(W) Darcy Van Poelgeest (A/CA) Erin Connally A tender, brutal love story about mothers and daughters and what we become in their absence in this gorgeous, hand-painted original graphic novel. On a quiet street in 1930s New Orleans, a florist agrees to work through the night to construct a floral arrangement for a funeral the coming morning for a peculiar customer—a precocious 11-year-old girl named Adeil who pays the florist in stories. For every new flower the florist adds to the bouquet, Adeil offers another dissonant detail in her story: a chance meeting with a disillusioned jazz singer, a dilapidated family home, an idyllic life on the fringes of an imperfect world. As dawn approaches and the arrangement takes shape, the florist is left to piece together the final details of Adeil’s mysterious life and ponder…where exactly does she fit into this story? From Eisner Award-winning writer DARCY VAN POELGEEST (Little Bird) and superstar watercolor artist ERIN CONNALLY comes THE CUTTING GARDEN, a gorgeously rendered meditation on finding beauty in the darkest corners of our own humanity.