[Note: the JE photo is from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, at a very special spot in the forest trails where bronze replicas of different types of seeds reward those who hunt for the giant trolls on the other side of the gardens.]

I enjoyed the audiobook version of this collection, and got this softcover from an online seller as a release copy. Among my favorites:

"Growing Things": the title story involves young children living in a cabin in a world that seems to have suffered a weird-plant-based catastrophe - and where one of the children innocently tends to the sprouts she finds in the basement. Beautifully claustrophobic.

"The Getaway" is a grim and all-too-believable portrait of an out-of-luck youth who specializes in bad decisions.

"Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport" is told in snippets, as descriptions of actual photographs, and gradually reveals the narrator's very dark purpose. I liked this one a lot.

"Notes for 'The Barn in the Wild'" - a found-document story in which some very peculiar things happen, not least the rambling digressions of the narrator. Definitely has a feel of House of Leaves, though in a short story.

"_________" - the title of this one's a straight black line, irksome when writing reviews or trying to refer to it {wry grin}. It's a nice little chiller about a man who's at the beach with his kids when a woman comes up to him and begins acting as if she's his wife. He doesn't know what to do, can't think where he met her before - and then things begin to go increasingly wrong...

"It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks": a tale that starts out as a rather mundane family holiday, told primarily from the viewpoint of a young boy. The story gets bleak when news reports on TV spook the adults, and the family tries to figure out the best move...

Other tales include a choose-your-own-path haunted-house story, a tale that's a collection of "Notes from the Dog-walkers," which goes from mundane details of the dog's diet and mood to increasingly bizarre stalkeresque missives, climbers attempting a mysterious ice tower in Antarctica with horrifying, eldritch results, and more.

I left this book on a bench in front of the welcome center while visiting with a friend on this beautiful day. (The gardens are amazing - and we found the five trolls and their secret as well!) Hope the finder enjoys the book!

[See other recent releases in ME here.]

*** Released for the 2022 Seeking Septads challenge. ***