“In gloriously sensuous, suspenseful, mystical, tragic, and redemptive episodes, Hoffman subtly alters her language…reflecting the burgeoning social and psychological complexities her passionate and searching characters face in an ever-changing world.” - Booklist (starred review) Her fans, as well as those of magical realism in general, will be enchanted.” - Library Journal (starred review) “Hoffman has done it again, crafting a poignant, compelling collection of fairy tales suffused with pathos and brightened by flashes of magic. “The prose is beautiful, the characters drawn sparsely but with great compassion.” - Publishers Weekly “ dreamy, fabulist series of connected stories…These…tales, with their tight, soft focus on America, cast their own spell.” - Washington Post “Full of magic and grit and tragedy…Each episode is a marvel…painful and exquisite.” - Entertainment Weekly “An absorbing portrait of a town, told through its unforgettable people.…Masterful.” - People

“Hoffman’s characters are always moving back and forth, challenging our perceptions, daring us to judge them.” - New York Times Book Review “Hoffman makes the magic she writes about feel so real, as though I could at any moment, find myself in the town of Blackwell and the mysterious garden that bears only red fruit.” - Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters The stories are magical (probably) but delivered with the friction of the finest weave of silk. And here for me during the next few days of healing and searching. this book was here for me when I got home. Exhausted and not even able to say WHAT went so wrong. ICU and finally back to regular hospital for two weeks. A one year check-up that went horribly wrong. 'This book just popped into my order by accident and with no warning for the the difficult days between it's order and delivery. The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.

At the center of everyone’s life is a garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales. “Hoffman’s characters are always moving back and forth, challenging our perceptions, daring us to judge them.”- New York Times Book Review The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts.

The red garden book review