Thank you to Netgalley for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest book review. This is the perfect book to read for spooky season. A horrible accident happened and it took the lives of Lily and Violet's parents. Unfortunately their Aunt has decided to take them in. Aunt Clara has other motives (money) as why she is taking the girls. Clara is not a nice person and has a lot of ghosts living in her closet. What Clara doesn't know is the girls are able to see what her ghosts are (because of their special ability) and this can be detrimental to what Clara has planned and she cannot have the girls ruin what she is after.

I have been seeing this book everywhere and was very happy to be approved. This book is familiar in the setting but has a unique twist that holds attention. Loved it and I have already been recommending.

At The Bottom Of The Garden by Camilla Bruce, this book is like a fairytale sorta. There’s the villain aunt Claire, who gets custody of the two girls after their parents go missing while climbing a mountain. At first, she doesn’t want to take them, but then, when she thinks of all their two inherit, she changes her mind. She takes the kids from a loving nanny to her coal and personal home in the country. Lily‘s 14 and Violet is nine. Lily has the ability to tell others emotions and violet sees ghost and she also has other skills in the paranormal. it will be her other abilities that mix things up at the old lonely cottage. Her aunt claimed she inherited from an elderly sick lady who she says she took care of and the old lady is one of the ghost, as well as an angry man at the bottom of the garden. Aunt Clara thinks she has everything under control until Violet figures out how to release the ghost from their present state. Then the book really takes off with lol moments. I do want to say I wish Violet would’ve had more interaction with the bird Elka because that was a nice touch. I was looking so forward to this book and finally I can honestly say it didn’t disappoint. I don’t want to say much about the ending and the other ghost and all that happens just know if you love fairytale type stories with great villains you will love this book. Oh, I forgot to mention, her aunts maid in the homes longtime caretaker who also may or may not have ulterior motive for staying there. #NetGalley,#RandomHouse #CamillaBruce, #AtTheBottomOfTheGarden,

Set in the 1970s, conniving Clara thinks that opportunity is knocking when she becomes the guardian of her orphaned nieces. What she hasn’t planned on is that sisters Lily (14) and Violet (10) have some secrets of their own that make getting her hands on their money a bit more challenging than what she expected.

I like dark humor, so I found the chapters from Clara’s POV amusing. I loved the chapters from Lily and Violet’s POVs. I thought the sisters were really interesting, and I would enjoy reading a sequel about them.

"A murderess becomes the guardian of two very unusual girls in this mesmerizing Gothic novel from acclaimed author Camilla Bruce.

Clara Woods is a killer - and perfectly fine with it, too. So what if she takes a couple of lives to make her own a little bit better? At the bottom of her garden is a flower bed, long overgrown, where her late husband rests in peace - or so she's always thought.

Then the girls arrive.

Lily and Violet are her nieces, recently orphaned after their affluent parents died on an ill-fated anniversary trip. In accordance with their parents' will, the sisters are to go to their closest relative - who happens to be Clara. Despite having no interest in children, Clara agrees to take them, hoping to get her hands on some of the girls' assets - not only to bolster her dwindling fortune but also to establish what she hopes will be her legacy: a line of diamond jewelry.

There's only one problem. Violet can see the dead man at the bottom of the garden. She can see all of Clara's ghosts...and call them back into existence. Soon Clara is plagued by her victims and at war with the gifted girls in her care. Lily and Violet have become a liability - and they know far more than they should."

A very interesting Henry James vibe!

A selfish woman discovers a way to get the money she needs to launch her business by taking in her two nieces when their parents die. She soon finds that the children have some special gifts and the ghosts of the people she’s murdered start to haunt her. I relived the perspective of the children and their powers, but the aunt is so unapologetically evil that she’s a bit cliche. Rated as 3 stars, it’s probably more like 3.5 and would have been higher if it had just stayed with the childrens’ perspective.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray for the opportunity to read and review At the Bottom of the Garden by Camilla Bruce. All opinions are my own.

