The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Author: Holly Ringland
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Type: Trade Paperback
Pages: 388
Source: Publisher
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
First Published: July 31, 2018
First Line: "In the weatherboard house at the end of the lane, nine-year-old Alice Hart sat at her desk by the window and dreamed of ways to set her father on fire."

Book Description from GoodReads: 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. 

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to House of Anansi Press for providing me with a complimentary copy of this title in exchange for my honest review. 

My Rating: 3.5 stars

My Review: When I first began this debut novel by Australian author Holly Ringland, its eye-catching cover and its engaging beginning impressed me immediately. Filled with family tragedy and a young heroine readers could get behind, I quickly understood why this book was such a hit in Australia. 

Throughout the book there are beautiful sketches of flowers native to Australia as well as tidbits of info on them that some readers will enjoy. The book has three distinct parts and I was most riveted with the first third of the book as we witness Alice's tumultuous and often abusive childhood. The second part is filled with her new life on a flower farm with her grandmother and a bunch of lost souls where she learns more about her parents' early relationship. Many characters are introduced, some just pop in and others we're given a brief background, but there were some (specifically, Twig, Candy Baby and June) whose contribution to the story felt too brief.

Unfortunately, I found the last third of the book to be weak. It strayed too far from the feeling of the first two-thirds of the book and had a distinctly overly melodramatic feel. More characters are introduced (oh how I wish Moss had a bigger role!) and Alice became someone I almost didn't recognize; she was irritating, immature and made obviously bad decisions. Unfortunately, this part of the story did not grip me as the earlier parts of the book and I found the ending to be predictable. 

My feelings seem to be all over the place with this book. The parts I enjoyed were fantastic and overall, this is an impressive coming-of-age debut that tackles some larger issues. The descriptive writing brings readers into two beautiful and distinct parts of Australia. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart has a family saga feel to it. I just wish it had more depth to some of its characters and a stronger ending.