The Twilight Garden - Sara Nisha Adams - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Sara Nisha Adams

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A heart-warming story filled with some endearing characters. A bit meandering in its approach, but good for a relaxing read.

Story Synopsis:

2018. Stoke Newington, London. Winston, who stays with his partner Lewis at House no. 79, is fed up of his new neighbour Bernice’s snooty attitude. Sadly, numbers 79 and 77 share the back garden, and the Winston and Bernice can’t meet eye to eye on their plans for the space.

However, when some memories from the past are rejuvenated courtesy some mysterious letters and photographs, Winston decides to turn the plot into a community garden, just as it was in the past. Now it is up to Bernice to decide if she wants to work with him, or go against him, or simply ignore him.

The story comes to us from two timelines, with third person perspectives of Winston and Bernice in the contemporary timeline, and some other key characters from the 1970s timeline.

Bookish Yays:

💐 All the gardening- related elements are wonderful. Every plant lover will enjoy seeing the titular garden bloom.

💐 The found-family kind of storyline works well with neighbours coming together over shared interests, past bonds and future plans.

💐 The story generates a strong nostalgia of the good old days when all of us knew every neighbour and even met regularly, rather than today’s world where more interactions happen online than offline. The plot covers a variety of emotions, including some uncommon ones such as homesickness.

💐 Because Winston is gay and in a relationship with Lewis, the warring neighbours trope thankfully doesn’t turn into an enemy-to-lovers trope. I loved how both Bernice and Winston try to outdo each other at the start, and how the garden began with quite nefarious secret intent.

💐 There are some witty conversations, especially when Sebastian enters the scene, and some touching letter-writing as well.

💐 With quite a few Indian characters in key roles (and with an Indian origin author), the Indian rep is pretty much spot on. And with great rep comes great Indian food as well. As the characters hail from Gujarat, we are treated (only virtually) to an array of yummy Gujarati dishes. Such books always make me hungry! 😋

💐 The cover! Exactly the kind that would beckon to me from any corner of the bookstore. Just gorgeous!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🌹 Mixed feedback about the characters. With two timelines and a story centred on a small neighbourhood, there are plenty of characters to keep track of. Some characters in the past timeline were extraneous.

In the present timeline, the characters are relatively better sketched, but again, because of the number of characters, some don’t get enough page-space to develop. Lewis especially had a lot more scope than what he is given. Winston is complex enough, though his emotions feel a bit monotonous at times. Bernice and her son Sebastian are nicely sketched, but her ex-husband Simon’s portrayal is mostly predictable.

For once, I enjoyed the contemporary timeline far better than the historical one.

Bookish Nays:

🌵 While the past track also begins with the idea of the neighbours and their shared garden, the story goes into some plot points that aren’t crucial to the main storyline, and were even boring. These could have safely been deleted and would even have reduced the page count without any harm being done. 416 pages is way too long for this genre.

🌵 Minor complaint #1: I can’t get my head around the idea of an Indian Gujarati Hindu character being called Winston. (And to top it, with a sister named Ruth.) Considering his age, Winston was probably born in the late 1980s in the conservative state in the pre-liberalisation period, so unless his mom was greatly inspired by Winston Churchill, I can’t figure out how the kids were given such Western names.

🌵 Minor complaint #2: It’s not a banana tree, but a banana plant! (Well, a herb, technically, but “banana herb” sounds too awkward.) Maybe the general populace wouldn’t know this, but as avid gardening enthusiasts, the characters should have known better.

All in all, the complaints are relatively muted. This is a story about death and renewal, separations and unity, love and loss. If you are looking for an emotional, medium-paced read with heart-warming scenes and interesting characters, this is a good book to try out.

My thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Twilight Garden”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.