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22 Great Novels About Gardens

As spring blooms and the weather warms up, many people find themselves venturing out into their gardens to tend the plants and flowers. If you’re looking for the perfect gardening novel, these books will transport you to a world of blooming flowers, fruit, vegetables, and other beautiful landscapes.

The Heirloom Garden book with woman next to a wall of flowers on the cover


What Kinds of Gardening Books Are On this List?

We curated a list of our favorite highly-rated fiction about gardening to suit all reading preferences and levels of gardening experience (or inexperience). The book recommendations are divided into two sections – historical fiction & contemporary fiction. We’ve also noted a short list of classic books featuring gardens.

The Best Gardens in Historical Fiction

These historical fiction novels not only provide an escape to a different time, they highlight the importance of gardens throughout history. You’ll be transported to different eras and can explore the impact that gardens have had on culture and society in different time periods.

Last Garden in England book cover

Book Summary

In 1907, Venetia Smith was a rising star in the world of garden design. Bankers, industrialists, and solicitors hired her to help show off their wealth through their elaborate gardens at their country homes, including Highbury House. 

In 1944, the Highbury House cook is desperate to pursue her own dreams. Widow Diana, the mistress of the grand house, is trying to cling to her own life despite her home being used as a convalescent hospital. But now the war is threatening her home’s treasured gardens. 

In the present day, Emma has a career restoring long-neglected gardens. She’s just been given the opportunity to bring the famed Highbury House gardens back to life. But as she dives deeper into the history of the home, she begins uncovering secrets.

All the Pretty Places book cover

Book Summary

Sadie’s family owns a nursery that has supplied the top landscape architects on the East Coast for decades. But in 1893, as the economy plummets into a depression, Sadie’s father begins pressuring her to marry for wealth and stability. Sadie has other ideas for her future. She pursues new business from her father’s wealthiest clients of the Gilded Age in an attempt to save the family nursery.

The more time she spends in the mansions and secluded gardens of the elite, the more she sees the disparity of those struggling with poverty and starvation. She finds a new passion in her desire to bring natural beauty to those who can’t afford private gardens. Along the way, Sadie is also reunited with a former employee and former love, Sam.

The Book Girls Say…

Author Joy Callaway wrote this novel about the life of her great-great-grandmother.

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Books Set in the 1880s and 1890s

Hidden Letters book cover

Book Summary

Landscape architect Isaac is working at a beautiful estate in Cornwall, but he knows he’ll soon be called away to what seems to be the inevitable war. Cordelia is the daughter of the estate, and despite her mother’s concerns that it is unladylike to play in the dirt, she’s drawn to the garden as her escape. Isaac secretly teaches Cordelia how to tend the gardens so the house will still be able to produce food while the men are at war.

Although the connection between Isaac and Cordelia is clear, their love is forbidden as they are from different classes, and Isaac is an employee of the estate. However, when he’s called off to fight, he doesn’t forget her and begins sending letters. When the letters stop, Cordelia is determined to find out what happened.

The Book Girls Say…

This book blends a traditional narrative style with an epistolary format, and readers especially enjoy the sections written as letters.

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Best WW1 Historical Fiction

Kew Gardens Girls book cover

Book Summary

Inspired by real events, this novel tells the story of the women who kept the Royal Botanic Gardens alive in London amidst a war. Ivy & Louisa enlist as gardeners to replace men who have gone to fight, but not everyone is ready for women to work at Kew. However, under their care, the gardens flourish and become a place of solace.

The Book Girls Say…

This light read also has storylines of women’s equality and the suffragettes. It’s perfect if you’re looking for a comparatively pleasant book that still gives a peak into the war years in England. However, some reviewers were disappointed the gardens aren’t described in more detail, and others wished for a bit more conflict. If you enjoy the book, there is a highly-rated sequel called The Kew Garden Girls at War.

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Best WW1 Historical Fiction

Victory Garden book cover

Book Summary

Twenty-one-year-old Emily’s parents have been keeping her close to home ever since her brother, Freddie, was killed in the war. While her parents just want to keep her safe, Emily is longing to find a purpose and a way to honor her brother. When she meets a young Australian pilot who is recuperating at a hospital near her home, she falls in love and accepts his proposal.

