It's a horror fantasy that tells the story of a big, unusual garden in tune with the Brazilian rain forests and the vanished Mayan civilization. Annie, Mark, and five-year-old David move into an old Victorian house sold to them with a clause that they must adhere to... that they keep up the garden and not sell it to the bank for paving over into a parking lot. When the bank makes a big offer, Annie refuses, though Mark wants to sell. Meanwhile, several women in the community are murdered by someone using arrows and have their hearts torn out. Mark, often away on business when the murders happen and an archer in college, falls under his wife's suspicion. Meanwhile David starts communing with the garden...yes it actually talks to him. Of wait...things get stranger as Annie finds herself entering the mind of an owl. She also grows fearful of biker Harley Baer, who from the start is a flat-out villain who hangs around their home wanting to rent the old garage apartment. Is Harley the murderer or simply the golem for the spirit that wants to destroy the planet, starting with paving over the garden? Now we have Mariah, an herbalist with a book belonging to her family and going back countless centuries, filled with magical plant information. A friendly Mayan priest arrives by astral means to protect Annie and David from the monstrous Toltec spirit...and so on. Although a thinking garden that speaks for the rain forest and is inhabited with Indian spirits has its merits...there is absolutely nothing ever "real" here...way, way too much unbelievable things happening and nothing really ever explained. Too many grisly murders...including the family's teenage baby-sitter...and none of it ever attracts the journalistic invasion that would be expected. The dialogue simply urges the story along without reflecting the emotional responses the deaths would seemingly evoke. It's the authors first book...and I really hated to only come up with 2.5 stars for it. Some scenes would have worked it they had been more developed and scarier. Overall...it was a captivating idea, but I just couldn't find enough of anything to make it work. ( )