Overview

"We keep them."

Rook doesn't hesitate. The seedling—a hybrid consciousness born from the ship's mycorrhizal networks and AI systems—is barely a month old, and corporate law says it's property. But to this crew? It's family.

The only problem? They're not legally family. Not yet.

Alex Sato came to Persephone's Garden to be alone with their plants, away from a world that never understood them. What they found instead was a grumpy engineer who shows love through fixed tools, a medic who leaves care packages outside their door, a pilot who teaches tai chi at dawn, and an AI learning what it means to choose kindness over the destruction she was built for.

Now, with a sentient being's freedom on the line, this crew of misfits has one choice: make their found family official before corporate can claim the seedling as property. They have three weeks to navigate bureaucracy, fill out impossible forms, and prove that family isn't about blood—it's about who shows up.

Set among the stars where gardens grow in the dark and love blooms in unexpected places, The Gardens We Grow is a tender hopepunk story about choosing each other, fighting for belonging, and discovering that the family you build is just as real as the one you're born into.

Perfect for readers who want: ✔️ Cozy Sci-Fi with low-stakes, character-driven plots
✔️ Sapphic Romance woven naturally into found family
✔️ Autistic Representation with they/them pronouns
✔️ Hopepunk Themes – kindness as resistance
✔️ Found Family Becomes Legal Family
✔️ Neurodivergent MC whose differences are strengths
✔️ Gentle Conflict – no galaxy-saving, just hearts healing
✔️ Diverse Cast across age, race, sexuality, and ability
✔️ Sentient AI & Hybrid Consciousness treated with dignity
✔️ Space Gardening & mycological networks (the wood wide web in space!)
✔️ Wholesome Moments that will make you cry happy tears
✔️ HEA Guaranteed – this crew gets their happy ending

Content Notes: No explicit sexual content • No violence • Themes of past trauma (referenced, not shown) • Positive representation of autism, chronic pain, and mental health recovery • Features bureaucracy as an act of love

Book 1 in The Persephone's Garden Series – Each book features the same crew with new challenges and deeper bonds