From debut author Elaine Roth comes a hopeful and heartfelt story about a young widow who uncovers the magic of everyday life―and the power of second chances.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Elaine Roth’s The Midnight Garden, which is out November 7th.
After the sudden death of her husband, Hope finds herself reeling from the loss in more ways than one. First a young wife and now a grieving widow, she feels like fodder for never-ending town gossip.
But when Hope meets Will, a screenwriter back in town to run his family’s inn, she sees in him another resident oddball. And like her, Will has been navigating a loss of his own.
As Hope falls for Will, she seeks out another enigma in town: Maeve, an eccentric woman who makes healing teas and communes with the dead. Some of the townspeople think she’s a grifter, a fake. Will, too, is skeptical.
Hope yearns for closure and forgiveness, seeing in Maeve the chance to trust herself again―and in Will, a chance to rediscover the enchantment in the world around her…
And the courage to build a bigger life than she ever thought possible.
CHAPTER ONE
HOPE
This is the part I was dreading. Worse than sitting through the vows, the promises of forever, the “till death do us part,” is this: the tribute to Brandon.
A slideshow plays on the big screen as Logan speaks to the guests. His voice begins to crack, and his new bride grips his free hand with both of hers. He tells a story about Brandon as a gangly nine-year-old capturing frogs and keeping them as pets. Everyone laughs, and for a heartbeat, I’m nine again, ankle deep in frigid pond water with Brandon.
Logan shares another story—about a time when Brandon was sixteen and their mom caught him sneaking in a girl to play spin the bottle. Just like that, I’m sitting cross-legged on Brandon’s floor, leaning in to kiss the boy next door who I always knew I’d marry.
Logan’s eyes, lined with tears, lock on mine. I nod, giving him silent permission to continue. It’s his day, his wedding. Brandon was mine, but also his. Even though their age gap meant Brandon spent half Logan’s life treating him like a nuisance, in the years before he died, they were as close as brothers could be. Logan needs to feel like Brandon is a part of his day. He should be a part of today.
But Brandon’s been gone over two years now, and it’s still hard to hear his name in the past tense.
The memories continue to rush forward, separate from Logan’s stories.
Now I’m eighteen. At prom. Brandon’s wearing a baby-blue tie to match my dress. Then I’m twenty-one, standing in front of family and friends, whispering vows for only Brandon to hear.
I’m twenty-three, broken, bruised, battered, and barely breathing as Brandon’s coffin is lowered into the ground.
Around the ballroom of the Kingsette Inn, a few hundred sets of eyes shift toward me as Logan tears up mentioning how much I’m like a sister to him, how much it means to him and his new bride, Tanya, that I came tonight. Each gaze is a prick of heat along my spine.
“Are you okay?” Tessa twists in her seat and grabs two flutes of champagne from the passing waiter. She hands one to me. It’s my third or fourth . . . maybe fifth. But it’s a wedding, and weddings are fun, so—who’s counting?
“I’m fine,” I tell her, accepting the glass. Bubbles sparkle around the quartered strawberry lounging at the bottom of the glass. “Thanks for being my plus-one.”
“Unlimited champagne and a night away from the kids? You’re doing me the favor,” Tessa whispers as the people at our table begin to clap.
Logan leans down and kisses Tanya. They’re so happy, so in love. So unaware that it’s all so painfully fragile. I raise my glass to the happy couple along with everyone else, and down the champagne. The bubbles fizzle in the back of my throat.
Tessa frowns. “Let me get you some water. We haven’t even made it through salads yet.”
I flash her a warning look. “You promised you wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?” she asks, taking a sip of champagne. “I’m not playing the overprotective sister role tonight. I’m just trying to make sure we both stay hydrated, so we make it to the cake.”
I roll my eyes, but she has a point. My body feels looser than it should so early in the night. “Don’t worry. I’ll slow down. I don’t want to be the clichéd drunk widow crying in the bathroom at the wedding.”
A mischievous smile pulls up Tessa’s lips, which are lined and glossed to pink perfection. “At least not again.”
