Skip to Main Content

The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel

Published by little bee books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

This middle grade, magical realism debut about a young girl who sets out to discover the truth behind her mother's disappearance is The Secret Garden meets the Book Scavenger series!

Floralie Laurel, freshly expelled from Mrs. Coffrey's School for Young Girls, works as a flower seller in an English village with her guardian brother, Tom, miles and miles away from their real home in France. Tom and Floralie are drowning in debt, but fortunately, Grandmama arrives to save them. Unfortunately, Grandmama's idea of "saving" means sending Floralie to the Adelaide Laurel Orphanage for Unfortunate Children and shaping her into a proper lady-i.e., ridding her of imagination, daydreams, paintings, and poetry.

Before Grandmama can take her away, Floralie discovers a hidden box of dried flowers and a letter from her mother, who had mysteriously disappeared years ago. The letter promises that the flowers will lead Floralie to Mama if Floralie decodes them with a floriography-a dictionary of flower meanings-written by Claude Monet's gardener.

Accompanied by an orphan boy who speaks only on paper, a blind librarian, and a thieving dormouse, Floralie sets off for Monet's house in France to find Mama. But Mama's fate may not be quite as Floralie expected, and the gardener may be hiding secrets deeper than Monet's water lily ponds....

About The Author

Product Details

  • Publisher: little bee books (May 1, 2018)
  • Length: 336 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781499808421
  • Ages: 10 - 14

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

In <i>The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel</i>, Moser places her words as carefully as Floralie's flowers, and shows how we can connect with each other, through time and distance, if we're willing to learn another's language at the risk of showing our imperfections.

– Janel Kolby, author of Winterfolk

<i>The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel</i> is a vividly drawn debut that will stick with you long after the final page is turned. Moser's words are her paint and the page her canvas, and the result reads like a Monet masterpiece.

– MarcyKate Connolly, New York Times Bestselling author of Shadow Weaver

A beautiful bouquet of lush language, magical landscapes, and colorful characters. Moser has written a story designed to be sipped and savored like nectar.

– Laura Marx Fitzgerald, award-winning author of Under the Egg and The Gallery

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: Fiadhnait Moser