The Poison Garden: A Novel

by Alex Marwood

Overview

A new novel of insidious secrets and chilling revelations surrounding a mysterious cult—the latest gripping psychological thriller from Alex Marwood

When nearly one hundred members of The Ark, a sinister apocalypse cult are found dead by poison at their isolated community in North Wales, those left alive are scattered to the winds with few coping skills and fewer answers. For twenty-three-year-old Romy, who has never known life outside the compound, learning how to live in a world she has been taught to fear is terrifying.

Now Romy must start a new life for herself—and the child growing inside her. She is determined to find the rest of her family and keep her baby safe, no matter the cost. But as the horrors of her past start to resurface, she realizes that leaving her old life behind won't be easy. Outside the walls of The Ark, the real evil has only just begun.

A brilliantly plotted, page-turning novel from "one of psychological suspense's best writers" (The Boston Globe), The Poison Garden will leave you stunned.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143110521
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/14/2020
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	774,278
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alex Marwood is the pseudonym of a journalist who has worked extensively across the British press. Her first novel, The Wicked Girls, won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and the Anthony and ITW Awards for Best Paperback Original. The Killer Next Door, her second novel, won a Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, was nominated for the Anthony and Barry, and has been optioned for film by James Franco and Ahna O’Reilly. Her third novel, The Darkest Secret, was published in 2016. Marwood lives in south London.

Reading Group Guide

1. While working as a journalist, the author both trained as a hypnotist and profiled a stadium evangelist. How do you think these experiences might have influenced this story?

2. To some degree, cults have become a very popular topic in books, film, podcasts, and more. Why do you think people find them so fascinating? Why in particular now?

3. Most people think they would never join a cult—until some do. Why did Alison join the Ark? Do her reasons make sense to you?

4. When Romy leaves the Ark, she has to learn how to function in modern society. What do you think would be most difficult for you to adapt to? What seems easy and normal to you that might be difficult for someone who has never experienced it?

5. After everything Romy went through at the Ark, why do you think she was so desperate to get back?

6. Cult leaders can make people do things that seem inexplicable to anyone on the outside. How did Lucien brainwash his followers? How can such toxic ideas and practice become so normalized?

7. Bullying comes up in this novel through the presence of Marie. How does this connect thematically to the Ark?

8. Were you surprised when Romy made her first kill? Why do you think she is capable of such violence?

9. Toward the end, Somer finally sees the horrors of Lucien and the Ark. What did it take for her to finally understand? Why don’t you think she saw it sooner?

10. Did you expect Romy to go through with killing Eden? Were you shocked by what happened when she couldn’t?

11. Why do you think that everyone from Sarah to the social workers failed to save Romy? What could they have done differently?

12. Romy goes through so many things and goes to such lengths to protect her family, yet she is also a murderer multiple times over. By the end, did you feel sympathetic toward Romy?

13. What do you think Romy will do now that she is back with Uri at Cairngorm?

14. Why do you think Sarah decided to go with Romy and Ilo to Cairngorm? Does it make sense to you, given everything she has said about cults throughout the book?

15. Alex Marwood’s books have been praised for their emphasis on psychologically complex characters. Who did you find most interesting in this book and why? Who did you like or dislike? Who did you feel sorry for?

16. From the outside, Lucien and the Ark are obviously pure evil, and yet Romy and her siblings refuse to believe it. Have you encountered any situations where you couldn’t sway someone from an obviously toxic belief? What worked or didn’t? After reading about Sarah’s experiences, what would you do in such a situation?

Editorial Reviews

10/28/2019

Romy, the 21-year-old protagonist of this creepy psychological thriller from Edgar-winner Marwood (The Darkest Secret), is the only adult survivor found at the site of the mass death of more than a hundred people at the messianic doomsday cult, the Ark, in North Wales. She tries to keep her pregnancy secret as she transitions to the outside world, where she seeks out her teenage half-siblings, Ilo and Eden, the latter a child of the cult’s patriarch, Lucien Blake, and thus possibly destined to become the One. The narrative alternates between Romy’s sinister efforts to reconnect with family and provide for her unborn child’s future, and the experiences of her mother, Somer, who joined the Ark when Romy was a child. Marwood makes life inside the controlling and Spartan survivalist compound appear simultaneously appalling and idyllic, leaving the reader feeling revolted, but just a bit complicit. The dangling plot line at the end leaves the story feeling less complete than it should. Hopefully, a sequel will provide some resolution. Agent: Laetitia Rutherford, Watson, Little (U.K.). (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Poison Garden:

