Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s debut novel on adoption, mistrust, solitude, lack of parental relationship and dysfunctional families, abuse, forgiveness, and passion for flowers. It follows the perspective of 18-year-old Victoria Jones, who has been handed from foster home to foster home all her childhood. When she turns eighteen, she becomes a flower arranger because flowers are the only way the emotionally damaged young girl is able to connect to the world using their symbolic meanings. Her focus on botany keeps her from confronting her childhood trauma but once her daughter Hazel is born she has no choice but to deal with her past.

Novel · United States · 2011