Welcome to Litsy!

“Alice imagined a library must be a quiet garden of books, where stories grew like flowers.”

When I started reading this one, I didn‘t think I was going to like it. I was wrong. I ended up not being able to put it down! The story was a little bit predictable and too neatly wrapped up at times but I still enjoyed it. The domestic violence aspect was quite confronting. The language of flowers is interesting and the Australian settings were great to read about.

I haven‘t heard from my #auldlangspine match at all so I don‘t feel so bad bailing on this. It‘s a long-ish audiobook at 13 hours and I gave it 2 but it felt like a chore. Too overwritten for my taste and I didn‘t connect with the characters or story. It has got some good reviews on here and maybe better in print, but not for me.

I had never heard of this book until my mom sent me the trailer to the show on Prime Video and I knew I had to read it before I watched. I finished this last night and this book was just so beautiful and heartbreaking at times. I‘m so very glad I read this book. It‘s one that will stick with you for awhile after you finish it.

Listening to the tagged book while I baked this orange upside down cake for the very first time was very entertaining.

...life is lived forward but only understood backward. You can‘t see the landscape you‘re in while you‘re in it.

Slow to get started I almost gave up but gradually I warmed to the characters and began to enjoy the story. The flower explanations at the start of each chapter are a lovely touch.

#ArtfulAugust

Here‘s a dozen books from my stacks, each with a pretty #FloralCover 💐

21-29 Jun 2022 (audiobook)
Audible book of the month. Not a book I would choose. Alice seems to be caught in a cycle of abusive and damaging relationships; the text is over-written; and I did not warm to the narrator. I failed to see the appeal of Dylan or why Oggie failed to make contact for so many years. I disliked the portrayal of the father and was not sure whether we were supposed to feel sympathetic towards him, losing his inheritance.

Such a beautiful ode to Australia's flora, natural landscapes and legends of the aboriginal population, entwined with meaningful worldwide indigenous tales.

After a terrible tragedy in her family, deeply wounded nine year-old Alice moves to her grandmother's farm where she learns the mysterious, magical and healing language of Australian flowers, which will guide her to understand her past and surpass her traumas.

#QuotsyApr21 @TK-421
Prompt: Arrival

🌸 tagged for my book club
👩 for #Sundaybuddyread
🕶 for attempting to finish one series this year!

#3books #IPlanToReadThisMonth

Some important themes, but very flourishing prose with many convenient and predictable twists in the story ... just too sweet for me. I didn‘t like the content, but I do like the cover. #Booked2020 #CoverCrush

I'm finally reading this beautiful book and I'm liking it so far 😄

#bookworm #currentread #hollyringland #thelostflowersofalicehart

#7days7covers #covercrush #Day1 🌺

@ValerieAndBooks invited me to play along with posting 7 covers I love but it took me a few days to get started. 🤗📚I feel like I am behind so if you want to play & haven‘t consider yourself tagged.

Ok, even with stopping to make dinner, the last one was a completely engrossing and quick read. Can I get lucky twice in a row? Side note: how gorgeous is this cover?

I‘ve seen this book around for a while and finally I‘ve read it. A delightful read. I learnt a lot about Australian flowers. A lot of research must have gone into this book. Raised a few issues also that got me thinking. Another great Aussie read. #ozfiction @MrsMalaprop

😍😍

#WanderingJune
Looking for books for the theme online & saw this one. A girl with an abusive father goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a flower farmer, later fleeing from a betrayal to the Australian desert. #AFlowerInTheDesert, it seemed to fit the theme well & after seeing the Litsy love for it, I ordered a copy from Book Depository (cheaper than Amazon & B&N). Another book or so MAY have slipped into the order. 🤷🏼‍♀️#sorrynotsorry

The story starts when Alice leaves her home as a young girl after a family tragedy and follows her as she grows into her own person. Along the way she discovers long held family secrets and strengths she didn't know she had. The descriptions of environment and the flowers were beautiful and evocative. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Will definitely be reading more by Holly Ringland. And I love the cover.

