At the Bottom of the Garden by Camilla Bruce

Book Review

Sarah Deeming

Clara Woods is a widow living in a house inherited from the wealthy elderly lady she cared for and looking to set up her jewellery business. But everything she has achieved, she has done so through murdering anyone who got in her way, like rich older women with big houses and cheating husbands. So when Clara’s brother dies and Clara is asked to care for his daughters, Clara is reticent at first. But her nieces come with money, lots of it, enough to fund Clara’s fledgling business if she can find a way to get it from her nieces.

However, her nieces are far from ordinary, orphaned teenagers; they are witches. Lily can see people’s feelings and knows when people lie to her. Violet can see the dead, and if they ask her, she can feel her way through releasing their spirits from where they are trapped.

With Violet releasing the spirits of the people Clara murdered in the house who turn Clara’s life into a living hell, war breaks out between the aunt and her nieces, and only one side can survive.

Murders. Ghosts. Witches. You would be forgiven for thinking At the Bottom of the Garden is a horror, and I guess it is in a roundabout way. It does have the hallmarks of horror, but there is no fear, which, for me, is a significant element that horror stories should have. For example, Lily and Violet know they are living with ghosts and a killer with her sights set on them if they step out of line, but they aren’t afraid. Not really. They accept these things as if they’re accepting the sky is blue. This is partly due to the narrative style being first-person, telling rather than showing. It kept me at arm’s length from really buying into the story. That isn’t to say this is a bad story; it isn’t; it’s just not the horror I thought it would be.

Clara is a brilliant character, self-centred and selfish. She is driven to achieve her goals at everyone else’s expense; she jumps off the page, and her voice is strong. Her attempts to get her nieces’ money and the way she is constantly thwarted are funny, as is the way the ghosts torment her and her way of handling them. I felt Lily and Violet were too similar in voice to be distinctive, but Clara stands out as a villain you almost want to get behind.

The story is set in the 70s, so there are different attitudes to children and adults in positions of responsibility. There is a brilliant scene where the police come to investigate, alerted by Lily to the bodies buried around the house. Clara excels at manipulating the police. It was well-written and amusing.

At the Bottom of the Garden is a fun story of a game of cat and mouse between a greedy murderer and her nieces with burgeoning abilities in witchcraft. A little light in the horror element, but Clara is more than enough to make up for that.