There is something very wrong with the garden, but this book is an entirely different story. 💀🥀

Hazelthorn is absolutely delicious. Drews writing is as haunting and rotten as it is beautiful, and if you're a fan of lush prose, you will absolutely adore this book. The audiobook is a real treat, and if you can get your hands on both versions I highly recommend a tandem read. The way that Drews structures the words on the page is akin to reading poetry, and it sucks you into the minds of the characters in an eerie way that I absolutely loved.

The characters in this story are a feast all their own. I absolutely adored Evander and the solid autism representation that came with his character, and watching him agonize through the discovery of who and what he is was gut wrenching and goddamn wonderful. I never for a second suspected that Evander was the garden, nor that Laurie had created him out of desperation for love. And oh my Gods, Laurie. I would turn the world inside out for Laurence Lennox-Hall. Laurie is such a fascinating character, and the slow reveal that he's actually deeply, obsessively in love with Evander is phenomenal. You also find out through Evander that Laurie has never been the family's golden boy, and I swear my heart broke for these two boys like it was my own damn marriage on the line. The pacing is absolutely perfect, and the slow build of tension quite literally had me sitting at full attention as I rode public transit to work, lmao. The final few scenes are positively breathtaking, and by the end of the audiobook, I wanted to scrub it right back to the beginning and have another listen.

Needless to say, I've spent the past month and a half recommending this book to everyone I know. C.G. Drews does such a breathtaking job with the slow build of their psychological horror, and Hazelthorn is going to have me fighting a reread for the next I couldn't say how many months to come.