The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

A beautifully written Australian novel ideal for lovers of gardening, flowers and the language of flowers. After a tragic accident, Alice is sent to live with her grandmother on a flower farm that also acts as a retreat for women. But Alice and her grandmother find that they are unable to escape the secrets of the past or their own guilt. Holly RIngland very cleverly interweave the ideas of Kierkegaard, in particular she was inspired by the quotation “life is lived forward but only understood backward”. Kierkengaard believed in the idea that we are unable to be ever completely happy as we are constantly forced to make impossible decisions. Poor Alice and her grandmother both make some difficult decisions throughout the book with mixed results. Will Alice ever find out the secrets of her past and be able to move forward? I loved this book, though it was a hard read at times due to some of the themes.