The Divine Gardener's Handbook: Or What to Do If Your Girlfriend Accidentally Turns Off the Sun

The Divine Gardener's Handbook: Or What to Do If Your Girlfriend Accidentally Turns Off the Sun

$37.20

Review Quotes: Goodreads, "Readers' Most Anticipated Romantasies for 2026" "YA author Snow makes their adult debut with this action-packed science-fantasy story. It's ideal for fans of Tamsyn Muir who enjoy a mix of science and...

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Description

Review Quotes:

Goodreads, "Readers' Most Anticipated Romantasies for 2026"

"YA author Snow makes their adult debut with this action-packed science-fantasy story. It's ideal for fans of Tamsyn Muir who enjoy a mix of science and magic in apocalyptic settings and want to unravel conspiracies and romantic feelings along the way." - Library Journal (starred review)

"Snow's adult debut is a twisty and humorous sapphic take on a classic rivals-to-lovers plot...Snow's sharp character work and snappy dialogue rocket readers through this wildly inventive tale. Tamsyn Muir fans will eat it up." - Publishers Weekly

"A really fun and wildly imaginative story about an underground world, a flower pageant, rivals-to-friends, and gods. [We] can't wait to read what Eli Snow has for us next!" - Book Riot

"A fiercely imaginative ride, The Divine Gardener's Handbook is the kind of novel that makes you want to stay up late reading. It has gardens full of so much more than meets the eye, entertaining characters harboring major secrets, and a story that manages to be funny, heart wrenching, profound, and relatable, sometimes all in one sentence." --E.B. Asher, USA Today bestselling author of This Will Be Fun

"Unique, clever, and charming, The Divine Gardener's Handbook will surprise and delight you!" --Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

"This book is pure Chaotic Good--queer, wildly imaginative plant-based hopepunk that you'll want to inject directly into your veins. A maniacally good time." --Julie Leong, USA Today bestselling author of The Teller of Small Fortunes

"The most fun I've had reading a book. Snow designs a world that beautifully mimics the chaos and hardships of our own while spinning it into something fun and full of voice. These characters literally come to life on the page--I didn't want to say goodbye." -- T.R. Moore, author of The Gods Must Burn

" The Divine Gardener's Handbook is an exciting romp through a lush garden of unexpected delights. Snow sows the seeds of the familiar and chaotic in one pot to create this fun, fascinating, and imaginative debut." --Samantha Sotto Yambao, author of Water Moon



Biographical Note:
Eli Snow (they/them) is a speculative fiction writer, editor, and former medical geneticist, based in rural Australia with their two cats. Their work tends to center queer and neurodivergent characters, as these are the perspectives they experience the world from. When not reading or writing, they should be checked for signs of life. Eli also writes YA Fantasy under the name Elias Cold. Their YA debut, The Duke Steals Hearts, is available now from Page Street Kids.

Publisher Marketing:

DELUXE EDITION--featuring beautiful sprayed edges!

WARNING: MAY CAUSE REBELLION, RADICAL GARDENING, AND ROMANCE.

"Pure chaotic good."
--Julie Leong, USA Today bestselling author of The Teller of Small Fortunes

The Divine Gardener's Handbook is a sapphic dystopian fantasy of botanical sabotage, a questionable god named Saul, and a woman falling for the person most likely to ruin her life.

In a Jenga-stacked megacity where glowing blue flowers hum in the dark and palace doors open into secret worlds, getting a job in the Divine Gardens is almost impossible--like being plucked from obscurity by a carnival claw machine. But Cyprin has spent her whole life trying.

Her only chance is winning the annual flower pageant, dominated for five years by Purcell: brilliant head gardener, unbearable rival, and the one person Cyprin can't stop thinking about. When Cyprin cheats her way to victory, she's thrust into a world of sentient plants, ancient secrets, and a God who turns out to be just some exhausted man with a very good garden.

What begins as rivalry, heated glaring, and increasingly personal acts of warfare spirals into something much more dangerous. As rebellion spreads through the city and the truth beneath the Gardens begins to unravel, Cyprin and Purcell find themselves caught between ambition, obsession, and the terrifying possibility of understanding each other completely.

Even if they burn the whole world down in the process.

The Divine Gardener's Handbook is perfect for readers who like their fantasy weird, heartfelt, and a little unhinged.



Review Citations:

  • Library Journal 05/01/2026 pg. 106 (EAN 9781250395184, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
  • Publishers Weekly 06/15/2026 (EAN 9781250395184, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:Snow, Eli
Eli Snow (they/them) is a speculative fiction writer, editor, and former medical geneticist, based in rural Australia with their two cats. Their work tends to center queer and neurodivergent characters, as these are the perspectives they experience the world from. When not reading or writing, they should be checked for signs of life. Eli also writes YA Fantasy under the name Elias Cold. Their YA debut, The Duke Steals Hearts, is available now from Page Street Kids.