The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland – Review

Synopsis

The most enchanting debut novel of 2018, this is an irresistible, deeply moving and romantic story of a young girl, daughter of an abusive father, who has to learn the hard way that she can break the patterns of the past, live on her own terms and find her own strength.

After her family suffers a tragedy when she is nine years old, Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her estranged grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. But Alice also learns that there are secrets within secrets about her past. Under the watchful eye of June and The Flowers, women who run the farm, Alice grows up. But an unexpected betrayal sends her reeling, and she flees to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. Alice thinks she has found solace, until she falls in love with Dylan, a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a story about stories: those we inherit, those we select to define us, and those we decide to hide. It is a novel about the secrets we keep and how they haunt us, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Spanning twenty years, set between the lush sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, Alice must go on a journey to discover that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.

My review

This was a gorgeous book, the story as well as visually. The cover and illustrations throughout are beautiful.

It’s a story of heartbreak. I feel like I went along the journey of the four significant phases on Alice’s life with her.

This book has my heart. I can’t stop thinking about Alice. I feel like I purposefully dragged reading it out, to take my time and savour each chapter.

This was definitely a 5* read for me and one of my favourites from 2021. It’ll be one that sticks with me for a long time.

Available to purchase via Waterstones.