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    The Girls in the Garden: A Novel
    The Girls in the Garden: A Novel
    The Girls in the Garden: A Novel
    Ebook370 pages5 hours

    The Girls in the Garden: A Novel

    By Lisa Jewell

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    One of People’s, Glamour’s, and BuzzFeed’s Best Reads of Summer, from the New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True

    “Jewell expertly builds suspense by piling up domestic misunderstandings and more plot twists than an SVU episode. It’s a page-turner for readers who like beach reads on the dark side.” —People

    “Faithful to the thriller genre, Jewell makes liberal use of red herrings and plot twists… The answer to the whodunit is a sly—and satisfying—surprise.” —The New York Times

    Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?

    On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria Books
    Release dateJun 7, 2016
    ISBN9781476792231
    Author

    Lisa Jewell

    Lisa Jewell is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-three novels, including None of This Is True, The Family Upstairs, and Then She Was Gone, as well as Invisible Girl and Watching You. Her novels have sold over ten million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into twenty-nine languages. Connect with her on X @LisaJewellUK, on Instagram @LisaJewellUK, and on Facebook @LisaJewellOfficial.

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    Reviews for The Girls in the Garden

    3.5/5

    455 ratings37 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to have good writing and great characters, but some find the pacing slow and the ending anticlimactic. However, the book picks up in the second half with twists and turns that keep readers engaged. Overall, it is recommended for fans of well-built characters and those looking for something different in the mystery/thriller genre.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I feel like Liane Moriarty and Megan Abbott had a book baby and it's this novel. It has similar aspects to both their writing styles. I really enjoyed the plot because it was very different from most mystery/thriller arcs and I found it refreshing. For a mystery book I would say it's pretty light and a bit predictable, but still a very worthy selection. I enjoyed myself all the way through.
    • 4/5
      I liked the suspense in this story because it seemed like there were so many people who could have done it, and they all had reasons why. At the end, you’re still not completely sure about what happened - and even if that sounds annoying, it’s actually really satisfying because it’s like real life cases where you might never know something for sure.
    • 3/5
      The author's descriptive prose really brought the scenes to life for me. This particular community set-up seems alien to me, yet I could picture it vividly.
    • 4/5
      I quite enjoyed this book. I definitely wouldn't say it was a mind boggling ending, but the story was well executed. It was a well written story weaving history and present together. What happened to Phoebe all those summers ago? Was it really an accident or something more sinister? Did the same person hurt Grace? I thought the characters were so well created and developed. I think I would recommend this book. I am definitely intrigued to read more of her books.
    • 3/5
      Review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley.

      After an incident that took away her father to mental care, Pip has to get used to the new house, which comes with an unusual way of living and a group of teenagers she can't very well get along with. When she finds her sister lying in the communal park, she knows it could have only be caused by one of the people living in the neighborhood but who? And why is it so similar to an incident from decades before?

      Narrated in third person from lovely Pip's eyes, as well as her mother's and a neighbor's—and at a point even her sister's—this is was an enticing read that goes beyond solving a mystery, it also explores family and friendship.

      I'm not usually as drawn to main characters as I was here. And I didn't fall in love with Pip from the start I liked the resource of her letters to her dad but her voice was a little irritating until I got used to it or perhaps the author didn't feel the need anymore to prove to us this was a eleven/twelve year old.

      More on the character part, I loved the choice of people to live around this communal area. They have mostly known each other forever and so have their parents. As we're shown all the events leading to Pip's sister discovery from the day her family moved in, we get to know each of the main actors. And it's so interesting how everyone has that weird side that makes them the perfect suspect!

      This was gripping and not very easy to solve. I wouldn't say the author was a genius hiding the culprit, but her building of the human relations that would base the person's motives was something I admired. Particularly, I didn't like the parts with the police, if I had to point one mistake that ticked me off. Of course the police would be involved and asking questions but, in the end, their participation was so small I preferred they'd stayed in the background. Leave the spotlight to the main characters, really.

      As for the ending, as I got closer I knew it wouldn't end with a bang. I didn't even want it. And it didn't. It was very rational. Again, I'm not sure if the police would really let it happen in real life—do I expect too much from them?—and yet, I found it to be the perfect closure.

      Now I'm done I keep thinking back to that park and how magical but also how weird it could be. In my culture, it's not even an aberration for people to have private areas they share. However, even to my used eyes this author managed to make it fantastic enough I wished I had experienced it in my childhood as well.

      Recommended for those who like mysteries with a more familiar feeling to them. This lacks the spark to make it a 4-star read—it's surely a 3.5—but it's so endearing I must say you should go for it if in doubt.
    • 3/5
      This book was good, but entirely forgettable.
    • 3/5
      A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

      I really enjoyed this book and found Jewell's writing rich, descriptive, and complex. There was the right amount of suspense and an interesting setting—a secret picturesque communal garden that is pivotal to the story and becomes one of its characters.

      After a family tragedy, Clare and her daughters, Grace and Pip, move to a London neighbourhood where all the flats are connected and share a garden. With this type of neighbourhood, relationships are fluid, boundaries are lacking, and children come and go with little to no supervision. The reader is also privy to Pip's letters to her father which offer a further glimpse into their new surroundings—although take this information with a grain of salt, Pip is an unreliable narrator seeing the world through twelve year-old eyes.

