Zoë Richards Talks Debut Novel 'Garden Of Her Heart'

3 December 2024

Zoë Richards talks to us about her debut novel, Garden of her Heart, which is available as an audiobook.

Garden Of Her Heart is a story about healing and recovery, can you tell us a little bit more about it?
The main character, Holly Bush (and no, she’s never forgiven her parents for that name combination) is recovering from both mental and physical health scars. After being made redundant she goes to a retreat a little up the coast from where she lives in Liverpool. There, she finds a kitchen garden in need of some TLC, and as she helps to rescue it she finds healing from herself amongst the small community of guests and staff at Pinewoods Retreat. Oh, and there’s a little hint of romance too.

Does Garden Of Her Heart draw from any of your own personal experiences?
It does – both in terms of my own mental health crisis, as I’m a suicide survivor, and my healing process as I took myself out into nature for walks and in the garden. I wanted to show how important nature, community and purpose are to our healing journey, and that we don’t always need to rely on talking therapies as the only form of support.

Can you share with us anything about Holly’s journey?
Holly has become a loner as a result of things that happened in her past. At the start of the novel it’s clear that she is going through a mental health crisis, and I have honoured what that can be like in reality, being more passive in our lives and decisions. When Holly goes to a retreat in Formby, she soon decides it’s the wrong thing to have done, and is ready to go home, when she gets involved in rescuing the kitchen garden. She is able to transform herself through the community and purpose that she encounters when others come and help her, and she soon realises she’s not as alone as she thinks she is. The story is told with an interspersing of Holly’s journal entries, which start of being short, and turn into reflections of the change she goes through.

Friendships play an important part in this story too. Can you share with us the kind of friendships Holly makes along the way?
Holly makes friends with two of the other guests at Pinewoods Retreat, San and Bex, each of them experiencing loneliness for their own reason. They help each other through being there for each other. As well as that, Holly realises that friendship can be found with people who are older than her, which is something that is incredibly important to me, as I have friends ranging from eleven years old up to late seventies. Holly has spent too long on her own because of her circumstances, and through her friendships she learns to love herself and believe in herself again.

Can you sum up the garden to us in five words?
Goodness! That’s not easy. Hmm. It goes from unloved and overgrown, to inviting, wholesome and organic.

You have your own podcast, Write, Damn It!, would you be happy to tell us a little bit about it?
I started the podcast as a way of reminding myself of things I know from my 35 years or so of coaching on mindset and transformation – it’s easier to support others in their growth than it is to use our knowledge and expertise to support ourselves. Over time it became clear that others find it helpful too. I do a combination of author interviews and mindset memos, with a new quarterly ‘book haul’ episode where I chat with a book reviewer, Bookaholic Bex, about her recent favourite reads, and what she’s looking forward to.

You also write stand-up comedy, can we expect to see any touches of that in Garden of Her Heart?
I’ve not performed stand-up for a while, but I still enjoy writing stand-up routines, and bringing humour into what I writer where I can. Although Garden of Her Heart isn’t a comedy, I have woven elements of real-life humour into the story, like when Holly is woken up when a dog licks her face, and I’ve also used some of the things that work in comedy, such as the call-back, which I do by planting seeds throughout the novel – sorry, gardening puns somehow always creep in.

Are you working on any new projects at the moment?
I have just finished book 2 which is a standalone sequel to Garden of Her Heart – it’s called Tell It To The Bees, and all I can say is that Pinewoods Retreat is at risk and might not survive a visit from Georgie when she comes to stay in the lead up to an award ceremony. And I’m also working on A Christmas Wedding at Pinewoods Retreat – you can guess some bits of that story – it’s Christmas, there’s a wedding, and it’s at Pinewoods Retreat. But I’ll not drop any spoilers beyond that!

Do you have a favourite flower?
Oh goodness, well I love flowers and plants in general, but if I have to pick, I have three. One is cherry blossom because it’s the awakening of flowers after the dark winter, another is hydrangea because it’s just beautiful with its cluster of flowers, and then I also love viburnum Davidii for its beautiful small flowers and incredible scent. Oh wait, let’s not forget jasmine flowers too. I also adore the acer tree if I’m allowed one that isn’t a flower – am I pushing it a bit there?