Garden of Motherless Children

This book releases on October 13, 2026.

All are invited to the author's reading and signing at the Holt Center of the Sultana Education Foundation in Chestertown (200 South Cross Street) at 6 pm on Wednesday, October 14. 

RSVP to contact@thebookplate.net

Admission is free; seating is limited.

Garden of Motherless Children is a short story cycle set on the upper Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Come-here's and from-here's intermingle in surprising ways, sometimes finding unexpected fulfillment, but just as often slipping through each other's grasp right when hope reaches its zenith.

In "May Day," a middle-age divorceé who works at a small college falls inappropriately in love with a graduating senior. Will the biggest obstacle prove to be her daughter or his mother?

In "Can You Show Me the Way?", an influencer couple who are gaining renown on the Internet for their artistic renovation of an old church are suddenly confronted with the vast creative differences they've been papering over.

And in the title story, "Garden of Motherless Children," a well-meaning pastor struggles with a dawning sense of his own ineffectuality as he tries to salvage the life of a homeless veteran of the forever wars.

Twelve more stories round out the cycle in imaginative and surprising ways. For example: A grieving father and War of 1812 reenactor is confronted with a somewhat disorienting chance to reenact his own life. A would-be novelist is given the luxury of unlimited time to write by an enigmatic woman who turns him into a kept man. And an inconstant husband in a marriage he is suddenly eager to preserve finds the perfect piece of jewelry for his wife at a local auction. But can he afford it?

REVIEWS

"These are big, intelligent, brave stories.  Lisa Lynn Biggar doesn't duck the hard moments, the awkward and the inappropriate; she is willing to let her characters, and her readers, squirm a bit. But there are consolations: small moments of clarity or triumph, the sights and sounds of region and landscape, lovely prose."

• Christopher Tilghman, author of Mason's Retreat and On the Tobacco Coast

"A remarkable book, full of quiet respect for the human spirit. In these stories, we meet characters so fully realized, you may recognize them as your neighbors, or family members, or the various struggling souls that populate your town and neighborhood."

• Emily Rich, editor in chief, Bay to Ocean Journal

"Deeply rooted in the landscape, these gorgeous and tender stories follow well-meaning, misunderstood characters yearning to transcend loneliness to find hope."

• Jen Grow, author of My Life as a Mermaid

"Lisa Lynn Biggar is a master of the sublime moment, and her final lines linger long after the last page. Perhaps we, too, to use her words, can be as brave and tender as 'tulips opening to the sun-vulnerable, yet unafraid.'"

•  Seth Brady Tucker, winner of the Eric Hoffer Book Award and author of The Cruelty Virtues