      The book opens part way through the story, a midsummer's night party that goes horribly wrong. Thirteen year-old Grace is attacked the night of her birthday and is found beaten and unconscious by her twelve year-old sister, Pip. The attack mirrors another from the past that is tied to the characters, most of which are suspects in Grace's attack.

      Disturbing at times, and often quirky, Jewell pulls it off with characters that are highly developed. These characters are rich in detail that outlines their motivations that propel the story.
    • 5/5
      I really like the writing style of this author. I've read some of her other books and have to say I haven't really been disappoint. With this one...it seemed the ending was a bit rushed and not quite realistic... but maybe it was it wasn't what I was expecting. Overall it is a very worthwhile read that should appeal to any mystery fan.
    • 4/5
      *I received an arc through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
      This was my first book by Lisa Jewell. I've heard good things about her writing and the premise of this story sounded so intriguing! The opening of the book started with a bang. I was immediately hooked. And then Jewell brings it back a bit to begin when Pip, Grace and their mother move into the neighborhood after a tragedy involving their father. The narrative bounces back and forth between a couple of the neighbors, but mostly Pip. The entire story is gripping and the characters are unique and add a special touch to the story. There were times when it seemed to drag a little bit but for the most part the book was good. I don't want to give away any spoilers but I will say that this book is definitely worth the read!
    • 3/5
      Clare moves her daughters, both of whom are teetering on the brink of becoming teenagers, to a flat in a communal garden in London. They've all been through a terrible ordeal and this quiet community, where neighbors look out for each other, and the children play together, seems the perfect place. But on the evening of her eldest daughter's Grace's 13th birthday, something terrible happens. Her younger sister, Pip, finds Grace unconscious in the garden. Grace is covered in blood, with her clothes askew. Pip has heard rumors of a young girl who died here years before. Suddenly the garden no longer seems like a safe place. What happened to Grace? Will it ever be safe for Clare and her girls again?

      Apparently this was Jewell's first foray into true suspense and overall, I thought she did fairly well. The majority of the book was tense and exciting, in that regard, and there is enough swirl around each of the characters that you truly don't know what happened to Grace, or who could be responsible for the incident. In addition to Clare and her daughters, we meet Leo and Adele and their three home-schooled daughters; Dylan, a teenager who lives near the garden; and Dylan's friend, Tyler, a a girl similar in age to Grace. These characters, along with several others, combine to tell the story-- we hear from Clare and her girls, plus Leo and Adele. It adds to the suspense of the novel, which opens with Grace's accident and then backtracks from there. It's an effective technique which had me madly flipping pages, trying to figure out what happened.

      One of my nits with this book was my inability to relate with the overall nature of the characters; perhaps never having experienced such communal garden living, it was hard to imagine a world where the children roamed so freely, with little regard for their parents. Some of the kids were obviously neglected, but not Clare or Adele's broods. Their attitudes toward their parents seemed off kilter, even for this day and age and turned me off a bit. My favorite of the group was Pip-- probably because she was less hateful and more introspective. Even then, I would have been okay with all of this, but after I sped through the book--really into the plot and loving the whole thing--the ending was just a disappointment. There was so much buildup and then it all just petered out at the end. I stayed up late to finish the book and then felt incredibly let down. Still a good 3-star read, but demoted from a higher rating due to the ending.

      I received a copy of this book from Netgalley (thank you!); it's available for publication in the U.S. on 6/7/2016.
    • 4/5
      The first half of the book has a lot of build up. Which is enjoyable but can also be a bit slow at times, if you’re used to quicker paced books. The author puts you in the minds and homes of each of the characters. Shows you their views the uncertainties, and most importantly their secrets. At about the halfway point everything picks up, it moves at the speed of what we’ve all come to expect of a book in the thriller series and it’s filled with twists and turns. While you may see the end coming, the author makes sure you’re never certain, always ready for a new revelation. Overall the book is great, would definitely recommend it to those who enjoy a story with well built characters and fans of the mystery/thriller genre looking for something out of the ordinary.
    • 2/5
      The ending was not what I was expecting. It was a little disappointing
    • 3/5
      This was my least favorite of her books. Very anticlimactic as a mystery or thriller. Instead, it’s just an interesting story. Well written and great characters as always, but no emotional rise to the peak that never comes.
    • 4/5
      I gave this 4 stars because it kept me interested all the way to the end. It was a unique picture of suburban life with some dark undertones. Well-written, good suspense.
    • 4/5
      I thought this was a pretty good thriller. It could have been a little more thrilling and I felt that I am pretty sure who did it, but it never really gave a definitive answer. If someone wants to compare who they thought, let me know. I pretty much thought I had it figured out right away, just wasn't sure how the "crime" was done. But then I was kind of confused in the end and it almost sounded like who I thought was guilty, wasn't really. I also felt like the author could have expanded on some character profiles a little better, on some of the neighbors that we didn't really get to know. All in all, it was a pretty good read.
    • 2/5
      Clare moves her daughters, both of whom are teetering on the brink of becoming teenagers, to a flat in a communal garden in London fkghkdsjgdkgh
    • 3/5
      Good writing, but slow paced, with an anticlimactic and somewhat confusing ending.
    • 4/5
      An unusual contemporary mystery with friendship drama.

