Sunday, July 31, 2011

On My Nightstand: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Language of Flowers

The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

 Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes meeting a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realise what's been missing in her own life, and as she starts to fall for him, she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, and decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.

"The Language of Flowers" is a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about the meaning of flowers, the meaning of family, and the meaning of love.

Goodreads


 


This book looks like it will be a great read! Many thanks to the publisher for sending me an advanced copy.

1 comment:

UK said...

A wonderfully crafted piece of realistic fiction about neglect, desparation, hostility, unfairness, healing, hope and ultimately love; in other words, life. The author authentically develops the main character, Victoria, using a then vs. now style, intricately weaving a textured canvas of her past and present.

Victoria, a victim of the foster care system since birth, is now faced with a non institutionalized existance upon being "emancipated", from the system, on her eighteenth birthday. With a limited skill-set and a mistrust of human beings, she is now to "make it" on her own and cope adaptively with society at large.