Clara is the aunt to Lily and Violet. The girl's parents die in an accident and have to go and live with Clara. Did we mention Clara is the night the nicest and actually has murdered in the past to make her life easier and richer. Lily and Violet are rich and that is the only reason Clara has taken them on. The girls are bright and have supernatural powers unbeknownst to their aunt. Violet can communicate with the dead that are still around in Aunt Clara's house. Soon Clara is under siege by these ghosts and the girls themselves.

Camilla Bruce is a new author to me, and I asked to review this book because the premise really sounded intriguing. Unfortunately, I found this read to be a bit lackluster. The POVs are Clara, Violet, and Lily. The story reads young, while I initially thought it would be scarier, etc. This may be on me with misreading the synopsis. Some parts felt slow and a bit boring for me. I'm sure there is an audience for this one, but it isn't me. If you would like to give this one a try it will be available on January 28th. Happy Reading!!

I liked the gothic atmosphere and the synopsis of the story had me hooked. Unfortunately, the characters just weren't it for me. They are flat and uninteresting.

This was a fun ghost story. The writing seemed a bit YA for my liking. The story is told from three points of view which I enjoyed. Though this started strong, it just did not captivate me like I was hoping. It is a slow burn with haunted house vibes. Thanks to NetGalley Random House Publishing Group and Del Rey for an early EARC.

I felt like I couldn't fully get into this one - I echo the sentiment Aunt Clara felt like a caricature... Just over-the-top evil?

𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ★ ★ ★ ★
𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: January 28, 2025
𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪:

This book had such a hold on me the entire time. I loved how our author wrote in such a way that you felt as though you were there along the way, the characters felt real and relatable and unlikable (ahem…Claire…). I enjoyed the paranormal and eerie vibe this book gave off. We have Lily and Violet whose parents pass and they are left to go live with their aunt who has her mind set on banking on the girls inheritance. We see the garden that our said aunt has and the dead man below…they have gifts that we learn about throughout the book. I loved their characters, the girls.

Large thank you to our Author, NetGalley as well as Random House Pulishing Group — Ballantine, Del Rey

Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

I was really excited by this book in the beginning. It felt like A Series of Unfortunate Events if the main characters were psychic and could communicate with the dead. I liked how the author was building Aunt Clara’s backstory, and enjoyed the building of tension as the children found more and more ghosts on the property.

However, I felt the momentum of the story started to stagger and fall apart about halfway through. No one is around to explain the girls’ powers until late in the story, and it felt like the world building was still being established in the epilogue. I didn’t understand why Dina couldn’t just call Mr. Skye and vouch for Lily’s version of events. Aunt Clara felt cartoonishly evil; I felt frustrated that that the author decided she was irredeemable and that her history with her mother wasn’t explained more. Why wasn’t there a safer way to perform a seance? Why was the only solution vengeance?

The tone of the story read as YA, which I don’t mind. However, the ending is dissonant with the rest of the story. To borrow the music metaphor, it feels like we ended the story with a discordant 7th chord instead of finding the tonic. I think that this can be a powerful decision, to end with unresolved tension and by making your readers curious or uncomfortable. However, I don’t think that this dissonance was on purpose, and instead I’m left thinking it was a mistake.

All that to say, I did enjoy this story. There were many fascinating, interesting elements of the story, and Violet and Lily felt like rich, unique characters. I just wish elements of it were stronger because I liked so many other aspects of this book.

This book got me at first, I was IN. I liked the vibes and the characters, specifically the two girls, and their powers were very interesting to me. I thought this would be a good haunted house horror story with girls who can see dead people and people's emotions at the core of it. Unfortunately, it lost me and it didn't get me back.

I 100% agree with people who say that Aunt Clara feels like a female version of Count Olaf. She's a despicable character, but she isn't written in a serious way. She's a murderer, she's vain and cruel, but I never once felt the gravity of how evil she was supposed to be. I was told she was evil, but she spoke and acted like a cartoon villain the entire time. How am I supposed to take her seriously? The ghosts were not scary at all either, though I liked the dynamic they had with the girls. No thrills or scares for me.

Overall, I was expecting one thing but got something entirely different. It read YA, it was silly instead of dark, and it dragged so much in the middle because a few out-of-pocket things happened and we spent so much time on that for no reason. I was hoping to love this, so I'm incredibly disappointed.