      All the families live close to each other in a community that surrounds a huge park with hidden gardens and paths. The children run free in the green space and in and out of each others' homes with ease. It happens on a warm summer night during the annual Virginia Park Tombola. One of the children, 13-year-old Grace, is found by the rose garden gate in a coma with her clothes in disarray.

      This was a slow burner that built up in perfectly paced storytelling that creates tension and suspense as everyone tries to figure out what happened to Grace and who was responsible. The novel is told in alternating points of view between the various characters -- women and children -- who live in apartments and homes around the park. Hints, secrets, lies, lots of domestic situations and concerns kept me guessing. I was hoping to believe the best of all of the friends - both the adults and the teenagers -- and many red herrings dangled to keep me on edge. The characters were multi-faceted and intriguing. I found the climax and conclusion quite satisfying and a bit surprising.

      I listened to the audiobook while following along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher. I really liked the narrator - she did an excellent job voicing all the characters and her tone and dramatic flair enhanced the experience. I'd recommend this one.
    • 3/5
      I don’t feel like anything really happened. I love Jewell’s writing, but this one did not work for me.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5

      I do really enjoy Lisa Jewell's books ever since I chanced upon The Truth About Melody Browne. This one had a strong mystery element, as well as some psychological suspense. It starts with a young girl being found who was attacked and we don't know if she lives or dies, then the first half of the book builds up to the incident before then moving to after the event. I would certainly recommend her books. There were definitely some surprises towards the end of the book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Girls is the first book by Lisa Jewell that I have read. I didn't really know what to expect and like to not read the blurb as sometimes it can give too much away. The story follows a few neighbours that live in properties that have a large communal garden. The children of the families have grown up spending time in the garden. Clare and her two girls Grace and Pip move into one of the houses after a family problem. Every summer the residents hold an annual party in the garden and something goes horribly wrong.The story starts at the party and then goes back to tell the story leading up to this point. I was expecting a thriller and for me the first part of the story is all about the residents, how they live their lives. The second part of the story is where it really gets going and everything is revealed, and for me this was the best part.Overall I did enjoy the book and would read more by this author. At times I did feel the style of the story was very much like books by Liane Moriarty, whose books I have enjoyed in the past. For me this book was one where it held my attention as I wanted to see how it was going pan out. Not knowing what to expect I was quite surprised.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It could happen to any parent. Your child has found in a coma and you’ve been told she had an overdose of a date rape drug. The background of this story, is the stories of families and child-rearing. Of concerns that you helped create this turn of events. The mystery involves the families living around a private park in greater London. In the end, teenage jealousy is the culprit. An interesting, non-conventional mystery lets me see that raising children does take a village, and it is up to adults to support one another in this huge task.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This a another great delivery from a great writer. I really enjoyed the simplicity of the characters - there were so many they needed to be kept clear. I found it an easy read with a great storyline. The ending was probably the weak point for me but I think I could have continued to read about these characters for a long time and it may just have been the disappointment of it being over.

      The story starts quite small with a new family in the neighbourhood but stretches over lots of individuals and situations and timeframes in the end. A great read I totally recommend. It does not delve as deep as you would like into a number of threads but to keep in contained is also a skill that is clearly shown in the end.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      In need of refuge after a family tragedy, Clare and her two pre-teen daughters, Pip and Grace, move into a central London flat that backs onto a walled communal park. It’s not long before the girls make friends with some of the other children in the community, notably homeschooled sisters Catkin, Willow and Fern, neglected wild child Taylor, and the handsome Dylan, but the girls presence unwittingly upsets the delicate balance of the insular group.

      The narrative of The Girls in The Garden is divided into four sections. It begins with a shocking incident on midsummers eve, then leaps back several months to relate earlier events in ‘Before’, leading to the immediate aftermath in ‘After’, with an additional epilogue set ten months later. It’s an effective format that piques the reader’s interest from the outset, however though we learn how, and why, Grace was attacked, to me the story ultimately felt unresolved. I think this is due to what I felt was a lack of consequences for all those involved.

      Themes Jewell explores in the story includes mental illness, contrasting parenting styles, the illusion of safety, and the dynamics of group behaviour. The setting of the private community was an inspired choice, providing the ideal backdrop for the author to delve into these issues.

      It’s commonly accepted to be difficult to authentically portray children in novels. To be fair they are often contradictory creatures, and ‘tweenagers’ are particularly mercurial. I thought Jewell captured the personalities of the quite adolescents well in The Girls in the Garden, however the contradictions in Pip’s character didn’t quite work for me. I just didn’t believe she had the sophistication necessary to interpret the undercurrents of motive and emotion in the story in the manner in which she did.

      Though it has its flaws, I did quite enjoy The Girls in the Garden. It was a quick read, that I found thought provoking and suspenseful.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Clare's husband Chris has experienced a psychotic break and burned down their house with no regard to whether their children, Grace (12) and Pip (10) were in it at the time. When the story opens Clare has moved the two girls into a small house which backs onto and enormous communal park. Chris is in hospital and Clare cannot imagine ever letting him come home again, since she cannot trust him not to harm the children.

      Grace and Pip meet the other children/teenagers with access to the park, including the fabulously named Catkin, Fern and Willow, and Grace spends most of her time with the gang from the park, including her boyfriend Dylan. Then one night after the park summer party, Grace is discovered unconscious, apparently having been attacked.

