Abbi Waxman - The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Abbi Waxman is both irreverent and thoughtful.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Giffin

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, New York Times bestselling author of the Tradd Street series

A summer beach read with meat. Waxman develops and explores the characters and their relationship in depth.

The Associated Press

This is my favorite kind of bookhilarious, sad, joyful. Beautifully written. Fun . I dare you not to enjoy it.

Julia Claiborne Johnson, author of Be Frank With Me

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 humor, heart, and deep insight.

Actress Molly Shannon

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, USA Today bestselling author of Best Beach Ever

Meet your new favorite wry writer.

The Daily Beast

Waxmans skill at characterization lifts this novel far above being just another widow finds love story. Clearly an observer, Waxman has mastered the fine art of dialogue as well. Characters ring true right down to Lilians two daughters, who often steal the show.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Waxman takes readers from tears to laughter in this depiction of one womans attempt to hold it all together for everyone else only to learn its OK to put herself first.

Booklist

Kudos to debut author Waxman for creating an endearing and realistic cast of main and supporting characters (including the children). Her narrative and dialog are drenched with spring showers of witty and irreverent humor.

Library Journal (starred review)

The Garden of Small Beginnings is a quirky, funny, and deeply thoughtful book.

HelloGiggles

Waxmans voice is witty, emotional, and often profound.

InStyle (UK)

This novel is filled with characters youll love and wish you lived next door to in real life.

Bustle

Its 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, Im not reading a gardening book, dont worry. THIS IS NOT A GARDENING BOOK! It is , however, a feel-good, hate-to-put-it-down kind of book!

Chick Lit Central

The Garden of Small Beginnings

Other Peoples Houses

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

This is an uncorrected ebook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.

BERKLEY

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Copyright 2019 by Dorset Square, LLC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Insert CIP [TK]

First Edition: July 2019

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Cover design and illustration by Vikki Chu

Book design by Elke Sigal

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my stepfather, John, who came late to the party,
but stayed to clean up. I love and respect you with all my heart.

And for all the booksellers and librarians, who care about writers
and readers in equal measure, and put them together every day.
The world would be so much lonelier without you.

Solitude is independence.

HERMANN HESSE

Independence is happiness.

SUSAN B . ANTHONY

Happiness is having your own library card.

SALLY BROWN , PEANUTS

In which we meet our heroine
and witness a crime of thoughtlessness.

I magine youre a bird. You can be any kind of bird, but those of you whove chosen ostrich or chicken are going to struggle to keep up. Now, imagine youre coasting through the skies above Los Angeles, coughing occasionally in the smog. Shiny ribbons of traffic spangle below you, and in the distance you see an impossibly verdant patch, like a green darn in a gray sock. As you get closer, the patch resolves into a cross-hatching of old houses and streets, and you have reached Larchmont. Congratulations, youve discovered a secret not even all Angelenos know. Its a neighborhood like any other, but it boasts a forest of trees, planted generously along semiwinding streets that look like they were lifted wholesale from a Capra movie, and were actually all planted at once in the 1920s.

The houses are big but not showy, set back with front gardens that make the streets seem even wider than they are. Even today, most of the houses look the way they always have, thanks to historical preservation and a general consensus that the whole thing is hella cute. The trees have grown into truly beautiful examples of their kind; magnolias drift the streets with perfume, cedars strew them with russet needle carpets, and oaks make street cleaning and alternate side parking a necessity.

Larchmont Boulevard is the linear heart of Larchmont Village, populated by cafs, restaurants, boutiques, artisanal stores of many kinds, and one of the few remaining independent bookstores in Los Angeles. Thats where Nina Lee Hill works; spinster of this parish and heroine both of her own life and the book youre holding in your lovely hand.

Knights has been in business since 1940, and though its fortunes have risen and fallen over time, a genuine love of books and a thorough knowledge of its customers have kept it in business. It is like all good independent bookstores should be, owned and staffed by people who love books, read them, think about them, and sell them to other people who feel the same way. There is reading hour for little kids. There are visiting authors. There are free bookmarks. Its really a paradise on earth, if paradise for you smells of paper and paste. It does for Nina, but as our story opens, she would happily go back to the part where we were all being birds, and poop on the head of the woman in front of her.

The woman was staring at Nina in what can only be described as a truculent fashion, jangling her extensive, culturally appropriative turquoise jewelry.