A wealthy woman suspects something is off about the luxurious complex she lives in . . . and she is right, in this riveting domestic-suspense novel from international bestselling author Alexandra Burt.Donna Pryor lives in the lap of luxury. She spends her days in a beautifully appointed condo. Her every whim is catered to by a dedicated staff, and she does not want for anything.Except for news of … anything.
Except for news of her adult daughter.
Or an ex-husband who takes her calls.
Donna knows something is wrong, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. As her life of privilege starts to feel more and more like a prison, the facade she has depended on begins to crumble. Somewhere in the ruins is the truth, and the closer Donna Pryor gets to it, the more likely it is to destroy her.
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Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Shadow Garden
By: Alexandra Burt
REVIEW
Donna, Edward and Penelope are an American family just living the dream. Actually, it’s more accurate to say they are living a dysfunctional nightmare. Edward is a plastic surgeon, and the family are affluent show offs. Donna is the comfortable wife who spends her days in luxury and planning perfection for her family. Their is definitely an obsession with wealth and staging every little thing because anything less than perfect is unacceptable. Penelope is the seriously troubled daughter who gets swept under the rug because her true behavior is bad for the image Donna has created. But, now, Donna lives in a place called Shadow Garden, recovering from a surgery she doesn’t remember, with no husband and no daughter. They don’t answer calls or visit, and Donna has no clue why. How did she end up here alone? Donna is still living an opulent life in this place. Told through three perspectives, Edward, Donna and Penelope, we learn a little bit at the time how and what is happening. The characters are not likeable or reliable. The narrative is slow and a disjointed mess. Donna is also a disjointed mess, and I think the style of story telling mirrors her mindset. As readers, we are confused by multiple voices and a timeline that skips around with no clear explanation. I know some people will dislike the pace and confusion because it’s not for everyone. I liked the whole psychological, twisted baffling mystery all the way to the shocking but satisfying end. Try this book and I think you might like it, but you must give it a chance!
The cover and title for this one caught my eye immediately. That cover is absolutely haunting, and with a title like Shadow Garden, I thought it just about had to be a doozy of a read. So, I checked out the blurb and went for it. And I realized pretty quickly that what I expected and what this book actually is are two very different things. It is certainly domestic drama, and there is some suspense, but it’s a bit too predictable for much of that. Nevertheless, there’s something immensely readable about this story, some as compelling as it was frustrating at times. The story is told by three characters, Donna, Edward, and their daughter Penelope, and not a one of them is exactly a reliable source of information. There also isn’t a likable one in the bunch, so there’s that. However, those things aren’t what frustrated me. Unlikable and/or unreliable characters in a story like this are practically a given. What did frustrate me was the jumping back and forth in the timeline with little to no warning. It all feels rather scattered, but the more I read, the more it started coming together, and the more I felt like the style worked for this story. Donna felt scattered, herself, so the storyline reflecting that made sense. What it all comes down to is there were many things about this book that I wouldn’t care for in most cases, but Alexandra Burt brings all those things together to create a story that I felt compelled to finish. Even the ending isn’t what I would’ve liked for it to be, but again, it just worked for this book. My advice would be to go ahead and check out that terrific cover, and go ahead and read the intriguing blurb, then wipe the slate clean, and forget them both. Go into this one without preconceptions or expectations, and just settle in and read. Admittedly, this isn’t the book for everyone, but it turned out to be the one for me.
Shadow Garden is a dark, atmospheric examination of the wealthy and influential Pryor family. Edward is a successful plastic surgeon. His wife, Donna, devoted her life to making their home a showplace and raising their only child, daughter Penelope, now twenty-nine years old. To outward observers, they are to be envied because they appear to have everything.
But as the story opens, Edward has deposited Donna in a luxurious apartment where her housekeeper, Marleen, comes every day to see to her needs. In her intense first-person narration, Donna talks about her estrangement from Edward after thirty years of marriage, concerns about her finances, and her ongoing recovery from an injury that has made movement difficult. Edward does not communicate with her. Neither does Penelope. Each day Donna asks Marleen for news of her daughter, inquiring as to whether she has called. And each day the answer is the same: no. Donna becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her perfect family and learning Penelope’s whereabouts.
Burt says the inspiration for Shadow Garden was her pondering the myriad ways that money impacts morality, relationships, and even mental health. And she wondered how far a parent would go to save his/her child and whether “the more one has to lose, the harder one fights to keep it — whatever ‘it’ may be? Money, a reputation, a standing in the community?”
The result is a compelling examination of the careful construction and eventual disintegration of a family. Donna remembers bits and pieces of their life together, such as the way she decorated their showplace home, the carefully curated image of perfection she ensured that they projected, the parties they hosted, and the place they held in society. But she can’t fully reconstruct her family’s history in her mind. And she can’t stop worrying about Penelope. She confides in Dr. Jacobson, whose office is located at Shadow Garden, about her concerns, relating details about her marriage and “Penelope being a difficult child, a trying teenager, the ensuing tension. My accident. The shattered hip. The subsequent depression. My recovery.” When Dr. Jacobson asks about her last interaction with Penelope, Donna relates a made-up story about sitting on her daughter’s bed and holding her hand.