      The novel opens with the night of the party, goes back in time to explain the family's history and then describes the aftermath, which in places reads like a police procedural. I enjoyed the story and it kept my interest; I wanted to find out what had happened to Grace. Having said that, some of the characters were better developed than others; Pip was a full-rounded character, but I never got any sense of who Clare really was. Adele was well-drawn, but I kept getting her daughters muddled.

      The ending was both satisfactory (and more restrained than I feared it would be) and at the same time a little under-whelming. I believed in the choices Clare had made for the future, but Adele's decisions were disturbing.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      A festive neighborhood party is taking place and Pip discovers her 13 year old sister, Grace, unconscious and bloody in a rose garden. What happened to her? And who is responsible? I have read a few other books by Lisa Jewell and really enjoyed them all but this one seemed to fall flat for me. I t was an interesting story but the end did not really make sense to me. If you want to read Lisa Jewell, I suggest you start with another of her books.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell is a 2016 Atria publication.


      This is my first novel by this author, but now that she is on my radar I plan to check out her other books, as well.

      When Clare’s husband, Chris, has a psychotic episode, and winds up institutionalized, she and her daughters, Grace and Pip, move into a new apartment surrounded by a delightful communal garden. Grace begins to worm her way into the group of kids who hang out in the park, while Pip hangs back, writing her father letters, telling all about their new life, and observing things from a distance. When Grace makes new friends, Clare finds herself getting a little friendly with her neighbors, Adele and Leo. Leo makes the biggest impression on her with his easy going, slightly flirtatious manner, prompting her to open up about her problems, which seems to lighten her burden considerably.


      But, when Grace is found unconscious, and hospitalized, remaining in a coma, leaving everyone unsure of what happened to her, a dark side of the idealistic garden community is exposed, with long buried secrets coming to light, prompting some to take drastic measures to protect one of their own.

      In some ways, this story is a little quirky, told from various POV’s, but also does a pretty good job of creating a feeling of unease, and building suspense at a steady pace, with a few very surprising twists thrown in along the way.

      Despite the odd presentation and the strange way these characters developed, leaving me unsure of how I felt about them, I enjoyed the book, and found it weirdly absorbing, and kind of unique, which is a good thing!

      So, overall, I enjoyed the book, although it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, and think fans of psychological suspense will like this one too.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I have become a big fan of Lisa Jewell’s mysteries but this one was just meh...ok for me. There is a lush garden in the middle of a housing complex, setting is the middle of London.

      A woman moves in with her two daughters, Grace and Pip, and has a bit of adjustment to the communal lifestyle of the garden. Children freely wander around, into each other’s homes. There’s an Earth Mother sort who home schools and feeds everyone natural healthy fare, her very handsome charming husband Leo and a few dysfunctional characters.

      During a birthday party that runs late in the evening, children are still up running around mind you, 13 year old Grace is found in the bushes, bloodied and in a coma.  The resulting investigation reveals some interesting facts about both the adults and children. I’ll say I very much enjoyed Jewell’s other mysteries more but this wasn’t a DNF.
    • 2/5
      The Girls in the Garden
      By Lisa Jewell
      Narrated By Colleen Prendergast
      Published 2017 by Dreamscape Media, LLC
      9 hours and 21 minutes

      I received a free audio copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

      I’ve heard great things about Lisa Jewell’s writing but this was my first experience with her work. The story begins with 12-year-old Pip discovering her 13-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and half dressed in the communal garden behind their apartment. The story then immediately jumps back in time to before the discovery. I realize the characters and events leading up to the discovery are a necessary part of the mystery but I think the author could have done a better job with the story’s pacing. The plot dragged on until about half way through and then the pacing picked up and I was rapt until the end. The sub-plot relating to the girls’ mentally ill father was sort of awkward and unrelated to the overall plot of the story. I kept waiting to see how the house burning incident was going to fit into the story but it never did.

      I had several theories about what may have happened to Grace and who might be responsible but was ultimately surprised with the outcome and more than a little disappointed. There should have been consequences for the kids and justice for Grace. I was also hoping that someone would connect the dots and get justice for Tyler’s aunt who was found dead in the park many years earlier.

      The story was told in third person and narrated by Colleen Prendergast. I thought her performance was good but not exceptional. My overall impression of the book was that there was a lot of potential for a great psychological mystery but it fell short in many different ways.
    • 4/5
      In THE GIRLS IN THE GARDEN, Lisa Jewell starts by presenting many mysteries and builds up to the main who-done-it of the book. I enjoyed trying to figure it out; Jewell made me suspicious of everyone. Then, when I thought I knew, she added a twist. Her best twist of all left me undecided but in a good way. I ended up thinking how crafty of Jewell to do this to my imagination.

      What the English refer to here as a garden, I would call a park with gardens in it but also playground equipment. Encircling this 3-acre private park are what I imagine are different types of condominiums and apartments (although this is not what they are called in the book). I would refer to this arrangement as a complex. Because of this complex arrangement, neighbors are involved with each other perhaps more than they might otherwise be.

      So we learn enough about some of them to be suspicious when a tragedy occurs. And we learn more and more as one of the neighbors investigates and as a very smart 11-year-old questions what she sees.

