The Someday Garden

The Someday Garden is a fantasy romance by New York Times bestselling author Ashley Poston. Known for her adult novel The Dead Romantics (2022), Poston blends romantic comedy tropes with fantasy elements and earnest explorations of grief. The Someday Garden continues in this vein, following horticulturist Sophie Drear, who takes a temporary summer job restoring the grounds of the deteriorating Lilymoor House in coastal Maine. Sophie is driven by a need to fulfill a decade-old promise she made to her deceased best friend, Harriett, to return to the estate. While grappling with her sorrow, Sophie discovers a mysterious blue door that appears only at golden hour, leading her to a magical, unfinished garden where a man named Cyrus Beck is trapped in a single, repeating sunset. The novel explores themes of The Lasting Nature of Grief, The Healing Power of Nature, and The Magic of Language.

This guide uses the 2026 first edition of the text published by Berkley.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual content, cursing, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

Ten years ago, Sophie Drear and her best friend, Harriet “Harrie” Fisher, visited Lilymoor House and Gardens, a historic estate on the coast of Maine, and promised to return together a decade later. However, Harrie died of cancer before they could fulfill their promise. Now, struggling with grief and professional burnout, Sophie takes a temporary summer job to revitalize the deteriorating estate for its 200th anniversary, an opportunity that coincides with the anniversary of their promise. She meets the small staff: Ned Wykofski, the affable handyman; Juliette, the meticulous Events Coordinator; and Eula Beck, the estate’s elderly owner, who returns unexpectedly from rehab after a fall. Eula announces her plan to retire and name a successor at the upcoming bicentennial party, creating uncertainty about Lilymoor’s future.

While working in the gardens, Sophie discovers a mysterious blue door that appears in different locations during golden hour. It leads to an unfinished, keyhole-shaped garden where time seems to stand still. Inside, Sophie finds a man who appears to be trapped in a perpetual sunset, He introduces himself as Cyrus Beck, or “Rus.” She gradually discovers that time behaves differently inside the garden: Days pass in the outside world while Rus experiences only hours, and the garden itself remains suspended in a single summer evening.

Meanwhile, Eula’s charming great-nephew, Oliver Hale, arrives, worried about his aunt’s health and her sudden retirement plans. He is a potential heir but insists he does not want the estate. Sophie develops a flirtatious relationship with Oliver and learns that he and Cyrus, Eula’s other great-nephew, were once inseparable but have been estranged for years. Eventually, Sophie realizes that Rus is trapped on the evening of the upcoming bicentennial, meaning that she has been visiting him from his own past. Hoping to prevent his imprisonment, she sends an anonymous letter to the present-day Cyrus warning him against attending the celebration. However, the Rus in the garden later reveals that the letter only made him furious and more determined to come, inadvertently cementing his fate.

As Sophie spends more time at Lilymoor and investigates the mystery, she uncovers painful events from its past. Oliver reveals that his friendship with Cyrus ended when they were teenagers, after they accidentally set fire to and destroyed Lilymoor’s greenhouse and the workshop belonging to Eula’s late husband, Henry. Cyrus suffered burns while attempting to save the building, then accepted sole responsibility for the incident, damaging his relationship with Lilymoor and his family. While exploring the greenhouse ruins with Oliver, Sophie discovers a water-damaged journal containing Henry’s plans for a special garden intended as a gift for Eula. Designed to flourish in evening sunlight, the unfinished project was called the Someday Garden. Sophie brings the journal to Rus, who recognizes the plans and suspects that Lilymoor’s magic has trapped him there because of Henry’s unrealized dream.

While Rus tends to the garden from within, causing it to magically bloom, Sophie searches for its physical location on the estate grounds. She is able to enter it through the magically reappearing blue door but is unable to find its actual location within the estate. Since Rus cannot leave through the door, they both believe that finding it on the estate is the only way to free him. As Sophie continues to visit Rus, they become closer. Sophie tells Rus about Harrie and her fear that finding happiness means leaving her friend behind, while Rus gradually reveals his guilt over the greenhouse fire and his reluctance to return to the life he once loved at Lilymoor. Their friendship develops into romance, and the garden responds to their growing affection with extraordinary bursts of flowers.