When he is sent back to the front lines, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” and is assigned to tend to the grounds of a neglected Devonshire estate. It is here that she discovers the journals of a medicine woman who dedicated her life to her herbal garden. Soon Emily learns that her fiance has died in the war and that she is with child. Inspired by the journals, Emily comes to learn the healing power of herbs, but the journals will also bring her to the brink of disaster.

Kindle Unlimited as of: 03/18/2024

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Best WW1 Historical Fiction

Fair Botanists book cover

Book Summary

In 1822 Edinburgh was focused on interlated events. First, the old Botanical Garden is moving to a new home on the slopes below Inverleith House. It’s quite a spectacle with full-grown trees being transported on horse-drawn carts. The opening of the new Royal Botanic Garden coincides with the rumored upcoming visit of King George IV. Additionally, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower – an event that only occurs once in several decades.

In the midst of the excitement, an unlikely friendship forms. Newly widowed Elizabeth arrives from London to live with her late husband’s aunt Clementina. Her new grand home borders the new Botanic Garden, and Elizabeth volunteers as an artist to document the impending bloom of the Agave Americana. At the garden, Elizabeth meets Belle, who has a passion for botany and the lucrative, dark art of perfume creation. But Belle isn’t telling the truth about her true identity.

The Book Girls Say…

After reading The Fair Botantist, we recommend reading this article that highlights more history about the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh, including photos of the large trees being transported in 1822. The article does include spoilers not included in our description.

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23 Historical Fiction Books About Women in STEM

Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons book cover

Book Summary

Saffron is a rare female research assistant with a vast knowledge of poisons. While at a dinner party, her professor’s wife drops to the floor. She expected to spend the night talking about an upcoming expedition to the Amazon, but now her mentor, Dr. Maxwell, is the main suspect. He’s always been more supportive of her than others in the all-male, very old-school department, so she wants to help.

Saffron must work to clear his name before the departure date to Brazil. She’ll need her extensive knowledge of botany as she partners with fellow researcher Alexander to investigate greenhouses and dark gardens, looking for the deadly poison.

The Book Girls Say…

This book has been described as a cross between a historical thriller and a cozy mystery, so it’s perfect if you’re looking for something a bit deeper and more detailed than the typical cozy mystery, but still enjoy amateur sleuth stories. Also, be aware that there is a lot of talk about botany/plants, so it’s perfect if that’s your thing, but it may be distracting if you’re less into scientific details.

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Books Set in the 1920s

Heirloom Garden Book Cover

Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book

93% Would Recommend to a Friend

Book Summary

After losing her husband in WWII and her daughter to illness, Iris walled herself off from the world. She’s spent many decades hiding behind the tall fence around her home. In place of human connection, Iris has surrounded herself with a family of flowers. Propagating her daylilies and roses and tending to a garden that helps her keep memories of those she loved alive.

In the early 2000s, Abby is a young mother whose husband has recently returned from military service in Iraq. When Abby’s family rents a cottage along Lake Michigan, next door to Iris’ property, the older woman can’t help but view the young family as a window to the life she once had.

As Iris and Abby are drawn together by their shared love of flowers, the friendship that blossoms between them is a testament to the healing power of both gardening and human connection.

The Book Girls Say…

Through this book, we see Iris’ life both in the past and the 2000s. Keep the tissues nearby as you read, because you’re sure to shed a few cathartic tears.

Garden of Evening Mists book cover

Book Summary

Yun Ling grew up in northern Malaysia, among the plantations and jungles, before studying law at Cambridge (like the author himself, who grew up in Malaysia and studied law in England). 

In 1949, Yun Ling discovered the only Japanese garden in Malaysia and tried to engage its creator, the exiled former gardener to the Emperor of Japan. She wants him to create a garden in Kuala Lumpur in memory of her sister. He refuses to design the garden for her, but agrees to take her on as his apprentice to teach her the art.