      Although THE GIRLS IN THE GARDEN involves several children who are 13 and under, which you may think would bore you, the story contains enough adult characters and material to keep your attention. I recommend it.

    Book preview

    The Girls in the Garden - Lisa Jewell

    BEFORE

    1

    Dear Daddy,

    We moved into the new flat this weekend. It’s nice. It’s on a quiet street with little houses. You walk into a narrow hallway and if you turn right there are two bedrooms. I have to share with Grace but I really don’t mind. You know I never liked sleeping on my own in the old house anyway. Not really. Do you remember? I don’t really know how much you remember about things from before. I don’t know if you’ve lost all your memories or if you’re just the same except with all the other problems.

    Anyway, our room is really cute. We put our beds in an L shape so that our feet point together and our heads are furthest apart and I can see Grace when I’m in bed. It’s like this:

    Image: Drawing of two girls in bed

    It’s weird how I’m eleven and I should be wanting my own room and I just really don’t. Remember how I used to say I wish we lived in a caravan? So we could be all snug together? Well, this is a bit like that, I suppose. Then Mum’s room is next door to ours. It’s quite small but she’s got a little shower room attached, which is nice for her. Then on the other side of the hallway there’s a kitchen which is square with white units with silver handles and white tiles and Mum says it looks like an operating theater. It kind of does. Well, it’s totally different to our old kitchen, that’s for sure. Do you remember our old kitchen? Do you remember those crazy tiles around the sink with the bits of fruit on them? Grapes and stuff? I sort of miss those now.

    So the kitchen has a breakfast bar, which is good, I like breakfast bars, and a window that looks over the backyard. And next door is a tiny living room. It’s all painted white with that kind of shiny wood flooring that’s not really wood and whoever lived here before must have worn very sharp heels because it’s full of little dents, like a Ryvita. There’s a door in the living room that takes you into the backyard. It’s teeny-weeny. Just big enough for a little table and some chairs. And maybe it’s just because it’s winter but it does smell a bit damp out there and there’s lots of moss all over the walls.

    And it has a little wooden gate and when you go through the gate there’s a totally massive private park. We were not expecting it. Mum didn’t even tell us about it before. I was just thinking what a cute little flat it was and then suddenly it’s like Narnia, there’s all these tall trees and pathways and a lawn that takes you up to all these big white houses with windows that are as tall as two men and you can see the chandeliers and the big splashy paintings on the walls. At night when you look up the hill and the houses have all their lights on it’s so pretty. And in the park itself there are all these pathways and little tucked-away places. A secret garden which is hidden inside an old wall covered with ivy, like the one in the book. A rose garden which has bowers all the way around and benches in the middle. And then there’s a playground too. It’s not particularly amazing, just some swings and a clonky old roundabout and one of those sad animals on a spring. But still, it’s cool.

    This is what the park looks like.

    Image: Drawing of a park with playground

    Mum says I can’t tell you the name of the park, or where it is. I totally don’t know why. But it is still in London. Just a different part to where we lived.

    So, all in all I quite like it here. Which canNOT be said for Grace. She hates it. She hates sharing a room with me, she hates the tiny rooms and the narrow hallway and the fact there’s nowhere to put anything. And she hates our new school. (I can tell you it’s a girls’ school and there are two baby goats and a Vietnamese potbellied pig in the playground. But I can’t tell you what it’s called. I’m really sorry.) Anyway, she hates it. I don’t really know why. I really like it. And also she hates the communal park. She says it’s weird and scary, probably full of murderers. I don’t think so. I think it looks interesting. Kind of mysterious.

    I have to go now. Mum says she doesn’t know if they’ll give you any letters or even if you’d be able to read them anyway. But I always told you everything, Dad, and I don’t want to stop now.

    Love you. Get better!

    Your Pip (squeak) xxxxxxx

    Look, said Adele, standing in the tall window of her living room, her arms folded across her stomach. More new people.

    She was watching a young woman with a soft helmet of pale blond hair wearing an oversized parka with a huge fur-trimmed collar that looked as though it had eaten her. She was walking along the perimeter of the Secret Garden, followed by two biggish girls, Adele couldn’t really gauge their age, but she thought roughly eleven, twelve, thirteen, that kind of area. The girls had matching heads of thick dark curls and were wearing similar-looking parkas to—she assumed—their mother. They were tall and solid, almost, Adele couldn’t help herself from thinking, verging on the overweight. But hard to tell in the winter coats.

    Leo joined her at the window. Oh, he said, them. I saw them moving in a few days ago.

    Whereabouts?

    The terrace, he said, about halfway down.

    Virginia Park was formed in the space between a long row of small, flat-fronted Georgian cottages on Virginia Terrace and a majestic half-moon of stucco-fronted mansions on Virginia Crescent, with a large Victorian apartment block at either end.

    Adele had lived on Virginia Crescent for almost twenty years. She’d moved into Leo’s flat when she was twenty-one, straight from a cramped flat-share on Stroud Green Road. She had been immediately overwhelmed by the high ceilings and the faded grandeur: the foxed mirrors and threadbare sofas, old velvet shredded by the claws of a dozen long-dead cats; the heavy floor-length curtains patterned with sun-bleached palm fronds and birds of paradise; the walls of books and the grand piano covered with a fringed chenille throw. They’d long since taken out the opulent seventies-style bathroom suite with its golden bird-shaped taps and green porcelain sanitary-ware. They’d ripped out the expensive, claret-red carpets and taken down the curtains so heavy they’d needed two people to take the weight. Leo’s mother had died twelve years ago and two years later his father had moved to some landlocked African state to marry a woman half his age. She and Leo bought out his two brothers and room by room they’d made the flat their own.

