The Poison Garden – Alex Marwood

Shocking, tense and sharply written, The Poison Garden is the gripping new novel from the international bestseller and Edgar award-winning Alex Marwood.

About the Book:

Where Romy grew up, if someone died you never spoke of them again.

Now twenty-two, she has recently escaped the toxic confines of the cult she was raised in. But Romy is young, pregnant and completely alone – and if she is to keep herself safe in this new world, she has some important lessons to learn.

Like how there are some people you can trust, and some you must fear. And about who her family really is, and why her mother ran away from them all those years ago.

And that you can’t walk away from a dark past without expecting it to catch up with you…

About the Author:

Alex Marwood is a former journalist who worked extensively across the British press. Her first novel, The Wicked Girls, achieved widespread acclaim and international bestsellerdom. It was shortlisted for ITW, Anthony and Macavity awards, was included in Stephen King’s Ten Best Books of the Year list, and won the prestigious Edgar Award. The Killer Next Door, her second novel, won the coveted Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, was nominated for the Anthony and Barry. The Darkest Secret, the tale of the disappearance of young Coco, met with critical and reader acclaim. The Poison Garden will be released in 25 July 2019. She has also been shortlisted for numerous other crime writing awards and her first two novels have been optioned for the screen. Marwood lives in south London and is working on her next novel.

My Review:

I am a HUGE fan of Alex Marwood’s previous books and was thrilled to learn she has a new book being published this month and delighted to get an early copy via Netgalley of THE POISON GARDEN.

THE POISON GARDEN is a real departure from the authors previous books focusing more on the characters and digging deeply into cults, brainwashing and the followers apocalyptic beliefs.

Told through the viewpoint of several main characters, the story begins in Wales when two police officers are called to a scene to discover hundreds of dead bodies.  This begins the multiple narrators; Sarah, a divorced school administrator who has moved back into her deceased parents house and learns that her sister is one of the dead; Romy, a young girl who is one of the few survivors of cult and Somer, Romy’s mother and Sarah’s sister who was one of the followers of the cult.

This is a much slower pace than her previous books, but it still kept me hooked and gripped throughout.  The details surrounding the cult and the brainwashing of the followers and the enigmatic leader Lucien Blake made the story plausible and realistic.  There were moments and scenes which were so disturbing and uncomfortable that I had to stop and gather my thoughts before continuing on.

An interesting and thought-provoking story.

 

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