The Grandest Garden

A Novel

Gina L. Carroll

• Publisher: SparkPress
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781684632374
• Subtopic: Women in Fiction

Listed on Hasty Book List's "Most Anticipated Contemporary Fiction of 2024"

Bella Fontaine is on her own. Fresh out of college and with the winnings from her first international photography competition, she decides to leave Los Angeles to forge a new life in New York City. But will she be able to overcome the trauma of her childhood and her break from home to make it as a successful artist and professional photographer in a new city? Or will her secrets catch up with her ,and keep her from developing the relationships she needs to make her dreams come true?

We meet young Bella just after her tenth birthday, and her grandmothers, Olivette and Miriam, each with a beautiful, mature garden as different from each other as the two gardeners who tend them. As Bella’s homelife begins to unravel, she relies on her grandmother’s gardens as her refuge for stability and belonging. But when Miriam moves in with Olivette in search of healing, the grandmothers bond in a way that makes Bella feel excluded. What happens next sends Bella out into the world before she is ready.

The Grandest Garden is a poignant coming-of-age story about the ties that bind us to our people and how to survive when they break.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• An Ancient Girl
• Chapter One. The Roof
• Chapter Two. Calsap and The Garden Goddess
• Chapter Three. No Show I: Too Early, Too Eager
• Chapter Four. A Serious Girl and A Serious Garden
• Chapter Five. Finally
• Chapter Six. Gran and the Church Lady
• Chapter Seven. David and the Roof
• Chapter Eight. Nan and the Fall
• Chapter Nine. His Only Client
• Chapter Ten. No Show II: Dorian’s Mother
• Chapter Eleven. Nan and the Big Move
• Chapter Twelve. Bells and Metaphors
• Chapter Thirteen. Age and Other Omissions
• Chapter Fourteen. Nan and Her Glamour Gloves
• Chapter Fifteen. The Bride’s Photographer
• Chapter Sixteen. Mr. Blackshear and an Absent Mother
• Chapter Seventeen. Ellen and the Good Doctor
• Chapter Eighteen. Monday Morning Gloom
• Chapter Nineteen. Nan and the Church Lady
• Chapter Twenty. Bernard and a House Divided
• Chapter Twenty-One. Ellen and Sunday Tea
• Chapter Twenty-Two. Intruders and the Natural World
• Chapter Twenty-Three. No Show III: Eshu and the Condition
• Chapter Twenty-Four. Morning and the Sun
• Chapter Twenty-Five. Dorian and the New Deal
• Chapter Twenty-Six. Destruction and Forgiveness
• Chapter Twenty-Seven. Eye of the Hurricane
• Chapter Twenty-Eight. Ancient Girl
• Chapter Twenty-Nine. The Roof
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Selected Titles from SparkPress