The Garden of Small Beginnings

Abbi Waxman Press Reviews

Like a conversation with the funniest person you know - just lovely - Katie Fforde, number one bestselling author of A Country Escape

Waxman has given us a grow bag full of emotion - witty, uplifting and unashamedly honest - Heidi Swain, Sunday Times bestselling author of Summer at Skylark Farm

A cosy, life-affirming read - Cathy Hopkins, author of The Kicking the Bucket List

A young widow is just about holding her life together when she's persuaded to enrol on a gardening course. Down among the weeds and worms she find purpose and friendship . . . a funny and uplifting debut novel - Good Housekeeping

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. The Garden of Small Beginnings is funny, poignant, and startling in its emotional intensity and in its ability to make the reader laugh and cry on the same page . . . I loved this book! - Karen White

Funny and poignant. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry. May make you want to play in dirt and grow a new life of your own - Wendy Wax

This is my favorite kind of book: hilarious, sad, joyful. Beautifully-written. Fun. I dare you not to enjoy it - Julia Claibourne Johnson

What a treat!! Abbi Waxman is one of the wittiest voices in the world today. The Garden of Small Beginnings is a beautiful book full of humour, heart, and deep insight. An intimate and hilarious journey about a young mom moving on from grief. Reading it gave me the feeling I was talking to a really funny, open mom-friend sharing secrets about life, love, loss, and gardening! Abbi Waxman's quick wit and heart shine brightly throughout this debut novel. I just loved it! - Molly Shannon

Kudos to debut author Waxman for creating an endearing and realistic cast of main and supporting characters (including the children). Her narrative and dialogue are drenched with spring showers of witty and irreverent humour, which provides much respite from the underlying grief theme - Library Journal

The Garden of Small Beginnings is a quirky, funny, and deeply thoughtful book. . . . We're already dying to know if there will be a sequel - HelloGiggles

Waxman's voice is witty, emotional and often profound - InStyle.com

This novel is filled with characters you'll love and wish you lived next door to in real life - Bustle

Lilian Girvan, the central character of The Garden of Small Beginnings, is an illustrator, a mother, a sister, a budding gardener, and a widow, and her perspective on how she's doing with each role doesn't always match up with what readers can see around her. But that trait makes her a more interesting and realistic protagonist, and along with the book's humour and eccentric supporting cast made it a great read - BookRiot

Abbi Waxman artfully tackles grief with humour in her debut novel - Signature Reads

It's impossible not to fall in love with Lilian, a young widow who is still trying to come to terms with the death of her husband four years later. . . . If you are thinking to yourself 'forget it, I'm not reading a gardening book'- don't worry . . . THIS IS NOT A GARDENING BOOK! It IS, however, a feel-good, hate-to-put-it- down, kind-of-book! - ChickLit Central

Waxman has mastered the fine art of dialogue . . . this debut begs for an encore - Kirkus Reviews