Outside the garden, Sophie becomes closer to Juliette, Wykofski, Eula, and Oliver. She feels as though she is gradually discovering a sense of belonging she has lacked since Harrie’s death. Despite her growing happiness, she remains concerned with the possibility that rescuing Rus could erase the man she has fallen in love with and the relationship they have built. However, she remains determined to save him.

As the bicentennial party approaches, Sophie exhausts her search, having found no physical trace of the garden. She reluctantly decides that her only remaining option is to prevent the present-day Cyrus from entering it, even if doing so means sacrificing their relationship. During what may be her final visit, she finds that Rus has transformed the magical garden into a flourishing oasis. They spend their remaining time together, with Rus asking Sophie not to sacrifice her own freedom if she cannot save him.

The following day, Eula offers Sophie an extended position at Lilymoor. She gives her a skeleton key that once belonged to Henry. Sophie then meets the present-day Cyrus as he arrives for the celebration. Unlike the affectionate man she knows from the garden, he is cold, formal, and preoccupied with work. Later, Sophie discovers a document indicating Cyrus’s intention to remove himself from Eula’s inheritance, leaving the estate entirely to Oliver.

As guests gather for the bicentennial, Sophie is surprised by the arrival of her mother and stepfather. Her reunion with them is interrupted when she learns that Oliver and Cyrus have entered the gardens together. Fearing that Cyrus is about to become trapped, Sophie rushes to find him. She encounters Oliver alone in the Hedges, upset that their attempted conversation ended badly, but cannot locate Cyrus. When the magical blue door appears, Sophie tries to reach it, only for a passing cloud to make it vanish.

Convinced she has failed, Sophie breaks down in tears. Wykofski finds and comforts her, allowing Sophie to grieve openly for Harrie after months of suppressing her sorrow. He also mentions an unusual growth of honeysuckle near the large oak in the Central Garden. Returning to the celebration, Sophie hears Eula giving her retirement speech. She talks about Henry’s decision to design the estate so that every path would lead back home. Her words cause Sophie to reconsider the layout of the estate, connecting the unusual concentration of honeysuckle at the estate’s center to the possible location of the hidden garden. 

Sophie retrieves a sledgehammer and breaks through a honeysuckle-covered stone wall in the Central Garden, revealing the blue door. Using Henry’s skeleton key, she unlocks it and discovers the physical Someday Garden. Unlike the beautiful space she visited during golden hour, this garden is neglected and overgrown. She finds Cyrus asleep among the honeysuckle vines and awakens him. He recognizes her immediately and the two embrace, finally reunited outside the garden’s magical suspension of time.

Oliver arrives in the garden shortly after. He immediately punches Cyrus, furious over his decision to surrender their shared inheritance. Cyrus accepts responsibility for his actions. Cyrus and Sophie then leave the garden together. The next morning, Sophie tells Cyrus that she loves him and wants to remain at Lilymoor with him. When Oliver arrives, the cousins finally discuss their estrangement and reconcile, agreeing to inherit and care for the estate together.

Soon afterward, Sophie experiences one final extraordinary encounter in the Hedges. While resting on a familiar bench, she hears Harrie’s voice from their visit 10 years earlier. Through a brief conversation across time, Sophie recalls one of Harrie’s beloved untranslatable words and tells her best friend that she loves her. The experience helps Sophie accept that she can continue loving and remembering Harrie while embracing a future with Rus.

Sophie and Rus begin planning their life together at Lilymoor. Central to their plans is the restoration of the real Someday Garden. In the years that follow, their friends pursue new relationships and adventures, while Eula remains at the estate until her peaceful death a decade later. Sophie and Rus eventually restore the Someday Garden, building a lasting home together on the cliffs overlooking the sea.