Category: BOOKS

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Review of Harriet’s Garden

Reviewed by Pikasho Deka for Readers’ Favorite

Harriet’s Garden is a slice-of-life adventure by N. Rae. Five-year-old Harriet couldn’t be more excited to visit her grandmother’s cabin on a small island for the summer. While her older brother, Max, and her mother, Eleanor, accompany Harriet to her grandmother’s house, she will spend the rest of the summer alone with Grandma while Max and her mother return home. With no wi-fi or video games, Harriet must find new ways to spend her time. Luckily for her, Grandma is adept at finding exciting activities for Harriet to engage in, including painting, strolling down to the beach, doing puzzles, reading and visiting the library, hugging trees, and more. Additionally, Harriet listens to Grandma’s stories and falls in love with the surrounding environment as she learns to dream and makes friends with a few playful pixies. 

Harriet’s Garden is a beautiful story about a young girl learning to use her imagination to dream and build her own worlds. N. Rae’s heartwarming tale tugs at your heartstrings while showing how a child perceives the world around them and the unique bond between a grandmother and her granddaughter. This is a tale for readers of all ages. While young readers will love to follow Harriet’s adventures, older readers will find it easy to relate to Grandma Tommie. Rae does a masterful job of putting a child’s psyche onto the pages, realistically depicting how they react to new surroundings and soak up the lessons they learn. The characters feel like real people, and I found Grandma and Harriet’s relationship dynamic adorable. I will heartily recommend this book to children and adults alike.

Harriet’s Garden is available on Amazon as Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

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My New Novel is Out Now! Harriet’s Garden.

Image of the front cover of Harriet's Garden by N. Rae. A novel about lucid dreaming, journeying, and imagination.

This is a story about a granddaughter staying with her grandmother for two weeks at the end of summer. The grandmother lives on an island in the Puget Sound. They spend time baking, painting, walking the beach, and telling each other their dreams. It begins like this:

Blue sky. Blue water. Green islands. A long stretch of a two-lane highway cutting through. A round yellow sun above the horizon in the western sky. It was a quiet summer evening. Cars driving away from the sun. Cars driving toward it. In one of the cars driving toward the sun, there was a little girl named Harriet sitting in the backseat of a red SUV. The hum of the car on the road was like a tune to her. She hummed along as she gazed out the backseat window, daydreaming, watching it all go by. As one aspect of the world blurred, another came into sharp focus. There was the pretty blue sea. A small white pickup truck. A yellow road sign. Birds flying. The sky was such a particular perfect blue it seemed unreal. There were only a few fluffy clouds in the constant cerulean. Those clouds were perfectly white and so fat and pretty that Harriet wanted to reach out of the car window and pluck one from the sky. So she did. She closed her eyes and imagined just that. She used that cloud as a pillow, resting her head on it while dreaming.

            Harriet’s mom was driving, and her teenage brother, Max, was in the front passenger seat. They were listening to the music that was on his phone. Momma said, “What’s that song that goes scoo scoo scoo? Play that one.” 

            “I don’t know.” 

            “I like that one.” 

            Max googled song, scoo scoo scoo. He played the suggested song. There were only two scoos.

            “That’s not it.” 

            “Yeah,” Max shrugged. “I don’t know.” 

            “Scoo scoo scoo. Maybe I dreamed it.” 

            “Maybe you dreamed it.”

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Harriet’s Garden is available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and KindleUnlimited.

Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/3y9lQv

Paperback USA Link: