Miranda’s Garden is a novel of new beginnings, unexpected endings, magical realism, and a garden that holds the key to many things.

Len and Miranda are going back to nature for inspiration, solace, and a different life in the remote mountain town of Tyler, Colorado. But when choices take an unexpected nose dive into disaster, Miranda finds herself with more than she can handle alone.

Chapters titled with the waxing and waning of the moon move through the seasons, linking Miranda’s revised life to nature in many different ways.

The story’s magical realism stems from the unexpected transformations Miranda witnesses in the outside world around her and in herself, sparking imaginative reflection:

A green background with white spirals. In the center, an oval-shaped frame encircled two women. One was younger with brown curly hair. She was lying under a blanket, her head on a pillow, as if she was tired or ill. The other was an older, grayhaired woman holding a cup of steaming tea in one hand, the palm of her other hand resting on the younger woman’s forehead. Behind them was a nature scene of a deer drinking from a lake, surrounded by trees and flowers, a hawk soaring overhead.

“Which woman are you?” Therese asked.

Neither. Therese was pounding on the door of the secret clubhouse, unwelcome. “I don’t know,” Miranda said. “Maybe I’m the hawk. Or the deer. Or the cup of tea.”

Such philosophical insights pepper the saga as Miranda finds a new circle of hope and possibility in unexpected encounters both human and in nature, gaining solace from both and in “letting people tend to her.” Engaging with the world is difficult, but forms the nexus of a story about far more than grief and gardening.

Johnnie Mazzocco’s reflective work captures the rhythms of life and the allure of creating new patterns:

She also liked the idea of starting her own traditions that came from her new and burgeoning belief system.

The story’s insights, interactions, and engrossing growth dilemmas will reach literary audiences interested in accounts of psychological and social growth and the entwining of seasons, moons, and magic.

Libraries seeking ultimately uplifting novels that can serve as book club discussion material and panaceas for modern angst will find it easy to highly recommend Miranda’s Garden to a wide audience, from readers struggling with their own grief or isolation to those who need a reminder of connections between humans and nature, and how simple acts such as gardening can marry them both.