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, Alice must go on a journey to discover that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.
#flowers #literarylove

This book has good reviews here, and made me want to read it! Such a gorgeous cover too. A lovely coming-of-age story about loss, love and redemption. Alice is sent to live with her grandmother, a flower farmer, who teaches her the language of the flowers. Possibly there are some #birdofparadise plants on the farm. 😁
#winterwonderland

Loved it!! A wonderful, sad but hopeful story of Alice Hart and the flowers that represented her life. It gives such a stunning glimpse of the Australian landscape, coast and desert. I loved how each chapter started with some information about a particular Australian wildflower. #ozfiction

The only good thing about this being my weekend to work at the library is getting a couple of hours to listen to this stunning audiobook.

This was a good book. It‘s magic realism was the aspect that captured me as the story was a little melodramatic for my taste. It‘s a 3 and a half from me. Check out my tumblr site in the same name as my Litsy. #australianauthor #aussieread #aussiereader

A new audiobook and it‘s already had me in tears on my commute.

Brilliant. Using the language of Australian native flowers, the life of Alice Hart is beautifully told.

#BookMail Pt3 And of course, how could I buy a book for someone without buying one(or two😉) for myself as well! It actually turned into a #loveozauthors #bookhaul I‘ve heard great things about this debut novel by Aussie author Holly Ringland. Growing up in SE Queensland before moving to Manchester, UK in 2009, this is a story about how flowers can heal & uplift you🌸It‘s also a love story for Australian wildflowers & the majesty of our outback.🌞

This was a beautiful book inside and out. Enchanting is the perfect word to describe it.

Getting ready to start this STUNNING book. The insides could possibly be more beautiful than the outside!

This is my latest audio book from BorrowBox and I almost gave up after the first chapter due to the disturbing domestic violence. Thankfully I persisted because although I‘m only about an hour in I‘m kind of hooked. The description of flowers at the beginning of each chapter is just wonderful but the little girl Alice is resilient and strong and so far exquisitely drawn. ❤️

#AbbaInAugust #Australia @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @vkois88
Both if these books take place down under.

"Oggi went to his mother's rose garden and gathered a collection of fallen petals and leaves and placed them on the dirt around her (...) I told myself, anything inside the circle is safe from sadness."?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This blew me away - what a debut! Full review www.sixminutesforme.com

Life changing

I wanted to really love this, but I found it quite contrived and disjointed. Instead of the symbolism throughout Alice's life flowing organically and naturally through the prose, I felt as though the author was banging me over the head with it. "Look here! This flower means this! And this is happening to Alice! Gasp!" It's not bad at all, and I'm sure many readers will love it, but the over flowery (pun!!) writing and plot is not really my thing.

#currentlyreading this debut from an Aussie Author. I think I‘m going to need a box of tissues 😢

Such a gorgeous cover 😍 I have heard great things about this book and I can't wait to read it 😄🙌

#hollyringland #thelostflowersofalicehart

#ReadingResolutions @Jess7 1. June TBR. I don‘t have a conventional stack of TBR books because what I read next is usually random (I use a TBR jar) but these books are on hold at the library, so they are definite June reads.

A beautiful heart wrenching book of love and loss, with beautiful illustrations of native flowers.

Ringland‘s debut novel is a heartfelt account of love, cycles of abuse, and healing, set against a range of magnificent Australian landscapes #auslit ⭐⭐⭐⭐ See my full review at https://www.wherethebooksgo.wordpress.com

💗 💖 💕 loved this book!! The writing and the story drew me in from the first page. The story is about loss, about heartache, about dealing with your past demons, about family, about surviving and finally, finding yourself. I also loved all the beautiful descriptions of the Australian landscape - from the sea to its red centre and of course the descriptions of all the native flowers. ❣️💯✅

Trigger warning: domestic violence

💗 💖 💕 lovin‘ this book!!

Time to change up the genres...from sci-fi to contemporary fiction. Also, I love this cover of Australian native flowers! 💐 💖

#debutnovel

Some books use words as bricks, stacked one after the other until the whole beautiful story is built. In other books, the words themselves are marvels, things of loveliness on their own that, even if the story was not there, would be worth reading all the same. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is proving to be just such a book, as glorious within as its cover promises. The story is quiet and vivid (and heartbreaking).

#TripleTuesday by @MelAnn

1. Books 📚📚📚
2. Dust jacket
3. Amazon, Waterstones, Wordery