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Nick Newman (Nicholas Bowling)

@thatnicholasbowling

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Author of THE GARDEN. Also writes children’s books as Nicholas Bowling.

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My first ever London bookshop window painting was @dauntbooks Holland Park a couple of years ago and I was so nervous! It didn’t take long for the warm atmosphere of this neighbourhood bookshop and its booksellers to put me at ease. With thanks to manager @carolineroseberry for making me feel so welcome 🥰 Once I saw @thatnicholasbowling books all lined up in the window I knew that I was hooked. Painting bookshop windows was now officially my happy place.

Photo credits to my cousin @davidfrew__ who warmed me with conversation and coffee (and made me laugh for these pic) and to @thatnicholasbowling for the photos of the finished window (which I pinched)

#bookshop #windowillustration #london #dauntbooks

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BOOKS FEATURED

*11/22/63 by Stephen King
*(Mostly) Human Resources by Grace Viall
*The Garden by Nick Newman
*None of this is True by Lisa Jewell
*Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
*The Only One Left by Riley Sager

💭QOTD: What is the scariest book you’ve ever read?

💅🏼 Gifted press-on set from @oliveandjune (extra short squoval in mocha velvet)

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What would you add to this list?

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I got around to reading Nick Newman’s adult fiction debut ‘The Garden’ far too late, but I’m a firm believer that books come to you when you need them, and that was exactly the case with this, because it was magnificent. I read it over the course of 24 hours, after struggling to be gripped by anything else this month.

The Garden is the story of two elderly sisters, Evelyn and Lily, who spend their days (and life) pottering around the garden of the large manor home they once lived in. Beyond the high walls, the world has been ravaged. By what exactly, the sisters don’t know – or don’t want to remember. Their existence is peaceful and companionable, if not marred by the hard work of following the rules of their mother and keeping the garden and themselves alive in such a harsh climate.
As with all great stories about the closed off and the shut away, everything seems to be going well, until an outsiders appears.

The world Newman (@thatnicholasbowling) conjures is disturbing and real and mystical all at once, and whilst it’s clear not all is as it seems (both in an outside the garden), Newman keeps his pages full of wonder. Five stars all round.

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Done a new record / made a thing, with some of the very best of eggs 💖❤️🎁🎈not all pictured

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Met Gala looks as books ✨

B*zos can eat my shorts, but I love matching book covers with fashion so I will use this as an excuse to show off some books that should be on your feed 🤗

#looksasbooks #bookstagram #booksaslooks #metgalalooks #bookcovers

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A huge thanks to @thatnicholasbowling & @hattiecrisell for their marathon effort road trip to get to us last night, just in time for a brilliant conversation on Nick’s novel The Garden! And thank you to our lovely audience for coming along and asking great questions. Signed copies of Nick’s book as well as Hattie’s book In Writing are in stock now. 🪴📕

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Next up, we wanted to share some of the finalists from our Pupil Response Competition who made creative responses inspired by two of the creepiest books on our TSBA 2026 'Dreams and Nightmares' shortlist: The Undying of Obedience Wellrest by Nicholas Bowling and The Haunting of Tyrese Walker by J P Rose!

#TSBA #TrinitySchoolsBookAwards #NicholasBowling #JPRose

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🥀For fans of Piranesi, The Testaments and Shirley Jackson comes Nick Newman’s hypnotic and darkly beautiful novel The Garden, a tale of two elderly sisters living alone at the edge of the world. Speculative and gothic, this literary twist on the Secret Garden is a meditation on love, fear and survival.

🎟️We’re lucky enough to have Nick joining us this coming Wednesday 22nd April, 7pm, to discuss his novel with Hattie Crisell. Tickets are £7 including a glass of wine or soft drink and can be booked online or in the shop.

📚About the book:
In a place and time unknown, two elderly sisters live in a walled garden, secluded from the outside world. Evelyn and Lily have only ever known each other. What was before the garden, they have forgotten; what lies beyond it, they do not know. Each day is spent in languid service to their home: tending the bees, planting the crops, and dutifully following the instructions of the almanac written by their mother.

So when a nameless boy is found hiding in the boarded house at the center of their isolated grounds, their once-solitary lives are irrevocably disrupted. Who is he? Where did he come from? And most importantly, what does he want?

As suspicions gather and allegiances falter, Evelyn and Lily are forced to confront the dark truths about themselves, the garden, and the world as they’ve known it.

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One week to go! Next Wednesday we’ll be joined by Nick Newman, who will be discussing his novel The Garden with Hattie Crisell. This eerie, literary twist on the Secret Garden is pictured here in our own garden, currently in its fallow period, before it becomes a flurry of activity and marquee building in time for our festival in the summer...

🎙️ Nick Newman with Hattie Crisell
🗓️ 7pm, Wednesday 22nd April
🎟️ £7 including a glass of wine or soft drink

Nick’s novel opens in a place and time unknown, in a walled garden, where two elderly sisters have lived for as long as they can remember, secluded from the outside world. They dutifully tend to the bees, plant the crops, follow the instructions left behind in an almanac written by their mother. But a startling discovery casts their carefully curated life in a strange and unsettling new light. What if the walls of their garden will no longer keep them safe?

“A fairy tale which gets you by the throat and doesn’t let go...both a horror story and a meditation on love at the end of the world. It’s a testament to Newman’s extraordinary gifts that its creeping dread never overwhelms its tenderness”
- Emerald Fennell

“With shades of Shirley Jackson and Susanna Clarke, The Garden is a shapeshifting fable that will stay with you long after you leave it behind”
- Sara Flannery Murphy

“Just like the garden Evelyn tends, this story grows in meaning with every word. It asks big questions about what makes us who we are and who to trust. And, like the bnest fairytales, the answers are often as dark as they are revealing”
- Araminta Hall

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These are the books I plan on reading this month. Did I unintentionally pick a theme? If so, what is it? Also, which one appeals to you?

What's on your TBR?

@thatnicholasbowling @baparisauthor @saratogaishere @collin_p_armstrong @catward66 @bcmorrow

#apriltbr #booksofinstagram #horrorbooksofinstagram #thrillerbooks

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