Bane Bloom

A botanical illustrator in Victorian England uncovers a country garden’s secrets in a fantastical novel of dark enchantments by the author of Tea & Alchemy. In 1850, Catherine Gray, a botanical illustrator from London, travels to a remote estate in the Lake District to catalog and paint the specimens thriving in a mysterious glasshouse garden. The most bewildering find is a water lily that somehow alters its appearance. Nearly as puzzling is Thomas Bane, the brooding groundskeeper, who closely guards the estate’s secrets—including the disappearance of Catherine’s predecessor. The mystery deepens when Catherine discovers the diary of Prudence Bane, Thomas’s late mother, which contains revelations about the odd flora and its hold on a family touched by madness. The more she uncovers, the more the line between fantasy and reality—and superstition and fact—begins to blur. Unable to trust her own thoughts, Catherine draws closer to Thomas, her only anchor in this strange place. But even he can’t fully protect her from the house and his otherworldly family. Only Catherine can break the Bane family’s cycle of heartbreak…but first she’ll have to confront her own. © 2026 by Sharon Lynn Fisher, all rights reserved.