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Thank you NetGalley, Hachette Audio, and Summer N. England for the Audio ARC of The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne in exchange for an honest review of the content.

In The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne after leaving her childhood home at a young age, Clara is looking for somewhere where she is accepted and loved. Her journey leads her to the small town of Moss, where she is brought in and taken care of by the townspeople. 

As Clara grows older, she is given the title of town gardener, where she is responsible for feeding the town and growing the Crown Tulip for the Goddess Festival. During the festival the Goddess assigns Clara an important quest – travel to the cursed town of Dwindle and grow a garden in less than a month, or face the consequences and never return to Moss and the people she loves. 

Since the journey to Dwindle has been proven to be quite dangerous, the Goddess assigns Hesper Altanfall to be Clara’s bodyguard. But Clara has one major secret, her fickle magic is useless outside of the town of Moss, and growing a garden in a month with no magic will be a difficult task.

As the two make the journey to Dwindle through the enchanted woods, share beds at the inn, and work together on growing the garden, they feel an undeniable pull towards each other. Will Hesper be able to help Clara find her inner magic that she always thought impossible? The town of Dwindle and their return to Moss depend on it. 

Now, my review.. 

The positives: 

• I loved seeing the growth of Clara’s character, I think she was a well rounded character and learning about her childhood trauma gave good insight about why she felt the way she did sometimes.
• Frankie Porter did a great job narrating this book! She was a perfect Clara and she did well voicing the other characters as well. She really brought this story to life.
• The cozy romantasy vibes were great, and I think this story was very unique. A lot of romantasy feels very copy and paste with small details changed, but this was a new type of story for me and I enjoyed that.
• The sapphic romance aspect was great! The scenes were super spicy, and it was fun having a mysterious shadow mommy at the start of the story!

The negatives: 

• By the time it got to the last 20% of the book – I was starting to get a little frustrated with Clara’s character and her lack of believing in herself. I found myself thinking she was just being silly and needed to get her head out of her ass. I wish she would have listened to Hesper’s advice a bit more rather than just disagreeing and shrugging her off. I understand this was all part of Clara’s character growth, but there was just some aspects that dragged way too long and got frustrating.

In general, I really enjoyed The Impossible Garden of Clara Throne, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a sapphic cozy fantasy. It is listed as a standalone debut romance, but with the way the story ended I could see this story being expanded into a series. 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