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

I would've liked this *so much better* if it was darker. When the ghost haunting started, I thought Aunt Clara was going to be driven slowly insane by them as karmic punishment for the things she did (but she wasn't even scared of them! Even though we're told she was at first, it didn't FEEL LIKE IT cause she didn't ACT LIKE IT. She acted like she was inconvenienced by them more than anything). I thought that she would have more depth and, when she started breaking due to the haunting, we would get more insights from her and maybe some regret or guilt though it would've been too little too late. I thought the girls' powers would be explored further. I thought, I thought, I thought.

the premise is good and had potential to be great.

unfortunately, my issues with the book outweighs the good. for adult fiction at the bottom of the garden came off as middle grade. i had to double check the age rating for this book since it was so cartoonish/juvenile. i am a fan of tropes but the characters (especially clara woods) came off flat, there is no depth but "classically heroic" or "classically evil". i liked the premise, the plot outline, and the concept but it was a very painful read.

thank you bruce + netgalley for the ARC!

I had this book for a while and have tried on several different occasions to finished it and I just could not get into this book.
For me it just fell flat, and I did not finish it.

After the death of their parents in a mountaineering accident, 14-year-old Lily and nine-year-old Violet are sent to live with their father's sister Clara, who was estranged from her brother throughout the girls' short lives. Clara is the epitome of a fairy tale villain; she's the wicked queen from Snow White, the witch from Rapunzel, and Cinderella's evil stepmother rolled into one. She has no interest in her nieces, beyond their inheritance. Upon being whisked away from the lives they know to Clara's remote home of Crescent Hill, the girls quickly discover that their new guardian is not only cruel, she's downright murderous. And the only thing that might save them is their own burgeoning gifts of magic.

I really enjoyed the first half of At the Bottom of the Garden, with its gothic setting and the ghostly manifestations Violet and Lily encounter in their aunt's home. This book switches between the POVs of Clara, Lily and Violet, and there's a definite YA sort of tone for all three, although the writing was more palatable to me than most of the other (admittedly few) YA books I have read as an adult. However, the middle section almost to the end of the story gets bogged down in the characters behaving as repetitively as an old psychical imprint haunting: Clara being cruel and selfish, Lily angry and powerless, Violet ethereal and imperiled, over and over and over again. This constant cycle got tiresome quite quickly, and I found myself getting tired of all of the characters, good and evil, and was just ready for the story to conclude.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray for a digital advanced readers copy, At the Bottom of the Garden will be published on January 28, 2025.

This was a fun read. Aunt Clara taking those two little girls to exploit them was horrible. But seeing her get tormented by those she harmed was delicious. My kind of ghost story fur sure.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded interesting to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during this 2nd attempt, I have decided to stop reading this book
and state that this book just wasn't for me.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

If I had to summarize this novel - I’d call it the one where Count Olaf (A Series of Unfortunate Events) gets a sister. I could not stop comparing this story to that series.

I had high hopes for this story, but something just felt lacking. I enjoyed Lily’s and Violet’s POVs and the exploration of their gifts. I wish there had been more of a deep dive into their mother’s past.

While Clara gets a POV, I think this story may have been stronger if told just from Lily’s and Violet’s POVs. There just wasn’t enough depth to Clara’s motives. There were times where I really emphasized with her - it was clear her upbringing made her into the narcissistic woman she became - but I also hoped she would redeem herself as the story progressed. In my mind, that would have made the story stronger.

Overall, this was a quick read and I enjoyed Lily’s and Violet’s relationship and the paranormal elements. Thank you to NetGalley, Del Rey Books, and Random House for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

At the Bottom of the Garden is the story of Clara, a woman who has no problem killing to achieve her ends. When her nieces, Lily and Violet, fall under her care after their parents meet their end in a tragic hiking accident, they learn that Clara’s ghosts are not, in fact, resting in peace. Clara wants the girls’ inheritance, but when they bring back her long lost ghosts, they become a liability.

I really enjoyed this story. Clara reminds me of Cruella de Vil, a woman everyone loves to hate. The ghost story is deliciously scary and I cheered for Lily and Violet to succeed the whole time. The plot takes some weird turns, but it was a very enjoyable read and I’d definitely read from this author again.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Writing style
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Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.