This middle grade, magical realism debut about a young girl who sets out to discover the truth behind her mothers disappearance is The Secret Garden meets the Book Scavenger series!Floralie Laurel, freshly expelled from Mrs. Coffreys 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, Grandmamas 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 Monets gardener.Accompanied by an orphan boy who speaks only on paper, a blind librarian, and a thieving dormouse, Floralie sets off for Monets house in France to find Mama. But Mamas fate may not be quite as Floralie expected, and the gardener may be hiding secrets deeper than Monets water lily ponds....

This middle grade, magical realism debut about a young girl who sets out to discover the truth behind her mothers disappearance is The Secret Garden meets the Book Scavenger series!Floralie Laurel, freshly expelled from Mrs. Coffreys 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, Grandmamas 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 Monets gardener.Accompanied by an orphan boy who speaks only on paper, a blind librarian, and a thieving dormouse, Floralie sets off for Monets house in France to find Mama. But Mamas fate may not be quite as Floralie expected, and the gardener may be hiding secrets deeper than Monets water lily ponds....