Winter Garden

Meredith and Nina Whitson are sisters divided by life’s choices—one stayed close to home, raising children and caring for the family apple orchard; the other travelled the world, chasing a career as a famed photojournalist. They’ve grown apart, bound by love yet drifted by distance. But when their father becomes terminally ill, both sisters return home to stand by their mother, Anya, a woman beautiful, distant, deeply guarded—and seemingly incapable of comfort. 

On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise: that Anya will tell a fairy tale—a story she has told before, one with beginnings in a war‑torn Leningrad of the 1940s. As Anya’s tale unfolds, a love story emerges, but one tinged with loss and suffering. With each chapter, past and present entwine more tightly. Meredith and Nina discover secrets Anya carried silently, revelations that shift everything they thought they knew about who their mother was—and who they are. 

Haunting, lyrical, and deeply emotional, Winter Garden explores themes of motherhood and memory, the inheritance of trauma, and the power of storytelling. It’s a tale of how love can endure, how silence can wound, and how sometimes the only way forward is to face what has long been buried.