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    The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
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    The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
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    The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

    Written by Holly Ringland

    Narrated by Louise Crawford

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    About this audiobook

    Winner of the 2019 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year Award.

    The international bestseller, now sold to over 30 territories internationally, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart tells the enchanting and compelling 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.

    'Lush, powerful ...an engrossing novel of female survival.' Bookseller + Publisher

    Now an AACTA Award winning TV series on Prime Video.


    A young girl loses both her parents in a tragic event, and is taken to live with her grandmother on a flower farm. Growing up, Alice learns the language of Australian native flowers as a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. But she also learns that there are secrets within secrets about her past. An unexpected betrayal leaves her reeling, and she escapes to try to make her own - sometimes painful - way through the world, and to find her story.

    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, and set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows the life of Alice as she discovers that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 2, 2018
    ISBN9781460797983
    Author

    Holly Ringland

    Holly Ringland is an Australian writer, storyteller, and television presenter. Her internationally bestselling debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, has been published in 30 territories and adapted into an Amazon Prime TV series, starring Sigourney Weaver. Holly is the co-presenter of the documentary series, Back To Nature, which aired to critical acclaim. Her bestselling second novel, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding was followed by her first non-fiction book The House That Joy Built: The pleasure and power of giving ourselves permission to create. Holly lives between Manchester, England (where she wrote the first draft of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart) and the Gold Coast, Australia. She tends to her gardens of native Australian flowers in both places.

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    Reviews for The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

    4/5

    108 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A genius story teller. Very compelling . I look forward to reading it again.
    • 5/5
      Very powerful writing, beautifully read. I only wish that the Pitjantjatjara accent had been more faithfully approximated, or not attempted. I know that's a stickling comment, but it was the only part of the listening experience that bugged me, so all in all my compliments on both writing and reading prevail. Lovely.
    • 5/5
      An incredibly beautifully written story. The story was full of heart break, hope and love. I cannot recommend this book enough.
    • 5/5
      I wasn't expecting such an absorbing and thought provoking story and quickly fell into Alice's world, continuously hoping that she could work through her problems, and hoping for the best for her.
      This is a beautifully written and very worthwhile read. It has allowed me to consider the ways I have concocted to lock doors and let life's negatives slip away unexamined.. Finding and trusting those who can help shed light on the dark days of life its so important. Understanding your family's story and having your own story accepted, without judgement, by family and friends allows true freedom.
    • 5/5
      A sad tale of love overcoming loss and pain, beautifully crafted and imminently enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      There is so much sadness and so much beauty in this book. I loved that there was no tying together of different threads and characters in different places. There was no neat resolution because that’s not how life works, but there was hope. I felt bad for June.
    • 5/5
      Oh this book is so beautiful! I can't remember the last time I found a book that drew me in so instantaneously! I was literally hooked from the second page! Nine year old Alice Hart lives on a cane farm in a fairy tale world with her mother that helps shield her from her abusive father's dark moods. When tragedy strikes, Alice goes to live with the grandmother she never knew she had on her native flower farm. And so begins a story of generational strife, family secrets & finding your own way.When we first meet Alice, the story has a dream-like quality as Alice & her mother find ways to cope with her father's abuse. The descriptions are so vivid they almost jump off the page. The prose is so beautiful & written so clearly you can almost see it playing out in front of you.As the story progresses the writing loses that quality as Alice comes to grips with her new circumstances. It still holds you in it's grip though!I never once lost interest in this book. It gripped me from the start & I had such a hard time putting it down, it only took me three days to read it. This is a new firm favourite & definite five star read.
    • 3/5
      A pleasant read despite dealing with the bitter issue of domestic violence. It moved along at a brisk pace--I devoured it in a few days--and the background stories and illustrations were thoroughly interesting. My objection is the sophomoric treatment of love/attraction, which was indeed central to the plot, where everyone falls in love at first sight. She 'coup de foudre's the hell out of the story and this diminished my appreciation of it.
    • 4/5
      This one surprised me. I must admit I had judged the book by its pretty cover and uninspiring title and mentally dumped it in the “looks like a Light Between Oceans type of read.” However, I tried out the audio version and found myself sufficiently invested in the characters and the drama that I needed to renew the book twice in order to finish it (a 12 hour epic, I think).
      I would even say this novel sits in the Bildungsroman genre - a term I only recently learnt...so go look it up. Domestic violence is a key theme of the book.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. Not my usual style but I'm glad I picked it up. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Flowers and their meanings give uniqueness and beauty to this story of a woman's journey to her true self.There are some confronting scenes some people will find very uncomfortable to read, but they are important, the sort of story that happens daily but is rarely told.The cast of characters is primarily female but it is far from what could be termed a 'girly' novel. A myriad of strengths and weaknesses, tied together by wordless sisterhood. Each on their own journey, but tied to one another to some degree. Men also have their own roles, each important to the story.The conclusion is an unexpected turn, but is satisfying in its way.I received my copy through NetGalley. My views are my own.
    • 4/5
      The moving and exquisite tale of a young girl, Alice Hart, navigating her way to womanhood through a miasma of domestic violence and family secrets, The Lost Flowers is an impressive debut novel.
      In particular, the first half of the novel is captivating. The use of the language of flowers is a clever concept to tie elements of the story together, but a couple of times it seemed a little forced.
      The book is presented beautifully, and somebody (or somebodies) at the publisher deserve resounding congratulations for the cover art and the detailed illustrations of flowers inside. Simply for the pleasure of holding this book in your hands, it's very much worth reading.
      The first sentence! Such an attention grabber!
      There is, of course, a dissonance between the beauty of the flowers and the horror of the domestic violence, loss, damaged relationships, grief and guilt at the heart of the novel. I always cringe when reading these scenes because I know it's going to end badly - especially for the dog - more than once in Alice's life. Like many children of abusive fathers, she enters a relationship with another abuser, and that is a situation that is unresolved. Violent but gorgeous Dylan gets away not only with knocking Alice about, but also (like many bullies) with turning the tables on her by reporting her for domestic violence. I felt that, for Alice and for many domestic abuse victims, there really is no getting away from it.
      Towards the end of the novel, it seems that the carefully crafted story-with-flower-language hurries on to a conclusion, and that was a little disappointing. The sudden recovery of the lost brother after the death of June (the alcoholic grandmother with the magnificent flower farm) felt a little forced - and Sally, much as I loved her and wondered what had become of her, is really too good for the tenor of the rest of the novel, in that she doesn't display human flaws (apart from stupidly having a one night stand with Alice's horrible father Clem Hart. Ugh.).
      I found I could enter the mindset of most of the women in this novel, which is no mean feat. I found it more difficult to engage with the male characters, either because I am predisposed to think that there is no excuse for domestic violence, or because the author actually places the reader in the position of the abused - we don't understand, we just suffer.
      All in all, an intriguing novel and one which will repay the reader with much to think about and talk about. If you are part of a reading group, definitely put this on the list for 2018!