Staff Review: "The Night Gardener" by Jonathan Auxier

Fans of "Coraline," "Doll Bones," and "The Dollhouse Murders" take note! There's a new book in town, and it's guaranteed to give you shivers and make you pull your covers up over your head at night. "The Night Gardener" by Jonathan Auxier (author of the delightful book "Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes") is touched by the dark side of magic, with curses and a ghost and graves aplenty. Auxier has written yet another love letter to literature with this deliciously creepy book, and you'll want to get your hands on it before word gets out.

What would you be willing to give up in order to have the thing that you want most? Your family? Your friends? Your health? Sister and brother Molly and Kip are faced with these questions as they take on jobs on the secluded and mysterious Windsor estate.  Pale, sickly, and unhappy, Mr. and Mrs. Windsor and their two children Penny and Alistair live in an old house built around a dark and gnarly tree. They spend their time picking on each other and furtively sneaking through the strange little door at the top of the stairs, which Molly and Kip have been forbidden to use. After emerging from the forbidden room, each member of the family carries away something they want--candy, a story, a ring, and money. At night, Molly catches glimpses of a man in a tall hat, creeping around the house with a watering can while the family sleeps and leaving crumpled leaves and muddy tracks behind him as he goes. Does he have something to do with the terrible nightmares that plague everyone in the house? What is really going on?

In a tale as forbidding and twisted as the tree that possesses the Windsor house, Jonathan Auxier explores the power of consuming desire and what we are willing to sacrifice in order to get what we want. With the atmospheric heaviness and foreboding of a classic gothic novel, "The Night Gardener" will fill your creep factor and give you plenty to ponder. 

--Andrea W., Headquarters