“The Memory Gardener”

by Meg Donohue

Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

Pub Date: 25-Nov-2025

Publisher’s Summary:

Lucy Barnes is a gardener with an uncanny ability to know exactly which scent among her flowers will illuminate to a person a key from their past that might change their future. Sadly, after a tragedy ten years ago, she no longer uses her gift and has fled her hometown.

But six months after her mother’s death, Lucy awakens to find her mother’s unmistakable scent drifting over her, and she knows that she is being called home. And when a mysterious note leads her to take a job as the gardener at the Oceanview Home, a senior-living residence, Lucy finds herself wondering if there is more to her gift—and her mother’s past—than she ever knew.

Her work among the lush gardens of Oceanview Home soon awakens the entire community, unearthing memories that will forever change all who cross Lucy’s path. But not everyone is happy to see how her presence has transformed the Oceanview Home, and when a secret comes to light that threatens to shatter the entire community, the future suddenly looks uncertain. Have the memories that Lucy has unearthed awakened something wonderful…or are some memories better left buried?

Review:

I received the right email at the right time from Gallery Books’ marketing department. They used their technology and magic to see that I love Alice Hoffman. They told me that if I like Hoffman, I’ll like The Memory Gardener by Meg Donohue. They were not wrong.

While The Memory Gardener is not billed as a mystery, there are a lot of personal mysteries that do unfold in gentle reading waves. Lucy Barnes possesses skills with plant life that are playfully considered magic or supernatural, yet, there are people who have abilities to smell scents beyond the average just like super tasters can extrapolate the fine details of what they eat. The olfactory system has long been known to have a direct connection to the memory centers of the brain. If you put the green thumb, agricultural science, and magic together, what you end up with is a character like Lucy Barnes.

Lucy has an extreme avoidance of setting down her own roots (no pun intended, but it works) ever since something happened between her and her high school boyfriend, Jack. Author Meg Donohue takes her time revealing what that something is from Lucy’s perspective and then even longer to get Jack’s perspective.Whatever Lucy’s biggest secret shame is, it’s kept her from returning home to the small village of Bantam Bay in California.

It may be cliché, but in The Memory Gardener, the location is undeniably its own character. The book opens with the most lyrical descriptions from Lucy’s perspective of the Oceanview Home gardens. These gardens are where 99% of the change takes place for the characters. There are small scenes with big changes in the Barnes’ house where Lucy’s father, Gregory, lives; and a little more at the community center. The gardens are where everything is anchored. First, the sunken garden off the terrace of the retirement home. Then Lucy and carpenter, Adam, find gates leading to other gardens: a rose garden, a native plants garden, and more.

In the sunken garden, there’s a reflecting pool. This serves as more than a mere decorative element to the setting. Each character is granted time with Lucy who finds the plant that would draw out buried memories. She’s fearful that her gift for making these connections could ruin their lives—some things are better left buried. This means all of them reflect back on the kinds of lives they had, love, grudges, and what they might be remembered for after they’ve died. Even with a sign of success in illuminating one retiree’s memories, Lucy is constantly stressed that she could expose someone to crushing heartache.

As I read through all the long scenes where Lucy eases into her talents and gets involved with friendly people and a few with rock hard stubbornness, I had my own memory of watching Awakenings starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. Donohue doesn’t mention Awakenings, but she does address the writer and starring character, Dr. Oliver Sacks and some articles about his breakthrough work. Dr. Sacks was the genius behind being able to cure people from dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other catatonic states. I won’t ruin it for you regardless of how old the movie is. This setting of the Oceanview Home and its residents finding new sparks of life also reminded me of Cocoon, a star-studded movie with Wilford Brimley, Don Ameche, Brian Dennehy, Jessica Tandy, and Maureen Stapleton directed by Ron Howard. In that, the retirement home residents discover a way to rejuvenate their bodies and minds essentially turning back the clock. It’s not the magic of plants though.

It’s clear there are going to be romantic feelings between Lucy, who wants to avoid it, and someone else in the cast. Is it Donovan, the owner of Oceanview Home with his good looks and financial sense; or Adam, the carpenter who feels the stories of every house he works on?

Adam’s wife died two years prior to the book’s timeline and he is left to raise their daughter Sophie. Sophie is a tenderhearted child with selective mutism. She provides the naive perspective of youth. The only time she lights up anymore is when she sees Lucy’s dog, Gully. Everyone loves the enormous hound, even the most standoffish people.

Donohue has a spiderweb of storylines that are wrangled carefully allowing all these characters to have a starting point, a change, and a new beginning. With so many characters, it’s a marvel how she accomplished this with fluidity and clarity. Even late in the book, around 80%, Donohue toys with readers as Lucy learns more about her mother’s life. New questions come up and fortunately it’s not too late yet for Lucy to get the answers she needs.

Donohue also fills the book with trivia and folklore about the plants in the Oceanview gardens much the same way as Susan Wittig Albert does in her China Bayles Herbal Mysteries. With the details about the way every plant looks, behaves, and smells, readers wouldn’t expect anything less than nuggets of knowledge too.

Summary:

Meg Donohue’s The Memory Gardener feels like a refreshing Happily-Ever-After from a book that isn’t a romance though it does have a thread of it. The Memory Gardener will perfectly satisfy fans of Alice Hoffman as was promised. It’s also well-suited for anyone who thinks one mistake in their past has to define their entire life. Donohue shows that there is forgiveness, misunderstandings, and relationships that can be built despite one’s regrettable history.

Due to the timeline ending on May 1st, this would be a great holiday gift for someone who loves to read stories taking place in the same season, in this case Spring.

Rating: 5 stars

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.