The Gardener

She didn’t just change his life. She took control of it. When celebrated novelist John Stone hires a young gardener to restore the grounds of his lakefront estate, he believes he’s found a welcome distraction from grief. Recently widowed and dangerously alone, Stone is unprepared for Vicki Dunn—beautiful, sexual, impulsive, and relentless in her pursuit of everything he has to offer. What begins as an affair quickly becomes an obsession. Within weeks, Vicki has moved into Stone’s home, emptied his checkbook, alienated his daughters, and married him in a whirlwind ceremony abroad. But beneath her seductive charm lies something volatile. Strange nocturnal episodes, emotional cruelty, and an unsettling hunger for dominance signal that Stone’s new wife may not be who—or what—she claims to be. As Stone struggles to reconcile desire with dread, he realizes too late that he has surrendered more than his heart. He has invited a predator into his life. Darkly erotic and deeply unsettling, The Gardener is a chilling psychological thriller about grief, power, and the lies we tell ourselves when we’re afraid to be alone—from bestselling author Peter Leonard.