Berthoud-based author Cassondra Windwalker’s newest book, “The Gardener’s Wife’s Mistress,” will hit shelves on Jan. 15, ahead of her Colorado book tour, which also begins this month.
The literary novel follows landscape architect Hayden Hill as he navigates the sudden death of his wife — and discovers that she left him half her share of a flower shop that she co-owned with a woman named Rachel Lundgren. Matters grow more complicated when Hill discovers that what his wife left him is far from what it seems. Without revealing too much, Hill and Lundgren develop an unlikely friendship as they work together to support transgender, homeless teens rejected by their families.
“This book is written from the viewpoint of someone who has honestly never thought about trans people before and who doesn’t have a lot of understanding for them,” Windwalker said. “I’m hoping that a lot of people … will be able to relate to the main character’s experience.”
She said she sees the novel as an impossibly hopeful story for transgender and homeless people.
“You know that feeling you get when you watch a Hallmark movie?” Windwalker said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of hopeful literature out there for trans people or for people on the street.”
Most of the novel was inspired by her time living in Anchorage, Alaska, where many are living on the margins of poverty, she said, as well as her time in Colorado. When she first moved to the Loveland area a couple years ago, there were plans to convert a church in Loveland into a 24-hour homeless facility, which fell through.
“Every single person has a story and it’s not what people see,” she said.
As readers follow Hill’s journey dealing with grief and his wife’s secret, Windwalker hopes the story inspires readers to be more open to those who are different from themselves.
“One of the things in the book is that we don’t have to understand everything about each other if we have compassion for each other,” Windwalker said. “Their relationship (Lundgren and Hill) is very prickly in the beginning, but they become best friends in the course of all of this.”
Author Cassondra Windwalker’s new book, The Gardener’s Wife’s Mistress, sits on a table as she talks Monday, Jan. 2, 2026, about her writing process. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)
Windwalker’s book tour begins at Barnes & Noble in Fort Collins, located at 4045 S. College Ave., on Jan. 17 at 11 a.m. On February 7 at 11 a.m., the author will make her way to Barnes & Noble in Loveland, located at 5835 Sky Pond Drive. She will also make stops at bookstores in Aurora, Boulder, Castle Rock, Denver, Lakewood, Parker, and Thornton throughout the next few months.
The author said she is also looking forward to joining a few book clubs for their discussion of the novel, including the Bindings & Brews book club in Loveland on February 21 at 5 p.m. The club meets at Loveland Aleworks, located at 118 W. Fourth St.
“Books and ideas are meant to be engaged and it can only do good for people to argue and discuss and examine,” Windwalker said. “ … As long as we engage with each other, we can always find a way through. It’s when we isolate and shun each other we can’t get through it.”
Those interested can preorder a copy of “The Gardener’s Wife’s Mistress” on the publisher’s website, typeeighteenbooks.com/product/the-gardeners-wifes-mistress/.
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