The Night Garden

“Together, we are lovestruck.”

Think: Swan Lake crossed with Jane Austen

Ellie Blue Callaghan doesn’t want to give up her wild ways.

Now that she’s nineteen, she’ll be sent to Blossom Preparatory Academy to train to be a proper sorceress, adult, and wife for Colonel Gallagher. Unfortunately, Ellie loves the wind-swept countryside of Loch Gàrraidh, her untamed and turbulent magic, and the hallucinogenic experience of a fantastical drug called Allure, and she can’t imagine giving them up for a life that would most definitely be dull in comparison.

Max O’Carroll failed out of Blossom Preparatory Academy and was cursed for eternity because of his refusal to follow society’s conservative rules. He can break his affliction if he finds true love, but nobody in recent history has ever fallen for a Bèist—a being that presents as a feral cat by day and takes their original human form by night. But when Ellie and Max meet during a twilight garden party and connect over wine and a moonlit swim, they soon realize their perception of love, freedom, and control are very different from what they’ve been taught to believe.

Getting tangled in Max’s terrible enchantment could mean disaster for Ellie’s future, but only if they are caught together…

Content warnings:

  • fantasy drug use

  • explicit sexual encounters

  • drinking

  • references to parental death and cancer.

Tropes and vibes:

  • insta-lust

  • only one Scottish loch

  • not at all accurate historical Scotland

  • forbidden love

  • medium burn

  • atmospheric, poetic writing

  • triple POV

  • fox familiar

I let out a little grunt, pushing my long, ginger hair away from my face. The room has always felt representative of me in some ways: messy enough to be considered on the verge of disastrous, combined with the depressing atmosphere of the dead flowers on the nightstand.

I find my life both disastrous and depressing, and therefore, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be offended by Sophia’s comment. I choose to disregard it.

“What you don’t know won’t kill you.”