REVIEW: The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston

In The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston, Horticulturist Sophie Drear is a woman who keeps her promises. Always has been, always will be. Even though at the moment, as she drives up the winding cliffside drive to her temporary summer job, she wishes she wasn’t. Because while Lilymoor House and Gardens in Odette, Maine, might be gorgeous, it harbors memories Sophie isn’t quite ready to explore just yet. Maybe not ever, if she’s being honest with herself. But getting the chance to bring new life to the floundering gardens was too much of a chance to pass up. And as Sophie slowly gets acclimated to her coworkers: Juliette, Wykofski, Yafir, and the owner, Eula–along with a goose and a dog who cause chaos daily–she can only hope that the hard work she’ll be doing over the next two months can help her release the grief and regret she carries with her every single day.

‘Maybe there were kinds of magic in the world you couldn’t see.’

Lilymoor is wild in many ways, Sophie comes to realize her first week there. Gearing up for the bicentennial celebration of the estate in a never-ending challenge with dozens of tasks on her to-do list. But it’s the ever-changing gardens themselves that keeps her on her toes. The discovery of a secret garden behind a blue door is what truly undoes her, though. Sophie meets a handsome, rather frustrating man there who appears to be…stuck. He can’t leave and has no idea how Sophie can assist in getting him free from the magical part of Lilymoor. Each time the door appears in a different part of the grounds, she falls a little more for the guy trapped there and vows she will help him. As her coworkers and a relative of the owner get everything in tip-top shape for the party, Sophie splits her time between the job she was hired to do and the mystery of the secret garden. And just when she thinks she has the answer, Lilymoor decides to throw more surprises her way.

‘There was this…otherness to everything. As if the estate itself were alive and I’d stepped into a fairy tale, where everything was soft and slow. I could lose myself to the patience of this place. That was dangerous.’

THE SOMEDAY GARDEN was utterly magical. And I’m not just talking about the element of magical realism Ashley Poston uses in her romances. It was the gorgeous setting on the rocky cliffs of Maine. It was the whimsical nature of the ever-changing gardens at Lilymoor House. And even the offbeat characters were a delight to get to know as we followed their attempt to tame Lilymoor’s gardens in time for a bicentennial celebration on its grounds.

‘Of all the gardens in the world, it was here where I fell in love.’

Everything about this story lended itself to the mystique of Lilymoor, where our heroine Sophie was to work for the summer. The horticulturist had been left unmoored after a personal loss in the past year. And being in the garden was usually her salvation. But her temporary job in Maine brought memories to the surface that Sophie wasn’t ready to deal with yet.

Poston did such a wonderful job exploring the issues of loss, grief, and regret. It was a recurring theme not just for Sophie, but for others at Lilymoor as well. And while there were certainly scenes that brought tears to my eyes with how heartbreaking and sorrowful they were, Poston included touching as well as funny moments between Sophie and the others to offset some of the heaviness. The addition of not only two potential love interests for her but also another romantic pairing toward the end went a long way to add joy and hopefulness to the story, too.

TROPES/VIBES:
🪄 Magical realism
🌊 Cliffside Maine setting
🏡 Family drama & buried secrets
💞 Love triangle(ish) — no cheating
🦢 Havoc-causing goose

CW: View Spoiler »Grief, loss, depression « Hide Spoiler

You can always count on Ashley Poston for a wildly imaginative romance that will keep you guessing and glued to the pages until the final sentence. THE SOMEDAY GARDEN was an adventure that had ALL the feels and then some. I hope readers fall head over heels for the cast as well as Lilymoor itself and will cheer on everyone in their search for happiness, contentment, and home.

QOTD: Have you visited a place that has either local folklore or ghost stories surrounding it?

Book Info:

Publication: Published: June 16th, 2026 | Berkley |

The new head gardener at the enchanting Lilymoor House stumbles upon a secret garden . . . with a mysterious man trapped inside, in the next magical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Sounds Like Love and The Seven Year Slip.

When Sophie Drear plans her escape to coastal Maine for the summer—for a temporary job revitalizing the storied grounds at Lilymoor House—she doesn’t expect to fall in love.

But she With the beguiling land, the fragrant flowers, and the towering hedge maze. With the quirky staff and the enigmatic woman who owns the place.

And then, the door appears. Never in the same place twice, it leads her to a secret, and unfinished, garden with a frustrated thundercloud of a man trapped inside.

This mysterious garden is not the only sign that the future of Lilymoor is the foliage resists Sophie’s careful nurturing, vines threaten to strangle the hedges, and the manor’s owner has wild ideas about who will take over when she retires—including her inconveniently attractive nephew who is also there just for the summer.

Despite herself, Sophie has come to care for the residents of Lilymoor just as much as she cares for its grounds. With the help of one man on the outside of the secret garden, and one man on the inside, she might be the only person who can figure out exactly what Lilymoor needs to bloom once more.