As a survivor of Japanese brutality during the war that claimed her sister’s life, Yun Ling holds anger toward the Japanese. But inside the Garden of Evening Mists, she is drawn to the story of the gardener. The garden is a place of mystery: why did the gardener leave Japan? Why does Yun Ling’s host seem immune to the depredations of the Communists? And what is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war?

The Book Girls Say…

This Booker Prize-nominated novel will immerse you in the Malaysian highlands with its poetic descriptions that vividly describe the landscape, the mist, the smells, and the flora and fauna.

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Books Set in Asia: Southern Countries

Contemporary Fiction About Gardens & Gardeners

Contemporary novels offer a fresh perspective on the joys of gardening. From heartwarming tales of community gardens to family orchards and suburban backyards, we love all the different ways that authors have found a way to incorporate the magic of gardening into their works.

Twilight Garden book cover

Book Summary

In London, between the houses of No. 77 and No. 79 on Eastbourne Road, there’s a neglected community space called the “Twilight Garden”. In the 1970s, it was a sanctuary for the neighbors who needed it most, but now the garden’s gate is locked closed.

But it only takes one person’s idea to inspire change. Can the Twilight Garden be resurrected, or will a new neighbor put a stop to the healing garden that the others hope to restore?

The Book Girls Say…

This 2023 release is a slower, but beautifully written, slice-of-life read by the author of The Reading List. While the garden is the heart of the story, the diverse characters also encounter several societal issues including racism, xenophobia, and a character’s insecurity as a gay man of Indian descent.

This book follows two timelines and the families that live on either side of the Twilight Garden in both the 1970s-80s & 2019-2020.

The Seed Keeper book cover

Book Summary

Long before spring meant placing orders for seeds through gardening catalogs, the Dakhótas relied on their strong seed-saving traditions for survival. While this book will teach you about that seed-saving heritage, it also covers so much more.

Rosalie Iron Wing grew up learning about plants and her ancestry as a Dakhóta from her father. However, when he goes missing, she is sent to live with a foster family. Decades later, Rosalie is now both a mother and the widow of a farmer. She still takes solace in their land, although it has been threatened by both nature and man.

When Rosalie returns to her birthplace to learn more about her family history, she learns about the trauma of boarding schools, the war between the Dakhótas and the government, and the cache of seeds that survived through generations.

The Book Girls Say…

Diane Wilson is a Dakota writer who uses personal experience to illustrate broader social and historical context. Another acclaimed Native American author is Louise Erdrich, an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe Nation. Her 2021 novel, The Sentence, is set in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the one-year period between All Souls’ Day 2019 to All Souls’ Day 2020.

The Seed Keeper is included free with an Audible Membership as of 3/18/23.

Scent of a Garden book cover

Book Summary

Poppy’s parents are Napa Valley hoteliers, but she left home to become a perfumer in Paris. However, when her heightened sense of smell disappears, her career is in danger, and she retreats home to California. She hopes that tending to her grandmother’s aromatic garden will restore her gift. 

However, when she arrives, the garden has been uprooted and destroyed. This is a visceral reminder of how her ties to home have been weakened while she was away. Now, to heal, she must juggle family drama, old friendships, and a former love.

Kindle Unlimited as of: 03/12/2024
Walled Garden book cover

Book Summary

Grad student Lucy travels to England in an attempt to solve a literary mystery and finish her dissertation about Elizabeth Blackspear, a famous garden writer. Lucy has a stack of letters between her grandmother and Elizabeth, and the letters seem to include coded references. Things get interesting when an elderly aristocrat with his own secret connection to Elizabeth lets Lucy into his neglected walled garden. 

However, the Blackspear Gardens director refuses to give Lucy access to the archives. As she continues her research, she uncovers a plan to turn the historic gardens into a theme park, and she must race to save the beautiful land. All the while, she’s trying to determine her grandmother’s connection to Blackspear and trying not to fall in love with a Spanish contractor.

Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book

98% Would Recommend to a Friend

Book Summary

The Akha people live in a remote mountain village in China, where, for generations, their lives have revolved around farming tea. Li-yan is one of the few educated girls in the village, and everything begins to change for her when a stranger arrives at the village gate driving a jeep—the first automobile any of them have ever seen. Little by little, Li-yan begins to reject the customs of her village.

