A review by lazygal
The Girl and the Witch's Garden by Erin Bowman

3.0

What a great concept: an old estate, decaying garden, orphans and magic. Piper is the only child that actually belongs at Mallory Estate as her grandmother owns it and it's where her mother went when she left Piper and her father years ago. So when she's sent there because her father's cancer has advanced and her aunt is travelling it's no wonder she's apprehensive. The three other children there distrust her and fear she'll disrupt their plans to be adopted; Piper is confused when they tell her how wonderful her mother has been. And that's where the book lost me: the Piper/mother relationship. The magic, the quest, the garden were all great. But when a mother goes out of their way to be deliberately mean to their child for no apparent reason? It just didn't work in this book.

eARC provided by publisher.