With Hothouse Bloom , Austyn Wohlers has written a meditation on creativity, connection, and nature. In beautiful prose that creates a dreamy atmosphere — early reviews have likened her to Rachel Cusk and Han Kang —this debut novel offers a modern-day twist on the pastoral.

Her protagonist, Anna, gives up her life in a city and her career as a painter to move to the country and take over an apple orchard she has inherited from her grandfather. She sees this new opportunity as a way out of an existence that she no longer understands, but Anna doesn’t simply change locations and career paths; she decides to completely reimagine her life, giving up her art, her relationships, and even spoken language. In the opening pages we learn, “She had always felt the rituals of life did not make sen

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