Cover Image: The Garden House

The Garden House

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Member Reviews

Linda Mahkovec has written another very enjoyable book. The Garden House is about an empty nest couple who rent out their garden house to a young man and this starts the mysterious setting. Mahkovec does a great job with descriptions and makes you feel as if you were there. This is a very enjoyable and well written book.
Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for allowing me to read this.

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I loved this book! This author has a wonderful talent in descriptions, both in surroundings and in people. The character development was perfect! I will be seeking more by this author!

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I'm a real sucker for beautiful covers and this immediately caught my eye. The story is engaging, characters are interesting and I absolutely can picture the garden in my mind. The book moved a little slow for me but all in all it was enjoyable.

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The Garden house is an enjoyable mystery novel. With Miranda's children grown and out on their own she misses them and feels lost and empty. After renting out their garden house for the summer to William, Miranda starts having disturbing dreams that she feels are connected to him. This book was a short read and held my interest to the last page. I really enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of flowers and gardens. Thanks to author Linda Mahkovec, publisher BooksGoSocial and to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for an honest review.

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This book claimed to be set in Seattle, but frankly, I didn't feel it (I live near Seattle). Instead, the atmosphere seemed more like Southern California. There really wasn't anything very unique about the setting.

The plot, however, was interesting. A family rents their garden house to a complete stranger, and then the wife begins having strange dreams that somehow make her suspicious of the new tenant. It leads to some interesting conclusions and some conflict with her husband. It could have several different resolutions, and the one the author chooses might surprise you.

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I received a complimentary copy of The Garden House from NetGalley.  Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

This was a short read, which I didn’t mind because of the lack of much action. The young man (William) staying in the garden house is a bit odd, and Miranda, the green-thumbed woman of the main house begins having disturbing nightmares after he moves in. Nosy, but well-intentioned, Miranda pries her way into his life creating a memorable summer for them both.

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I know who will love this story but it isn’t me. Poor Miranda - rich, stay at home, happy marriage, good friends, etc.... feeling sorry for herself because she doesn’t know what to do with her life now that she has an empty nest. Pleeeaaaassssseeee. 🙄🙄🙄🙄 She ends up going full “Karen” when she thinks her renter is something horrible. I understand that some of us get to a point where we need to reevaluate our lives but this missed the mark for me. The descriptions of the flowers and gardens is nice but not enough to let me like this one.

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The Garden House by Linda Mahkovec is an engaging story. Ms. Mahkovec did an excellent job showing that things aren't always what they appear to be.

As an added bonus there's a beautiful garden in the book which has inspired me to add to my garden.

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The Garden House by Linda Mahkovec presents an amazing and easy read story combined with a mystery insight. The book offers the reader a magnificent sharpness into events related to the later part of a persons life and how circumstances influence people's worldviews. The storyline continues to grasps the reader's attention and allows one to wonder what the next page may look like. I find the writer invested significant effort to present page tuners and also to create an atmosphere of continuous wonder as well as thoughtfulness.

While Miranda attempts to find her way and reinvent her life, a mysterious man starts to play a role in the episodes of her existence.

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The Garden House A Novel by Linda Mahkovec. BooksGoSocial, 2016.

Miranda, the main character of this relatively short and simple story, turns fifty around the same time her two grown children move away. She is unsettled, at least partly because she has deferred acting on her hopes and dreams and plans until this milestone, and is now uncertain about what she wants to do. Some of these – a daycare, art studio – involve use of the fully equipped guest cottage in her garden, so she has mixed emotions when her husband mentions renting the garden house for two summer months. Although she engages briefly with two other strangers, Miranda’s suspicions about the tenant and the possibility of his wrong doing become the focus of the story.

This book is well-written but I had some difficulty understanding Miranda.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of A Deadly Influence for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. #TheGardenHouse #NetGalley

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Miranda has turned fifty and she is very unsettled. Living in an idyllic home, her two children have both left home almost at the same time and she feels that her entire life other than being a wife and a mother - has left her no time for her own aspirations or her own ideas of what she wants to do with her time.

At the same time, Miranda is very undecided, has no confidence in her own abilities (she is very talented obviously) but does not have the gumption to go ahead with any idea of her own, dismissing herself as either too old, or not talented enough or has been out of the workforce for so long - very negative indeed.

When Miranda and Ben rent out their extra garden house as they call it to William, Miranda starts having dreams in the night. Very specific ones regarding a couple of children in distress and this is not taken much notice of - it is after all a dream and there are no immediate children in the neighbourhood who could be in any danger. The dreams persist though.

How the subconscious of some can be stronger than others is known and acknowledged though why and how this happens no one knows.

The story delves into this and is very well told though not technical or boring in the least. It makes for a happy ending as well.

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Linda Mahkovec writes beautiful, lush descriptive prose. I love spending time in Miranda's home and in her unbelievable garden. It felt like magic. Some of us have intuitive instincts that we need to pay attention to - it's that "little voice" too many of ignore. Miranda is a woman I would love to know.

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I enjoyed this book very much. The characters were like people I may know. The author's descriptions of gardens, flowers and food were so good, I could see and smell them in my mind. There was enough mystery to keep my attention.

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A lovely, gentle read. Perfect for a Sunday morning. A nice little mystery entwined with a feel good book.

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I don't know that I have read anything like this before. There were some incredibly beautiful moments in this book. I felt like I could see and feel the atmosphere so perfectly and that felt very cozy and special. I do feel like there should maybe be a trigger warning for abuse as I was not expecting that. Especially since the beginning of the book IS so cozy. But all and all a nice story and I will definitely be picking this author up again.

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So very enjoyable! Shamefully my first book by this author but will remedy that. Though a short book, it is long enough for plenty of jaw-clenching suspense and character development. Beautiful Seattle is the setting for this mystery and as a master gardener, I was smitten with the floral descriptions and could envision them and the wonderful scents.

Miranda is a 50-year-old woman who lives with her husband in what I picture to be a lovely home with a large yard and a garden house. The couple's two adult children have recently left home which Miranda has mixed feelings about. Now she can pursue what she loves yet she dearly misses her children and all the bustle that goes along with family. Her husband suggests they rent out the garden house for the summer and a renter soon arrives. Well. This story grows more and more interesting as we see the dynamic between them and witness the couple navigating their new lives. Plus Miranda begins having very odd dreams she cannot connect anything to.

The story riveted me and entranced me fully. I literally tuned everything else out and immersed myself in the tension on a cold, blizzardy, stormy and dark March night, the perfect atmosphere for this. I highly recommend this awesome read for anyone itching for escapism with a lot of suspense but without any terror or horror.

My sincere thank you to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this fabulous book!

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What a lovely little book. I read it all in one sitting and have to say for a shorter read it was wonderfully put together and a true pleasure.

Miranda was a perceptively creative soul with the ability to intuit a troubled person or troubling situation. At first blush, the impression was that William was a “bad guy” who seemed to trigger troubling dreams for Miranda. Her husband, Ben, and friends wrote the anxiety off to empty nest feelings, but she knew better and wouldn’t let it go.

Happily, Miranda was instrumental in uncovering the root of her dreams and their intersection with William

Really excellent book. Thank you Net Galley.

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