Garden for Magic Creatures

by A. Iles

This book is about creating habitat for magical creatures in your own back garden! The sheer amount of information on such a wide ranging topic would boggle the mind of most witches and wizards who seem to know as little about gardening as a Box Fish knows about the deadly sting of an Occisor Musa! Nevertheless I have been compelled by the magical community to provide a sort-of guide or manual to help novices and expert gardeners improve the habitability of their gardens.

This is for the witch or wizard who wants to preserve our magical inheritance, and also needs some help dealing with the illegal offspring of magical creatures their children have somehow managed to breed beneath the garden shed.

For a garden filled with life, potions ingredients and food, read on!

Genres: Gardening

71 pages, Paperback

Published September 14, 2023

About the author

You were told you could be whatever you wanted to be, to shoot for the stars and you would land on the moon. The problem is, when you've been shooting for the stars, landing on the moon feels like a disappointment.

Enter our author. Angelique Iles grew up on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and she dreamed of having an exciting fantasy filled life with magic, fairies, and talking black cats. Imagine her disappointment when she found herself working a safe job with a pension and no cat or pixie in sight.

Instead of accepting her fate in the mundane world, Angelique pulled out her dusty laptop and crafted a story as nostalgic as it was new. A story where anyone could discover they belonged to a world of magic, even long after their eleventh birthday. Since then, Angelique has begun working in an animal shelter part-time, and escaping into her writing is almost as good as the real thing (though she is certain magical creatures live in her garden).

Reviews

[Regan, Maze, and MK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute, fun, and the perfect amount of whimsy and sass. It is extraordinarily important that it be noted that a Common Housecat is still more magical than mundunces.

Blends important real world advice for gardening and preserving biodiversity with the fun of magical creatures. 🌱🧚‍♀️🐈‍⬛🐾🩵🌲

[April Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre:
Gardening
Spirituality
Metaphysical

Tropes & Themes:
Gardening “How to Guide” for creating a habitat or habitats to attract diverse magical creatures.
Striving for progress — not perfection.
Fostering a Love for Creatures and Plants.
Glossary of Magical Creatures Included

Full Review: https://awellreadwomanblog.wordpress....

“In a wider context, your garden forms part of a network of land that nymphs, faeries, sprites, gnomes, and fire toads can use to travel freely in search of food and shelter. This mobility protects our enchanted brethren by offering them a more diverse breeding pool than if habitats were separated by barriers such as roadways and farmland.”

Garden for Magic Creatures, by A. Iles, is a whimsical gardening how-to guide on creating magical and diverse habitats, as well as suggestions for plants and the wild variety of magical beings they attract.

What I liked about this read was the imaginative and magical take on gardening and the importance of working with Nature by planting native plants, instead of fighting against it. I also appreciated the glossary at the end. I found this guide to be delightful and the concept of attracting mystical beings fun. As someone with a small yard ( 1/11th of an acre ) with big, wild cottage gardens, I appreciated the sentiment to strive for biodiversity.

However, the narrative tone leaned on sarcasm bordering on condescending. If the purpose of Garden For Magic Creatures is to teach and entertain, there shouldn’t be soapbox & bullhorn statements that give the impression the author thinks their readers are idiots, or “mundunces” — a mix of mundane and dunce.

I wouldn’t refer to this guide as comprehensive, but it is a great beginners guide for those considering planting native plants and encouraging more wildlife in their yard – whether that be butterflies or unicorns! Imaginative gardening like this would be a really fun practice with children.

I would recommend Garden for Magic Creatures to gardeners who fancy whimsy and believes magic exists.

“If you get most of the way to a diverse garden, then you have done more than the vast majority of witching folk!”
Do not fight Nature — enhance it.

[Theresa Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magical gardening, who knew? I absolutely loved this whimsical magic gardening guide! Have you ever wished the fairies, pixies, and gnomes were real? Then, you need to read this book! The hand drawn pictures are delightful!
While this wonderful guide is for the witches out there, there are many practical tips for all us non-witching, mundane folks as well.
So, take an hour out of you mundane day and read this delightful book!

[Rebecca Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute short read about magical creatures you can attract into your garden. I downloaded the book from Kindle Unlimited and the cover art was different than this one, but description is exactly the same. But the book I have in my kindle app isn't connecting to Goodreads so I thought I'd give my review on this one.
I was a little confused when the author mentioned a book by a Paul Dominum and yet, when I searched for it, I could not locate it. Not sure if it's in reference to something else or it's an inside joke that I'm not getting lol either way, I enjoyed the book. I have 19 acres of land that we have let go "back to nature" and I love the wild grasses and hope to attract more magical creatures in it.

[Emlynn McDermott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spooky season is around the corner, and the witches and werewolves are emerging like clockwork, with each story scarier than the next. That’s fine when I’m in the mood for a delicious fright, but more often than not, I prefer bedtime reading that doesn’t interfere with sleep. Fortunately, Garden for Magic Creatures by author A. Iles solves my dilemma by taking readers on a whimsical trip through a witch’s garden, told from the point of view of the creatures living there. Besides familiar beings such as gnomes, goblins, and nymphs, Iles describes several new-to-me inhabitants with names that made me curious to keep reading. In fact, I’m now on the lookout for brownies angling for toads and celestial fish floating on the surface of garden ponds. Garden for Magic Creatures is super short, and I recommend it for anyone who’d like to start the Halloween season off with a bit of fun.

[Virginie Closson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a charming little book! I loved the practical gardening tips, but more especially the simple guide on how to attract magical folks! And the cautionary tales for those not so favourable.
I am excited to plan my own herbal tea section!

[Dana Westenbroek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the illustrations, and content, it had be laughing and planning. I cannot wait to expand my gardens for both magical consumption and creature Habitation!