The corners of my mouth twitch up, too, and some of the jagged places that splintered during Logan’s speech smooth over. I take a steadying breath. I can do this. It’s just a wedding. Only one night.
“In my defense,” I say, scanning the room for Brandon’s cousin Selena, who hasn’t spoken to me since her wedding last year, when, admittedly, I did make a small scene, “I told her I wasn’t ready to go to a wedding. And she used our wedding song. Who does that?”
Within moments, I spot the petite former bride across the room in a conversation with my tenth-grade chemistry teacher and her wife, the veterinarian who sold her practice to Logan last year.
Selena’s hands rest atop the swell of her stomach.
When Tessa sees what I see, her shoulders sag. “Ugh, Hope. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. That’s what happens. You get married. You have babies. You live happily ever after.” I breathe through the flash of what might have been playing across my thoughts.
Tessa covers my hand with hers; the weight is anchoring.
She keeps it there as the band returns to the stage and begins an off-key cover of a pop song. Tanya’s bridesmaids swarm the dance floor in a flurry of cream-colored tulle.
“Speaking of getting married,” Tessa starts, her voice reaching an all-too-familiar pitch. “Did you notice that Bailey Walters is here alone? I heard she broke off her engagement with Rory Lefner.”
“That’s awful,” I say, easily spotting the pink-haired bridesmaid leading a conga line on the dance floor. Her face is transformed from the last time I saw her—a few months ago, curled up on Logan and Tanya’s couch, crying about Rory. “And none of our business.”
“I heard she’s moving away. Art school in New York.” Tessa leans in the way she does when she’s been privy to a particularly juicy piece of gossip. “Maeve Winters talked her into it.”
I slide another glance toward Bailey, who seems oblivious to the way half the room is watching her, the same way they watched me moments ago.
“Who’s Maeve Winters?”
“Hope, seriously?” Tessa looks at me as if I’ve been living under a rock. “Maeve. The woman who moved into the abandoned cottage by Lake Olam. The one hosting parties under full moons and pretending to be too good for running water.”
When I don’t react, Tessa rolls her eyes. “Literally everyone has been talking about her nonstop for the last three months. You know, it hasn’t rained since the day she arrived in town. She’s bad news and creepy AF, if you ask me.”
“She’s new in town—that doesn’t instantly make her creepy. Maybe she helped Bailey figure out what she really wanted. Would you want to marry Rory Lefner?”
Tessa fights a smile. “He’s not that bad.”
We both know he is.
“This town needs a hobby. Preferably one that doesn’t involve rumors and other people’s love lives.”
“No, what this town needs is a new coffee place.”
Logan’s wedding is not the setting for Tessa’s twenty-minute-long Kingsette-needs-another-coffee-place tirade. “Have you ever gone to the lake to meet Maeve for yourself?”
“No!” Heads turn in our direction, and Tessa lowers her voice. “And you aren’t either. Anyone going down to the lake to see Maeve is a fool. The last thing you need is—”
The sound of her phone trilling interrupts her.
Tessa reaches into her purse and shows me the screen. She furrows her brow, glancing from me to the phone and back to me. She makes no move to answer or to silence the sound, though a muscle twitches in her jaw with each ring. After a few tense seconds, the phone stops. Almost instantly, it starts again. Her knuckles go white around the phone. “I’m sorry. He wasn’t supposed to call unless it was an emergency with one of the girls.”
“You’re my plus-one, not my babysitter. Go answer your husband.”
She’s standing, then walking away from the table and lifting the phone to her ear before I finish giving my permission. For the first time all night, I’m alone. The three couples Tessa and I were seated with are all immersed in conversation with each other. I make a halfhearted attempt to join in. The couple on my right is talking about Bailey, and the couple across from me is discussing Maeve, and—at least I tried.
I lift my glass, only to find that it’s already empty. The memories Logan’s speech stirred up, along with others that I keep locked away, stalk the edges of my consciousness, demanding release or relief.
The choice is easy—no crying widow in the bathroom this time.
Text copyright © 2023 by Elaine Roth
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Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
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