Donna says her thoughts are like “a runaway train,” and her friend, Vera, a famous author who also resides at Shadow Garden, urges her not to trust anyone. Not even Dr. Jacobson. Worse, she tells Donna,”I’m so sorry. I wish I could do something about what happened to Penelope.”
The gates of Shadow Garden are locked and Donna becomes convinced that Edward does not want her to leave the complex, so she devises a clever way to navigate back to the home she shared with Edward and Penelope. She is confident that she will find answers there. And she indeed does.
Burt skillfully intersperses Donna’s recitation of her experiences with aspects of the story related from the perspectives of Edward and Penelope. Edward is skeptical. Not fully convinced that Donna is being truthful, perhaps because of his own difficulty accepting the reality with which the family must now grapple. Employing richly descriptive prose, Burt describes a marriage characterized by secrets, a deeply disturbed child, and parents who were unequipped to deal effectively with their child’s problems but remained steadfastly determined to protect her. And the toll their choices took on each of them individually, as well as collectively.
The story is instantly intriguing, if bewildering at first. Donna’s confusion is palpable, but Burt incrementally reveals details that permit readers to gradually understand exactly what transpired and how the characters’ journey led them to the point at which the book begins. As Donna inches closer to discovering the whole truth, Burt subtly ramps up both the dramatic tension and pace, compelling the story forward with horrifying and shocking revelations.
Once all is divulged, Burt leaves it to readers to decide how they feel about the Pryor family. Are they empathetic? Burt illustrates how their values and decisions inform their fate. Is it what they deserve? Readers can consider how far they might go, if placed in similar circumstances, to protect their child. Burt hopes that readers will think about “how even carefully weighted choices can be the wrong decisions to make.” At what juncture did the Pryors reach a point of no return? Does such a point in time even exist?
Burt notes that “memory is at the center of . . . Shadow Garden . . .but memory is fundamentally malleable which is disturbing and opens the door to many fictional scenarios,” a fact Burt demonstrates as she mines some of those fictional scenarios to great effect. Is it sometimes better to forget? Even Donna remarks at one point on her pilgrimage to the truth, “I want to spare myself the memories of what happened next . . .” Readers will, however, want to know everything that Donna remembers, as well as Edward’s slant on what befell the Pryor family and come to understand Penelope better.
Shadow Garden is a unique, haunting story about an American family with means, potential, and opportunities . . . and how it all went wrong.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
Umm… hello! What a ride I just went on. There were times I had no idea where I was heading or where I would end up but I loved every minute of the ride. There was no doubt that there was something going on with Donna but I couldn’t be sure what that was. She seemed to know what was going on, she seemed to understand life, and she seemed to want to find new happiness but she first had to figure out what got her to where she is right now.
Shadow Garden is an amazing story. Alexandra Burt did a wonderful job of making her characters realistic and not always likable. The story itself was intriguing and kept me guessing at what would happen next. This is the first book I have read by Alexandra but I will be looking for much more in the future from her.
From the first chapter this slow burn novel is discombobulating, a tension increased by the fluctuating timelines. Donna is uncertain about her life, leaving readers groping for answers. We also get Donna’s husband, Edwards, perspective, and that of their daughter Penelope. What really happened over the years of Donna, Edward and Penelope’s life together and why? I recommend Shadow Garden for fans of domestic suspense.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions in this review are honest and my own.
After 30 years of marriage, Donna’s husband Edward has dropped her off at Shadow Garden. But he’s stopped taking her phone calls, and she hasn’t heard from her daughter Penelope either. Edward must be keeping Penelope away from her, but why? We follow Donna as she struggles to piece exactly what is going on.
So, Donna is a fairly unreliable narrator from the start. She doesn’t want to talk about things, including how she broke her hip, right from the start. We’re given minor pieces of information, but in a very convoluted way, and we can’t really trust that what she is saying is accurate. I found the story a bit dull at times because a lot of what you’re reading is repetitive day-to-day things that don’t move the story forward. Sometimes there was a level of detail on things that absolutely did not matter. It made getting through some parts of the book a chore.
But the underlying storyline, once you get past the fluff, is good. Penelope and Edward aren’t really developed characters, but we occasionally see Penelope’s POV, and Edward gets his own POV later on in the story (which I found a weird addition, but much more reliable than Donna’s). The time and point of view switching were easy to follow, and it gave a more complete picture. While I suspected what I guess is a twist very early on, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. While overall this wasn’t my most favorite book, I think some readers will enjoy it. Thank you, Berkley, for sending this along.
Wow. Amazing imagination and creativity.
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The great thing about a psychological story is that it takes you quite a while to actually realize that your mind is being manipulated along with the story.
You never really know who is telling the truth as you go along. In this particular story we have three main characters and two sub characters and we hear from all of them at one time or another.
Everyone in the story has an issue and it’s up to us to try to figure out what’s the truth, who’s telling the factual story, or is it all just bits and pieces pasted together.
Burt does a fabulous job with her pacing and character development. The main characters are ones that you almost love to hate. You’re transported right to their house and get involved with all of the minutia and oddities.
The story itself seems innocuous and as it ramps up then you realize just how much each piece builds upon another throughout the entire story.
Subtle manipulation of the reader and the characters help to wind the story to surprise twists and an imaginative ending. Definitely a read for those who love the psychological mind manipulation of a great storyteller!