The twilight garden : a novel
(Book)

The London house Winston rents shares a dilapidated back garden with the house next door, recently bought by Bernice. Their feud starts even before she moves in, mostly fueled by Winston's grief as he watches his workaholic boyfriend drift away and newly divorced Bernice's desperate attempt to provide a stable home for her son. Winston starts receiving envelopes with images from the garden's heyday, inspiring him to start cleaning it up, for himself but also to bother Bernice. Interspersed throughout are flashbacks about Alma, the previous owner of Bernice's house, and Maya, an immigrant who rents the house next door with her husband. As Alma begrudgingly lets them help in the garden, they grow to become like family, and they proudly open their garden to the whole neighborhood. In both time lines, caring for the garden helps the characters recognize that they also need to care for one another and themselves.