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The Winter Garden

Alexandra Bell
Chapters (54)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. ALSO BY ALEXANDRA BELL
  4. DEDICATION
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. Part Two
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. Part Three
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. Acknowledgements
  54. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

COVER

Penguin Random House

About the Author

Alexandra Bell was born in 1986. She studied Law at university and signed her first book deal at nineteen. Since then, she has written books for both adults and young people, including the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series and Frozen Charlotte, which was a Zoella bookclub pick, under the name Alex Bell.

She lives in Hampshire in a house ruled by Siamese cats.

Website: alex-bell.co.uk

Twitter: @Alex_Bell86

Instagram: @Alex_bell86

ALSO BY ALEXANDRA BELL

ALSO BY ALEXANDRA BELL

Frozen Charlotte

Frozen Charlotte

Charlotte Says

Lex Trent

Lex Trent Versus the Gods

Lex Trent Fighting with Fire

The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series

The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club

Explorers of Witch Mountain

Explorers of Black Ice Bridge

The Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club

The Ninth Circle

Jasmyn

The Haunting

Music and Malice in Hurricane Town

A Most Peculiar Toy Factory

DEDICATION

For my cousin, Hayley Switzer-Willrich.

Becoming mothers in 2020 may have had its challenges, but we weathered the storm with our beautiful little boys.

Penguin walking logo

Prologue

They say gardens are good for the soul, and the magical Winter Garden most of all. You’ll never find it in one place for long. It goes where it is needed, appearing from nothing and vanishing just as quickly. Some days you might spot it high in the mountains of Nepal; on others it will materialise in the mists of Mongolia. During the summer it may choose to settle for a spell in the rolling green fields of England, or shrink down for the winter to squeeze into the inside of a teacup.

The garden is a place of wonder and magic in a world that often has so little of both. Full of strange birds and impossible flowers, mushrooms that dance with you and trees that whisper secrets, frog music and frosted fairies in their finest fur coats.

Nobody knows how it came to be – only that it belongs to the elusive Spider Queen, about whom almost as little is known as about the garden itself. She decides where the garden should go and who should be invited to see it. By all accounts she has an affinity for the lost and the lonely, the misfits and the misunderstood, the broken and the bereft, the heartsore and the hurting.

Certainly those who claim to have seen the garden say that it appeared to them in their darkest, bleakest moments, when they were most in need of its soft lights and scented delights, its compassion and kindness for all lost souls. Beatrice Anne Sitwell was eight years old the first time she discovered the garden. Or, more accurately, when it discovered her. It was already a day to remember, because it was the day her mother died.