    Adele felt as much a part of the park community as her husband, who had grown up on these lawns. She had seen babies become adults. She had seen a hundred families come and go. She had had dozens of other people’s children in and out of her home. The park became a mystery during these winter months: neighbors becoming shadows glimpsed through windows, their children growing taller and taller behind closed doors, people moving out, people moving in, and people occasionally dying. And it wasn’t until the onset of spring, until the days grew longer and the sun shone warmer, that the secrets of the winter were revealed.

    She looked again at the new arrivals. Gorgeous girls, tall and big-boned, both of them, with square-jawed faces like warrior queens. And then she turned her gaze to their elfin, worried-looking mother. Was there a man? she asked Leo. When they moved in?

    Not that I noticed, he said.

    She nodded.

    She wanted to wander out there now, accidentally cross paths, introduce herself, make sure they realized that there was more to the park than it might appear on a dank January afternoon such as this. She wanted to impart some sense of the way the park opened like a blossom during the summer months: back doors left open; children running barefoot in the warm dark of night; the red glow of tin-can barbecues for two in hidden corners; the playground full of young mothers and toddlers; the pop and thwack of Ping-Pong balls on the table wheeled out by the French family along the way; cats stretched out in puddles of sunshine; striped shadows patterning the lawn through fronds of weeping willows.

    But right now that was all a long way off. Right now it was January and in an hour or so it would be getting dark, lights switched on, curtains pulled shut, everyone sealed up and internalized. The park itself was dark and shabby: lines of bare-branched trees, dead-faced backs of houses, pale graveled paths covered in the last of autumn’s leaves, an air of desolation, the melancholic whistle of wind through leafless tendrils of weeping willows, cats sitting listlessly on walls.

    I wonder where those girls go to school, she muttered mainly to herself. The girls’ school up by the heath, maybe? Or maybe even the hothouse place on the other side of the main road? She tried to work out whether they had money or not. You couldn’t assume anything in this community. Half these houses were owned by a charitable trust and the big apartment blocks at either end were affordable housing for service workers. There was even a halfway house on the terrace, home to an endless succession of recently released female offenders and their children, its backyard cemented over and sprouting weeds, with a solitary never-used plastic rocking dog.

    There was no single type of person who lived here. No neat social demographic catchment. Everyone lived here. TV presenters, taxi drivers, artists, teachers, drug addicts. That was the joy of it.

    You’re starting to look a bit creepy there, Del.

    She jumped slightly.

    "Those girls will be going: ‘Mum, have you seen that weird woman over there who keeps staring at us?’ "

    Adele turned and smiled at Leo. They can’t see me, she said, not in this light.

    "Well, that makes it even worse! ‘Mum, there’s a ghostly shape in that window over there. I don’t like it!’ "

    Okay.

    Adele turned one last time, before moving away from the window.

    2

    Dear Daddy,

    How are you? When can we see you? I miss you so much. Well, we’ve been here for ten days now. Granny came for lunch on Sunday. She made lots of weird faces. I don’t think she liked it very much. She said that Mum shouldn’t let us out in the park on our own, that there might be murderers and pedophiles hiding in the bushes! She said she’d heard a story about a young girl being found dead in a private park like ours a long time ago. And that everyone would be looking in our back windows all the time. She’s so silly sometimes!

    We went for a walk around the park after she left and me and Grace mucked around on the swings and stuff. There was nobody out there. But then yesterday after school I could hear voices outside. Children’s voices. And I looked out the window and I could see kids running about, some others on bikes.

    Anyway, me and Grace went out, just to look. We stood under the tree outside our house so that nobody could see us and we spied on them. They were kind of our age, I think. Mainly girls. Some of the girls looked a bit strange, wearing really weird clothes, patterned things, one had really really long hair, literally down to her bum, another one had shaved off bits and another one had dreadlocks. There was another girl who was much smaller than the others but she acted like she was probably the boss of the gang. She was really pretty with silky blond hair that looked like it had been straightened because it was so shiny. She was wearing normal clothes, jeans and stuff. And then a boy. Mixed-race. Kind of good-looking.

    This is what they look like:

    Image: Drawing of five people

    They weren’t really doing much. The smaller girl was on Rollerblades. The boy was on a bike. The other three girls were just kind of hanging about and then one of them got onto the back bit of the boy’s bike and they were cycling around and I said to Grace, Let’s go to the playground. Let’s go on the swings. Because I really wanted to get closer to them all and see them properly. But she said, I’m going indoors. I hate it out here. It’s cliquey and full of stuck-up kids.

    But I don’t think they are stuck-up really. I think they’re just all different kinds of kids, that’s all. And they probably think the same about us. Stuck-up girls! Hiding under trees! Staring at them!

