do it for me, I'm sorry. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
I appreciate the opportunity to read this ARC and thank Netgalley, the author and publisher for the chance

It has been ages since I have encountered such an amazing gothic book as this one! I truly wasn't sure what to expect when I started it, and really, the publishers should be marketing this as a gothic book. Not sure why they aren't.

I really, truly hate Inspector Stokes. The whole idea there is something wrong with her because she doesn't miss her father? How many people do you know that have totally valid reasons for not missing any of their parents? Hate him.

The only question I was left with (and I don't know if the author meant it to be a question) was whether or not the towns people actually had issues with Harriet. Or if it was just something her father had told her for years (they are afraid of you), so she imagined they were gossiping about her.

Definitely will be looking up more books by this author!

Thanks to NetGalley for the free kindle book! My opinions are my own and are freely given.

Harriet Hunt is herself a peculiar person. Lovingly attending to her garden, something that is so part of her being, something she cherishes and looks forward to, even if people thought she was strange and different.
Harriet lived a traumatic life, abused at the hands of her father, her mother mysteriously missing.
My thoughts about the story. The story takes place in London, England I believe around 1800 to 1900 where women were not treated well. Harriet is poor and has mental issues, probably stemming from her abuse. I think the garden is a way she copes. When something is threatening her, the garden rises up "Stop it, she mouthed at the vines. They did not retreat. Instead she saw the ivy twisting and curling overhead, gathering momentum, Don't you dare." I wonder if the garden was really magical or if its her mental way of having a friend, someone to talk to and care for.

The story for me starts a little slow. A lot of talk about her childhood and her father and thoughts on finding her father. She has a dear friend Eunice who is her oldest and only friend who urges her to move to another town with her but Harriet needs to stay to look after her garden and find her father.
She eventually hires help and ends up being very close friends with her.
As the story goes on the abuse starts over. Just as her father abused her , so does her husband. I felt so sorry for Harriet, she is timid and child like and this man took advantage of her . The ending has an hea and hope for Harriets healing!
I’m giving 4 stars, its a little slow at the start but does pick up.

The blurb of this book was very enticing, as was thw cover! While it really took quite awhile to get into, and the beginning quarter felt slow, it did pick up towards the end. I felt thr beginning really could have been condensed. I did love the garden, and the character it took on.

3.5 stars

I wanted so much more from this story. It actually took me longer than usual to read it because the other books I was reading kept pulling my attention away.

The first half of the book felt repetitive and I believe could have been condensed to allow the story to focus more on Harriet and her garden . The last 50-75% pulled me in and I enjoyed it much more.

I wanted the story to have more about Harriet’s garden. Specifically, how its behavior mimicked Harriet’s emotions.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.