(courtesy Hachette Australia)
Hiding away from the world, even if it’s in plain sight, is something that anyone who has undergone trauma is very adept at doing.
You may long for happy-ever-afters and a community to call your own and a life that’s buoyant and free but the truth of the matter is that we often shut ourselves down instinctively for protection when the trauma happens and aren’t quite sure how to open up.
Or even, like Clara Thorne, the eponymous protagonist of The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne by Summer N. England, you may not even be aware you’ve shut down at all, or at least that your emotional repression is getting in the way of living in a far more genial present.
Clara had a rocky start in life, rejected by her parents for failing to live up to some very magical unrealistic expectations, and forced to wander the lands of her homeland continents until she found a lasting home in the inclusively lovely and nurturing town of Moss.
In this place where she has a best friend Orc, Rosie, a surly hedgehog companion named Warty, the blessing of the local Goddess, Eldrene, who provides protection over the town from a blight which is afflicting a large slab of land known as the Withering, and a found family who care for her unconditionally, Clara is the Town Gardener, uses her magic, which only came to the fore when she settled in Moss, to grow crops for the townsfolk and some rather magical items for Eldrene as needed.
By the time we reached Rosie’s home, an entire mile’s worth of earth was filled to the brim with blooms — all in the shape of an orc’s foot. A reminder that, as long as my heart stayed here with Rosie, in Moss, with all of these people I loved, I could grow an entire world of colour [sic].
Clara is firmly off the opinion that her magic is finite and limited to being exercised in Moss; her one excursion away from the only place she has ever felt loved and secure saw it evaporate, leaving magically bereft out in the wilds where you need all the hope you can get.
So, when Eldrene commissions Clara to go on a quest to the voraciously blighted town of Dwindle, right up against the Withering Lands and rumoured to be full to the brim with monster-chomping mutated villagers, Clara is fearful; not only is she required to leave her sanctuary of Moss but she will have to use her magic to grow a garden there in just one month.
Surely she is doomed to fail?
But her assigned companion and protector for the quest, the muscularly sexy and eminently capable Hesper Altanfall, believes otherwise, convinced with a quiet assurance that drives Clara mad, that Clara’s magic is not limited to any one place but can be accessed anywhere, its source her heart and not a physical location.
Clara, who is simultaneously annoyed by Hesper and attracted to her in ways she dares not admit to herself, won’t hear a word of it and as The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne moves into the adventure part of its wholly beguiling story, it becomes clear that there will be a tension between the two that won’t be resolved until …
(courtesy official author site)
Well, that’s the million-dollar question, or is that plants, question isn’t it?
When will these two resolve their differences and how pray tell will it happen; after all, this is the ultimate enemies-to-friends scenario with the two women trying very hard not to admit there is anything between them beyond combining their talents (Clara continues to think hers are very limited) and getting their quest completed so they can hopefully return home to Moss.
There is, of course, the not inconsiderable issue of the fact that a dark Prince has cursed the land to which they are going, and they could very well die, but Moss is home, and Clara wants nothing more to go back there and find the somewhat flawed peace and quiet, love and acceptance in the only true home she has ever known.
What is thoroughly wonderful about The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne is that England uses sweet and spicy elements to suggest that perhaps Clara’s home is not Moss but rather where her heart lies, and guess what, it increasingly looks like it might lie with Hesper.
While the novel is light and bright and fantastically engaging on so many levels, it is also emotionally intense and quite thoughtful, understanding that the aftereffects of trauma aren’t something that we easily surrender and that while we might find a physical place of safety and security, that doesn’t mean out heart will find healing there too.
‘Who is this Thanadyn?’ I sipped my tea, letting the familiar flavor [sic] of nestleberries and honey coat my tongue. If I closed my eyes and ignored all of reality entirely, I could almost trick myself into thinking this was all a dream and I’d soon wake up in my attic bedroom like any other day.
That’s a whole other therapeutic ballgame, and The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne rather delightfully knows it down to the core of its narrative marrow, and it soon becomes clear that for Clara to truly enter the inheritance of her potent magic that her heart will have to be freed from the prison of its unresolved trauma.
Of course, that freedom lies with Hesper, but while that is very clear early on if you’re paying attention, England beautifully and originally executes a journey which feels richly unexpected and soul restoratively good.
That is really the trick of books like this that trade on some very well-worn tropes; they have to take elements we have seen a thousand times before and makes them feel fresh and utterly inviting.
England well and truly accomplishes this and more, and as The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne nears the end of its adventurous quest and battles are fought and hearts won (and maybe even freed), you will find yourself having the time of your reading life as the author burnishes easily recognised tropes with new lustre and a powerful emotional beauty.
Put simply, The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne is a wondrously good, warmhearted delight which knows hope and love are powerful but which recognises that the journey to embracing them, really embracing them, can be long and tiring and involve the surrender of hurt and trauma and a vulnerability and trust in a future with a person who is your always and forever home, and the course of your magicall happiness and life, even if you don’t know that yet.