The Garden of Eve

by K. L. Going

Summary: Eleven year old Evie is devastated when her mom dies of cancer, and her sadness deepens when she learns that she and her father are moving to an old house in upstate New York with a cemetery and a dead apple orchard on the property. Her father has decided that he can make the orchard grow again, but the people in the town think it's impossible. They say the orchard is cursed, and has been ever since the disappearance of another girl named Eve many years before. Eve is lonely, and befriends a boy that she meets in the cemetery, but she can't tell her father about him...Alex claims to be a ghost. Everything changes when a local woman gives Evie a single seed which she claims is from the Garden of Eden. Planting the seed not only produces a beautiful tree--it opens a parallel universe. When Evie and Alex enter this world, mysteries are solved and decisions are made that change Evie forever.

My thoughts: The Garden of Eve is a suspenseful page-turner, but more than anything, it's a book about grief. Evie has to come face to face with some difficult facts, and like many of us, she hangs onto to her sadness for a long time before she comes to the other side of her pain. It's a beautiful story about how each of us deals with grief differently, and how the power of believing in the ones you love can help you move on.