    So we went inside then because I felt too shy to stay out there on my own. It’s raining today so the park’s empty. Is it raining where you are? Do you have a garden? Are you allowed out of bed? Are you even in a bed? I wish I knew more. I wish I could understand why you’re there and what they’re doing to you and how you’re feeling. I wish we could come and see you. Are you lonely? Do you remember? Do you remember anything? I’ve drawn you a picture of me in case you can’t remember my face anymore.

    Image: Drawing of Pip

    And if you can’t remember what Grace looks like, it’s basically the same as me except her lips are fuller and her hair is two shades darker. And she’s got a little freckle by her eye that looks like a teardrop.

    I love you, Daddy. Get well soon.

    xxxxx

    Okay, girls. Adele put out her hands to gather up the exercise books handed to her by her children. Lunchtime.

    What are we having? asked Fern, uncurling herself from her usual position on the blue armchair, scratching at the stubble of her shaved temples.

    Soup, said Adele.

    What sort? asked Willow, uncrossing her legs and getting to her feet.

    Chicken noodle.

    Can I go to the shops and get myself a sandwich? asked Catkin, her hands folded into the cuffs of her sweater and held to her mouth, pensively.

    No.

    Please. I can buy it with my own money. Her blue eyes were wide and beseeching.

    No. I don’t want you going anywhere. We won’t see you again.

    Oh, come on, where the hell am I going to go in the middle of the day?

    I have no idea, Catkin. You are an eternal mystery to me. But I’m not letting you go to the shops. And you should be saving your money for things you actually need rather than wasting it on expensive sandwiches.

    It’s my money.

    Yes. I know. And it’s good for you to learn to budget and prioritize. And while there’s a huge pan of perfectly good soup on the other side of that door, it is crazy for you to waste your money on crappy shop-bought sandwiches full of additives.

    Catkin rolled her eyes and dropped her baby-animal stance, her arms falling angrily to her sides. Fine, she said. Bring on the fucking soup.

    Adele and her girls had their lunch in the kitchen, loosely arranged around the big farmhouse table that was one of the few things left behind from her in-laws’ inhabitation.

    It was the same table that Leo and his brothers had sat around as boys and it still bore scars and marks left there forty or more years ago, added to now by Leo’s own children.

    Catkin sat with her long legs stretched out along the bench, her back a C-shaped hump, causing her to turn her head forty-five degrees in order to reach her soup bowl. Fern sat straight-backed as always, rhythmically spooning the soup into her mouth, her body language giving nothing away, her ears taking in every last thing. Willow, meanwhile, kept up a running commentary, her soup getting cold in front of her, a habit she’d had since toddlerhood. In fact, until she was about nine years old Adele had spoon-fed her, slipping the spoon between her lips every time she paused for breath just to get the blessed food into her.

    What’s for pudding? she asked now.

    Pudding? said Adele. You haven’t started your soup yet.

    Yes, but the thought of pudding will incentivize me to eat my soup.

    No, stopping talking for more than thirty seconds is what you need to do. And anyway, there is no pudding.

    Willow gasped and put her hand dramatically against her heart. Are you serious?

    Well, there’s crumble but you won’t eat crumble, so…

    Not even any cookies?

    Just those oaty ones you don’t like.

    I’ll eat an oaty cookie, she said. If that’s all there is.

    That’s all there is.

    Right then. She picked up her spoon and started shoveling soup into her mouth.

    Fern looked at her in horror.

    Slow down, said Adele, you’re splashing it everywhere.

    What can we do after lunch? asked Willow, wiping soup splashes from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

    Adele looked at the time. Then she checked the timetable taped to the front of her folder. Well, it’s double maths this afternoon, so it might be good for you all to burn off a bit of energy. Why don’t you go out in the park for half an hour?

    It’s wet, said Catkin.

    No, said Adele. It’s damp. If you were at school it would be deemed playground weather.

    Yes, but we’re not at school, are we? Precisely because you didn’t like the way mainstream schools herd children around like cattle.

    Adele sighed. "In which case, do whatever you want. But no TV. And back here at one fifteen please. With your brains switched on."

    The girls left the table, grabbing oaty cookies and apples on their way. Adele tidied up the soup bowls and wiped the crumbs from the ripped-apart bread rolls into the palm of her hand before dropping them in the bin.

    Adele had been homeschooling her children since Catkin was five. She and Leo had decided to take her out of school halfway through her reception year when she’d come home in tears after being told off for running in the playground. For a while they’d seriously considered moving to the countryside, putting Catkin into one of those wonderful little schools with woods and fields and pigs and goats. But Leo’s revolting father had refused to sell them his half of the flat: It’s my little bit of London! I couldn’t sleep at night without my little bit of London!

    They’d been to see Montessori schools, Steiner schools, some of the woollier local private schools, but they hadn’t managed to make the finances work. So Adele had given up her job as an education coordinator at an arts center—it had barely paid her anything anyway—spent a month familiarizing herself with the foundation stage of the national curriculum, and become her child’s teacher.

    Then had come Fern and then Willow and what had started off as an experiment became a way of life. Not everyone approved. Adele’s sister, Zoe, for one, thought it verged on child abuse. But they won’t know how to play with other children, she’d said. And they won’t know what’s in and what’s out and everyone will think they’re weirdos!

    Do you think they’re weirdos? Adele had asked in reply.

    No. Of course not. I think they’re lovely. But I’m a middle-aged woman. I’m not another child!

