Review: Garden of Secrets by Drake LaMarque

Blurb:

Alistair Lennox is disagreeable.

Isolated and miserable, with parents who don’t care about him, his life has been equal parts privilege and loneliness.

But when his parents die, his life is turned upside down. In order to gain his inheritance, Alistair is forced to attend a college he's never heard of - for good reason. Misselthwaite College is a school for the magically gifted

Alistair has no magical gifts - unless being magically inept counts. What were his parents thinking? And what is the mysterious affliction plaguing William Carlisle, the affluent and arrogant heir to Misselthwaite? Is there a connection to the strange key Alistair discovers in a book, the stranger noises in the night, and, strangest of all, the multiple men who desire his friendship? Misselthwaite has no end of secrets.

But if being disagreeable is good for anything, it's for getting to the bottom of mysteries.

--

Garden of Secrets is book one in a duology, and the first installment in a magical new universe. A Secret Garden retelling with a queer twist and featuring MMMM polyamory.

Review:

It took me a long time to digest this one once I was done because, honestly (and pun not intended) not my cup of tea. I finished it and it was definitely a quick read, but the storyline didn’t grab me as much as I hoped and the blurb did spoil a little for me. 

Having said that, this was such a quick read and I ended up discovering a lot of good things about it once I started thinking about how to share my experience with it. 

Firstly, because I picked this up for the romance, the last line in the blurb was a spoiler for me. I’m so used to, when reading stories with a single POV and multiple love interests, to try and guess who will be the end-game. And well… colour me (not) surprised when the endgame turned out to be much bigger than I’m used to. I’m not complaining about it at all and the spice definitely had me blushing, but it kind of took the intrigue out of that part of the story because I knew about it beforehand.

And on the romance note, I do have to admit that it felt a little like cherry-picking for the MC. I guess everybody has had that fantasy at least once, but having Alistair have three men going after him and all of them are different stereotypes and therefore cater to different needs he has at different times. A bit too perfect, you know?

Outside of that, though, there was only one other thing I had a problem with. Alistair’s character is not my favourite, I found him too whiny and too immature at times and it made me roll my eyes at his actions and reactions, but it works for him. I think my main issue regarding his character was that he felt too young for me. Considering the entire story is about a college, it honestly felt more like it was written to be in college so that the spice wouldn’t be underage - since Alistair wasn’t the only one who acted immature. 

Having said that, there was some familiarity with the high school cliques and the “mean girls” circle, included with the outcast tropes - that when tied all together it just… worked for me. I have no idea how, since those are all things I dislike reading about, and yet this was another book I devoured in less than three days. 

Okay, you may be wondering what the title has to do with all this? Well, this is where the story really got me. It’s not all about Alistair finding the loves of his life, nor is it about the other students bullying him, nor is it about his lack of magic. The last one does have a big say in the rest of the plot, but the garden in question and the history behind it is what gives Garden of Secrets that extra layer of depth to make it more than just about Alistair and his woes. 

Also, the plot twist(s?) had the perfect peppering of foreshadowing so it didn’t come completely out of nowhere. The reason why I question the multiple is because, to me, one of them felt extremely obvious and though it did happen, it wasn’t how I anticipated, so that was a pleasant surprise and kept me interested in continuing to read the story. 

In conclusion, no - I can’t compare this to Harry Potter since I haven’t actually read the popular series past the first book, but if you want a magical school with different classes, a secret past and backstory that enhances the present issues, an outcast who has a close relationship with the headmaster (and make them all grown up so the spice can be peppery) - I suggest you give this one a try.