"An extraordinary novel of psychological suspense that is more wicked than Marwood’s Edgar-winning Wicked Girls and darker than her Macavity-winning The Killer Next Door." -Booklist,*starred review*

“Intelligently assimilated research, a slow build with a growing sense of unease and a chillingly believable plotline add up to the best sort of dark psychological thriller.”—The Guardian

"An Edgar winner for her The Wicked Girls, Marwood again shows a mastery at creating new worlds."—Oline H. Cogdill, Associated Press

“Marwood’s novels offer superbly executed masterclasses in compelling and stupendously creepy mysteries.”—CrimeReads

"I devoured The Poison Garden . . . Gripping and utterly convincing, it's Alex Marwood at the top of her (already impressive) game"—Jojo Moyes, #1 New York Times bestelling author of Me Before You 

"God, Alex Marwood is good. Like all her books, The Poison Garden is absolutely, beautifully realized, full of wry, defiant humor and pitch-black, hand-over-your-mouth suspense. I’d read her grocery lists."—Flynn Berry, author of Under the Harrrow

“Highly imaginative, yet consistently believable, this wonderful dystopian novel is both terrifying and unsettling as if a harbinger for our times. A well written and thrilling read.”  -Lisa Ballantyne, internationally bestelling author of The Guilty One

"A gripping, unexpected novel with graphic elements that are not for the faint of heart.”—Kirkus

"Cults have long captured the popular imagination. We’re repelled yet fascinated, disturbed yet wildly curious. Alex Marwood’s fourth thriller, The Poison Garden, will slake readers’ thirst for stories about what goes on in such communities and what happens when everything falls apart." -BookPage

Praise for The Wicked Girls:

"The suspense keeps the pages flying, but what sets this one apart is the palpable sense of onrushing doom." -Stephen King

"Harrowing." -Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Killer Next Door:

"If you read Alex Marwood's The Wicked Girls, her new one—The Killer Next Door—is even better. Scary as hell. Great characters." -Stephen King

"With her sophomore outing, Marwood has turned out not just a spooky, blood-and-guts thriller, but a cannily observant novel that explores social fissures while delivering a modicum of hope." -The Boston Globe

More praise for The Darkest Secret:

"This third novel from one of psychological suspense's best writers confirms Marwood's first hat trick." -The Boston Globe (Best Books of 2016)

"Brilliant." -The Atlantic

"[Marwood] demonstrates, without a doubt, that she is one of crime fiction's brightest stars."-Megan Abbott

From the Publisher

2019-09-30
After what looks like a mass suicide on the grounds of a cult's commune in Wales, the three known survivors are forced into modern British life in this psychological thriller.

Romy, pregnant and almost 21, and her two half siblings, Eden, 15, and Ilo, 13, are the only survivors found alive in Plas Golau—home of the Ark commune—when an ungodly stench leads the authorities to the grounds. More than a hundred people have died from poisoning, their bodies rotting in the sun where they fell as they sought help. As the only adult survivor, Romy's progression from suspect to the freedom of her own small apartment takes months. But despite her willingness to pretend otherwise for the authorities, her true goal is not to assimilate into a world she has been catechized her entire life to believe will soon end. She must find her siblings, who have been placed with her mother's sister, Sarah, and return to the safety of the cult in its second location, in Scotland, one that the authorities know nothing about. There are some gruesome tasks she must undertake first, however, and she performs these with alacrity. The reader discovers what led to the cult members' demise as the dark and twisting story jumps back and forth among times, places, and people, covering the 20 years that Romy grew up within the Ark, training for survival and preparing for the end of the world. A confusing mass of detail at the beginning of the book settles into a disturbing exploration of religious fervor and how belief can be used to justify the worst impulses of humankind. Author Marwood (The Darkest Secret, 2016, etc.) has a deft touch in this pre-apocalyptic tale.

A gripping, unexpected novel with graphic elements that are not for the faint of heart.

Kirkus Reviews

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