    They’ve got the park, Adele would counter. They can do all the peer-to-peer stuff they need to do out there. It’s just like a playground.

    Except it’s not. It’s just not. It’s just another weird thing that makes them different from other children. I couldn’t live like that. She’d said this more than once. Everyone being able to see in. Never being able to go and sit in your own backyard, on your own, in your bra. Always having to talk to people.

    It was an acquired taste, Adele supposed. Sometimes she did wish she could take a blanket and a book outside and sit and read undisturbed. Sometimes she did resent other people’s children running through her freshly hoovered flat. But the benefits far outweighed the difficulties. And for the girls it was crucial, the lynchpin to their entire existence. Without the park her sister would probably be right, they would be odd and out on a limb. The other children were their connection to the mainstream world. And, of course, as a world heard about only through the anecdotes of friends, school did sometimes become a romanticized concept and each of the girls had on occasion begged her to let them go to school. When she was eleven years old, Fern had even taken to walking up the hill to Dylan’s school to meet him at three thirty just to feel that she was experiencing the first flush of independence like other children her age.

    Yes. Homeschooled children. Communal living. All very alternative. Verging on controversial. But to Adele, entirely and completely normal.

    At one fifteen p.m. she went to the back gate and called the girls in for afternoon school. They came, her brood, her gaggle, with their unkempt hair and their unworldly clothes, their brains filled with everything she’d ever taught them, their stomachs filled with food she’d cooked from scratch. The babies that she’d never had to hand over to the world.

    For half an hour they studied mindfulness. It had appeared on the national curriculum this year. Adele had been delighted. She’d been effectively teaching them mindfulness skills for years; she’d called it meditation although that hadn’t been quite accurate.

    The girls arranged themselves into their usual layout, long legs outstretched in wash-faded leggings and hand-me-down jeans, scrubbed faces in mindful repose, wearing holey old sweaters and unbranded sweatshirts from the charity shops along the Finchley Road—nothing from Primark, nothing from New Look, nothing ethically unsound. The girls understood. They’d watched the documentaries about the sweatshops, seen the news reports about the factory fire in Mumbai that had killed all those people. They knew fashion wasn’t as important as people. They weren’t vain. They weren’t shallow. No smartphones. No Facebook. No Instagram. All too likely to turn them into narcissists. They understood. They sneered at the posturing and posing of their contemporaries, the twelve-year-old girls in mascara puckering into camera lenses, the misguided fools on talent shows. They got it, her girls. They absolutely got it.

    They weren’t weird, Adele thought now, looking at them in turn. They were magnificent.

    3

    Pip stared up at the girl standing in front of her, squinting against the low sun. It was the blond girl, the one who looked like the leader of the park clique. She’d been watching them from a distance and then suddenly got on her bike and cycled toward them with some urgency. Hi.

    Hi, said Pip.

    Have you just moved in? the girl asked in a flat monotone.

    No, said Grace. We moved in last month.

    Oh. Right. Haven’t seen you before. Who are you?

    I’m Pip.

    Pip?

    She nodded.

    Is that your real name?

    Pip blinked.

    Seriously? You’re called Pip?

    She felt her cheeks fill with warm blood.

    It’s her nickname, said Grace. Short for Pipsqueak. What we called her when she was a baby.

    So, what’s your real name? The blond girl stared at her impatiently as if this conversation had been going on for long enough even though she’d been the one who’d started it.

    Lola, she said.

    God, that’s a much nicer name. Why don’t you ask to be called that instead?

    Grace spoke for her again. The woman next door where we used to live had a really yappy dog called Lola. It put us all off.

    But still, she said, you don’t live there anymore. You could change it back now.

    Pip shrugged. She still thought of the yappy dog when she thought of Lola. She still thought of the woman next door and the thing that had happened and, besides, she’d always been Pip. She was Pip.

    The girl stood astride her bike, a big black thing with gears. Her fine blond hair was tucked behind one double-pierced ear; her thin hands gripped the handlebars possessively. She wore denim shorts with pocket bags hanging out and a gray sweatshirt that was as wide as it was long; she had narrow feet in bright white Converse and blunt-cut fingernails.

    What’s your name, then? Pip asked her.

    Tyler.

    Tyler like the boy’s name?

    Yeah.

    Pip nodded. She looked like a Tyler.

    Where do you live? asked Tyler.

    That flat there, said Grace.

    Tyler nodded. Where do you go to school?

    Mount Elizabeth.

    Are you twins? She narrowed her eyes at them.

    No.

    You look like twins. Are you sure you’re not twins?

    Positive, said Grace.

    I know someone at Mount Elizabeth. She says you’re allowed to smoke. Is that true?

    No!

    Or maybe she said swear. Are you allowed to swear?

    I don’t think so.

    Pip tried to think of something to say. But Tyler had lost interest, and was scouring the park from left to right. She stopped when she saw a boy in the distance; then she pressed her feet to the pedals and propelled the huge bike across the park toward him, her hair blowing out behind her.

    Pip watched for a while. It was the good-looking boy, the tall one with bobbly golden-tipped Afro hair and green eyes. The boy’s gaze fixed onto Tyler. Pip watched him pull off his school tie and absentmindedly roll it into a ball which he tucked into the pocket of his posh school blazer. Tyler said something to him and dismounted

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