The Poison Garden

October 15, 2019
After what looks like a mass suicide on the grounds of a cult's commune in Wales, the three known survivors are forced into modern British life in this psychological thriller. Romy, pregnant and almost 21, and her two half siblings, Eden, 15, and Ilo, 13, are the only survivors found alive in Plas Golau--home of the Ark commune--when an ungodly stench leads the authorities to the grounds. More than a hundred people have died from poisoning, their bodies rotting in the sun where they fell as they sought help. As the only adult survivor, Romy's progression from suspect to the freedom of her own small apartment takes months. But despite her willingness to pretend otherwise for the authorities, her true goal is not to assimilate into a world she has been catechized her entire life to believe will soon end. She must find her siblings, who have been placed with her mother's sister, Sarah, and return to the safety of the cult in its second location, in Scotland, one that the authorities know nothing about. There are some gruesome tasks she must undertake first, however, and she performs these with alacrity. The reader discovers what led to the cult members' demise as the dark and twisting story jumps back and forth among times, places, and people, covering the 20 years that Romy grew up within the Ark, training for survival and preparing for the end of the world. A confusing mass of detail at the beginning of the book settles into a disturbing exploration of religious fervor and how belief can be used to justify the worst impulses of humankind. Author Marwood (The Darkest Secret, 2016, etc.) has a deft touch in this pre-apocalyptic tale. A gripping, unexpected novel with graphic elements that are not for the faint of heart.

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October 28, 2019
Romy, the 21-year-old protagonist of this creepy psychological thriller from Edgar-winner Marwood (The Darkest Secret), is the only adult survivor found at the site of the mass death of more than a hundred people at the messianic doomsday cult, the Ark, in North Wales. She tries to keep her pregnancy secret as she transitions to the outside world, where she seeks out her teenage half-siblings, Ilo and Eden, the latter a child of the cult’s patriarch, Lucien Blake, and thus possibly destined to become the One. The narrative alternates between Romy’s sinister efforts to reconnect with family and provide for her unborn child’s future, and the experiences of her mother, Somer, who joined the Ark when Romy was a child. Marwood makes life inside the controlling and Spartan survivalist compound appear simultaneously appalling and idyllic, leaving the reader feeling revolted, but just a bit complicit. The dangling plot line at the end leaves the story feeling less complete than it should. Hopefully, a sequel will provide some resolution. Agent: Laetitia Rutherford, Watson, Little (U.K.).

Starred review from October 1, 2019
An extraordinary novel of psychological suspense that is more wicked than Marwood's Edgar-winning Wicked Girls (2013) and darker than her Macavity-winning The Killer Next Door (2014). Romy has been raised at the Ark, a Jim Jones-like cult in an isolated community in North Wales whose members are anxiously awaiting an apocalypse that will destroy everyone on the planet except them. An inner rivalry results in the mass poisoning of all but a few of its members, Romy and her younger brother and sister among them. The three end up in the care of their somewhat unstable aunt, who tries to assimilate them into the real world. Still shaken by the cruelty and deprivation of the Ark, they remain fearful and uncomfortable, and, even though some progress appears to be made, Romy has her own evil secret agenda. Pregnant with the child of the cult's leader, whose sexual exploitation of the cult's women resulted in many children, all of whom have a suspiciously high attrition rate, she is determined to eliminate any threats to her baby, whom she believes will be the savior of the world. Two of Marwood's novels have already been optioned for film, and this one would make an eerie docudrama that could rival The Blair Witch Project.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)