The Red Garden is a book I listened to as an audiobook. It is really a collection of short stories about characters related by family and/or setting, over the span of around 300 years. All are based in a small village in Massachusetts (USA), since before it was a village at all.

There’s a subtle thread of magic or mystery that runs through them, but mostly they’re about people and the shit that sometimes happens to them. It could be a relatively mundane story of family life, through to violence and murder.

I’d personally have preferred some of the characters to have been explored more in a lengthier piece, like the first story of the fierce British woman that befriended bears.

Cw: rape, child abduction, violence, murder.