The Garden Between Worlds: A Tale of Magic and Identity is the luminous debut novella by Islay Corwin where what begins as a fairy tale becomes a reckoning with truth and belonging. It's about the families that shape us, the heritage that calls to us, and the courage to claim all parts of ourselves.
Three elvin folk place an infant girl in the herb ring of a mysterious manor garden to be rescued moments later by Sarah, a botanist, plant curator, and medieval garden expert. Sarah adopts the baby at six months old, names her Stella, and together with Sarah's mother, they begin a new life in the enchanted manor house within the protection of the botanical preserve.
As seasons pass, fragments of truth begin to surface: a birth name long buried and a magical inheritance hidden in the garden's soil. Stella's world is reflected and rippled, and although it entices, the mystery of her origin remains beyond her reach. Silent watchers through Stella's childhood, the fae train her to embrace mirrors and memory, mentoring her life passages, until they succeed in planting her within her half-fae heritage, integrating her identity within the forest cedars that fringe her world.
Her metaphysical abilities emerge with the longing and confusion about where she fits in family and community. Her need to integrate her dual heritage rather than choose between worlds appeals to the fantasy of possible, unlocked potential.
Stella's narration, from an omniscient-transcendent perspective, allows young adult readers access to themes of self-discovery and identity formation.
Islay Corwin has written a fairy story in botanical language that enriches its emotional landscape. Her prose shifts like the Cedar Dryad between narrative clarity and poetic lyricism, occupying both forest and the fertile ground between literary fiction and magical realism. The mysterious world of the Silverton Estate's Medieval Monastery Garden is a liminal space where boundaries blur, roots connect past to present, the cedar groves are anchors, black roses mark thresholds, and morning glories bloom in the snow.
