A Victorian suburban soap opera unfolds between three neighboring households in the English countryside in this novel by the acclaimed author.

In late nineteenth-century England, Londoners are beginning to leave the city for suburban homes in the countryside. For fifty years, sisters Monica and Bertha Williams could see their sizeable garden out their front window. Now, they’ve sold off the land, and three square villas have sprouted up on the spot. Their new neighbors are quite a different sight to behold . . .

At first, the spinster sisters worried over who might move in. The first two households proved to be no source of panic: a retired navy admiral with a wife and son, and then a widowed, retired doctor and his two daughters who help keep house. But when a stout-drinking feminist moves in with her unemployed nephew, things begin to change.

Where plants and flowers once grew, now romance blossoms. Meanwhile, financial troubles grow like weeds. And a pirate may cause even more trouble for one of these families . . .

The Williams sisters may have lost their beautiful garden, but their new neighbors make up for it with plenty of drama.