The Memory Garden

Winner of the 2015 LOCUS AWARD for Best First Novel

"...A SUPERB FANTASY NOVEL." - The Chicago Tribune

In a beautifully written tale woven together with magic and mystery, flowers and food, Bay Singer finally discovers the secrets her mother has been hiding.

Bay Singer has bigger secrets than most.

Not that she knows about them. Her mother, Nan, is sure that the burden of those secrets would be too much, and that's why she never told anyone the truth, not even Bay.

There's a lot that Nan's kept quiet over the years, especially those times with Mavis and Ruthie?times that were dark and full of guilt.

But some secrets have a power all their own, and Nan realizes she needs Mavis and Ruthie now more than ever. When the three meet again in Nan's garden, their reunion has spellbinding effects that none of them could have imagined, least of all Bay...

An enchanting fantasy, fans of Alice Hoffman, Sarah Addison Allen, will be captivated by Mary Rickert, the World Fantasy and Crawford Award-winning author.

What readers are saying about The Memory Garden:

"The story is woven together with a touch of mystic and magic, and plants and food."

"secrets, myths, friendships and family."

"This book is BEAUTIFUL. Haunting (both literally and figuratively), filled with wonderful characters and food and flowers."

"It's absolutely stunning, with beautiful poetic prose, full of everyday magic, a seriously unique conflict, and a bridge between generations."

"If you like the novels of Alice Hoffman, you'll like Mary Rickert's first novel, The Memory Garden, EVEN BETTER."

"Practical Magic meets Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood with a dash of White Oleander"

"There is memory and forgetting and snow and sunlight and ghosts and a doorstep-baby and the echoes of ancient crimes... Infused with food and woven with flowers, The Memory Garden is AN ABSOLUTE DELIGHT."

"The kind of book you want to hug after you've read the very last word...and whisper "thank you"."

"This book is BEAUTIFUL. Captivating. The best sort of witches you can imagine."

What reviewers are saying about The Memory Garden:

"atmospheric, eerie, and utterly beautiful..." - Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Someone Else's Love Story

"A totally CHARMING, totally ENGAGING story told by Rickert, a magus of the first order. MAGIC IN EVERY LINE." - Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and The Jane Austen Book Club

"The Memory Garden is one of the most intense fantasy books I've read in years...reminds me a bit of [Terry] Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, but also of some of my favorite literary novels about misfits who invent themselves as they go along. I've seldom read a book that's as gentle, and yet as powerful, as The Memory Garden." – io9

"... a blend of poetical language and dark suspense... 'The Memory Garden' is a tale of tragedy, hope and kinship." - The Washington Post

"...A SUPERB FANTASY NOVEL." - The Chicago Tribune

"[A] BEWITCHING MARVEL of a book." - BookPage

"... absolutely STUNNING." - Christopher Barzak, author of One for Sorrow