When Li-yan becomes pregnant out of wedlock, local tradition calls for her to give her child over to be killed. Instead, she flees to a nearby city, where she leaves her baby at an orphanage. She then remains in the city and puts her experience and education to use by pursuing a career in the tea business outside of the fields.

Li-yan’s daughter is adopted by loving American parents and is raised in a life of privilege in California. As she grows, she continues to wonder about her origins, and back in China, the mother she never knew longs for her as well. The two remain connected across the continents by their family heritage of tea.

The Book Girls Say…

Many readers have assumed that Lisa See would write a sequel to this modern historical fiction, but the author has stated in numerous interviews that no sequel is planned. Nonetheless, reviews consider this among the best fiction set in China, and it is consistently highly rated by Book Girls’ Guide readers.

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Books Set in Asia: Northern Countries

Garden Spells book cover

Book Summary

Each Waverly family member has a unique gift, and these peculiar gifts have turned them into outsiders in their North Carolina town. Even their garden and apple tree are special, with prophetic fruit and edible flowers that inspire new powers.

Claire Waverly is a caterer who uses mystical plants like snapdragons, pansies, and nasturtiums from the Waverly garden in her cooking to help her customers. Her elderly cousin Evanelle is also known for distributing clever gifts.

Claire and Evanelle are the last of the Waverlys tending the gardens, but Claire has a rebellious sister named Syndey who fled town years earlier. When Syndey unexpectedly returns with a young daughter, Claire’s peaceful life is turned upside down.

Lost Flowers of Alice Hart book cover

Book Summary

At the beginning of this novel, the main character, Alice, is only 9 years old and is sent away from her seaside home to live with her estranged grandmother, June, on a flower farm. Over the years, she learns both the language of flowers and about all the women her grandmother has taken in over the years to help them heal from abusive situations. 

However, Alice eventually realizes that she has her own unhealed wounds and flees the flower farm. She ends up in the remote, beautiful central desert of Australia. She thinks she has found peace until her new love, Dylan, is much different than she expected.

The Book Girls Say…

In May 2019, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart won The Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction Book of the Year. The book is now a series on Amazon Prime and stars Sigourney Weaver as June.

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Books Set in Australia and New Zealand

Garden of Small Beginnings book cover

Book Summary

Young widow Lili is three years past the car accident that unexpectedly made her a single mom of two young children.

She works as an illustrator and has been chosen to create the drawings for a prestigious boutique vegetable guide. But that means she’s also been assigned to attend a 6-week vegetable gardening class for some real-world veggie experiences. Despite convincing her kids and sister to join her in the class, she’s still not overjoyed with this required course. However, one patient instructor and a cast of quirky classmates later, she’ll realize the class isn’t so bad. 

While there is a minor romance thread, this is not a romance novel. Instead, it’s somehow both funny and emotional, with themes of sister relationships, family, and healing.

The Book Girls Say…

If you enjoyed this author’s novel The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, we think you’ll enjoy The Garden of Small Beginnings.

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Best Books to Read in Spring

The Language of Flowers book cover

Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book

88% Would Recommend to a Friend

Book Summary

Abandoned at birth by her mother, Victoria Jones spent her childhood in no fewer than 32 foster homes. At age 9, Victoria wanted nothing more than to be adopted by a woman named Elizabeth, but something went terribly wrong. Nine years later, having aged out of the foster care system at age 18, Victoria finds herself homeless on the streets of San Francisco.

All those years before, Elizabeth instilled a love of flowers and their meanings in Victoria. While Victoria is unable to get close to anyone, she finds that she can communicate through flowers, and she gets a job working for a florist named Renata. When Victoria meets a flower farmer named Grant, her past and present begin to collide. She is forced to confront some painful secrets for a second chance at happiness.

The Book Girls Say…

This novel is beautifully written and hard to put down! The printed book also includes the author’s flower dictionary, modeled from the Victorian era.

