The Girl in the Garden

by Kamala Nair

Overview

The Namesake meets The Secret Garden in this enchanting debut novel that is a dark, grown-up fairytale.

The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446572699
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	06/12/2012
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kamala Nair was born in London and grew up in the United States. A graduate of Wellesley College, she studied literature at Oxford University and received an M.Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin in 2005. She currently lives in New York City, where she has worked at Elle Decor.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A daring fairy tale of a story, Nair's first novel audaciously tackles issues ranging from puberty to friendship to abuse, providing plenty of adventure as well." —Booklist

"The unexpected twists and dark secrets lurking make it difficult for readers to put this engrossing story down. A strong cast of well-developed characters will further capture their emotions. Fans of The Secret Garden (the author was inspired by this childhood classic) as well as lovers of family dramas and Indian fiction will find a new favorite in Nair." —Library Journal

"Lush and mysterious, The Girl in the Garden casts its spell from the first page. Kamala Nair weaves an intricate tale of family bonds, buried secrets, and the pain that comes when we must leave the innocence of childhood behind. This is a deeply satisfying novel." —Kelly O'Conner McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

"Kamala Nair has crafted an evocative, passionate, tragic novel about love, loss and the terrible cost of family secrets. An impressive debut." —Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Space Between Us

Editorial Reviews

"A daring fairy tale of a story, Nair's first novel audaciously tackles issues ranging from puberty to friendship to abuse, providing plenty of adventure as well." —Booklist

"Lush and mysterious, The Girl in the Garden casts its spell from the first page. Kamala Nair weaves an intricate tale of family bonds, buried secrets, and the pain that comes when we must leave the innocence of childhood behind. This is a deeply satisfying novel." —Kelly O'Conner McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

"Kamala Nair has crafted an evocative, passionate, tragic novel about love, loss and the terrible cost of family secrets. An impressive debut." —Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Space Between Us

From the Publisher

Nair's accomplished debut is a familial drama spanning multiple decades. Rakhee Singh has spent years avoiding memories of the transformative summer when she turned 11, but her betrothal forces her to realize she needs to acknowledge her past before she can move forward. "Keeping secrets had become second nature, an inheritance passed down from mother to daughter like an heirloom." As a young child in Minnesota, Rakhee senses her mother's unhappiness, and this feeling intensifies after a batch of mysterious letters arrives from India. Her mother's moods become unpredictable, culminating in the decision to visit her family in rural Kerala with Rakhee, leaving her husband behind. In India, Rakhee longs to explore the jungle surrounding the family's home, but is warned about a superstition prohibiting children from entering it. Rakhee disobeys and what she discovers there is a tangled web of deceit that will haunt her for years. Nair creates a satisfying coming-of-age tale with smooth prose and a lustrous backdrop. (June)

Publishers Weekly

On the eve of her marriage, Rakhee Singh recalls being taken to her mother's ancestral home in India as a ten-year-old and discovering that family secrets lay buried in the lush jungle behind the house. Pitched as a cross between Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic The Secret Garden and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, this debut could do well with reading groups. Watch.

Library Journal

Anitha Gandhi has a lovely voice and the perfect accent for this story of family secrets uncovered during an American girl’s summer visit with her mother’s family in India. There’s a fairy-tale quality to Rakhee’s adventures when she disobeys her aunties and ventures at dawn into the jungle behind the family house. Nair’s story is winning, an updated SECRET GARDEN. But in Gandhi's garden a hospital is always a “hospill” and “couldn’t have” is always “coun’v,” and her syllable-swallowing haste has nothing to do with narrative pace. Nor does she interpret sentences with great attention to sense. Surely clearer direction from the producers could have helped. What’s here is unfair to the author, and perhaps to the narrator as well. B.G. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2011 - AudioFile