Lease on Love Book Cover

Book Summary

When Sadie doesn’t get the promotion she both needs and expects, she immediately adds three things to her to-do list – a drink, a one-night stand, and a new place to live. Unfortunately, she tackles these tasks in the wrong order. The drinks turn into Sadie mixing up a dating app and a roommate app. Whoops!

Jack has been dealing with the unexpected death of his parents by escaping into movies and video games alone. After hearing her story, he offers Sadie the spare bedroom in his gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone at an excellent price.

The cheap rent lets her grow her former side business as a florist into a full-time gig. But how long can these polar opposites happily coexist in one house?

The Book Girls Say…

This is a lighter pick for fans of the rom-com genre, but it still addresses some deeper issues that make for good discussion.

The Simplicity of Cide Book Cover

Book Summary

Fifth-generation cider-maker Sanna is devoted to her family’s struggling orchard. However, her brother is pushing their father to sell the land.

Single dad Isaac packed up his son Sebastian and headed across the country to keep him safe. When chance leads him to Sanna’s orchard, his help with the apple trees becomes essential and it feels more like fate that he arrived when he did.

However, Isaac and Sebastian’s arrival also complicates Sanna’s life, especially when an outside threat comes to the farm.

The Book Girls Say…

This contemporary romance also includes a dash of magical realism.

Kindle Unlimited as of: 09/23/2023

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Best Thanksgiving Books for Adults

Digging In book cover

Book Summary

Paige was widowed two years ago and still isn’t quite back to “normal.” Now, her trusted boss of 22 years is also gone, and his son has taken over. He’s radically changing everything at the advertising firm, including an announcement that he’s getting rid of 2 employees at the end of the summer.

Paige is trying to hold on to her job and sanity for her teenage son’s sake, but her formerly perfect house and yard are both a mess. 

As she tries to escape her new work problems on her back porch over a glass of wine, her nosy neighbor lectures her about the dandelions in her yard. In frustration, she pours another glass of wine and begins yanking out the dandelions one by one…and it feels GOOD. Before long, she was looking for a shovel for more yard therapy. 

Paige creates a bigger and bigger hole in her yard, much to the chagrin of her fancy suburban neighbors. But it’s helping her cope with the ongoing craziness at work and her lingering grief. Despite her inexperience in gardening and pushy neighbors, she finally begins to feel fully alive again.

The Book Girls Say…

The author wrote this novel as she was grieving the sudden death of her husband, and we hope the fresh start and healing she wrote for her character were equally healing in her own life.

Kindle Unlimited as of: 03/18/2024
Rules for Visiting book cover

Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book

86% Would Recommend to a Friend

Book Summary

As a botanist, forty-year-old May prefers spending time with plants over people. She’s a gardener for a local university and likes to observe the lives of others while minimizing her interactions with them. However, in her younger years, she had a group of four close friends.

While it’s not feasible to get the group back together in one place, May sets out to reconnect with them one by one during an unexpected hiatus from work. Part tale of self-discovery and part story of female friendship, this book also explores themes of life’s offline simplicities vs. images of perfection online. 

The Book Girls Say…

Fans of The Odyssey might catch the ways this book parallels the Greek epic. Except in this modern re-interpretation, Penelope is the one traveling instead of Ulysses. You may also enjoy the references to classic literature and gardening, although you can still understand and enjoy the book without a passion for those topics.

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Books With Characters in Their 40s

Classics Featuring Gardens

If you’re in the mood for a classic read, many heavily feature gardens as a main setting since elaborate gardens were popular in England when many now-classics were written.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell

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Angela & Melissa

The Book Girls are best friends who jointly read over 200 books per year. We started Book Girls' Guide in 2019 to help others de-stress and find joy through the power of a great book. We do in-depth research on thousands of novels and non-fiction titles each year to provide curated book lists covering a variety of genres.

Marsha

Friday 22nd of March 2024

I recommend Garden Variety by Christy Wilhelmi who is herself a gardener. It's about a community garden in Los Angeles

Melissa George

Sunday 24th of March 2024

Thanks for the recommendation!

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Looking for your next great read? Try one of the highly-rated titles from our curated book lists.