The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

By: Holly Ringland

Narrated by: Louise Crawford

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.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I watched the TV series before I read thr book, and I must say it's the first time a TV series has matched the book so closely.
Outstanding story, and brilliant work by the narrator.

A Survival Story

I really enjoyed this book although at times it was harrowing and seemed a little disjointed. Listening to it as an audio book I could see how perfect it would be on the big screen and I'm told it's being released in August - cannot wait!

I struggled to get to the end

I waded through some of the flowers and mythology, rather than enjoying them and feeling they added to the story.
I was at times pained by the characters who found it hard to be true to themselves and others, couldn't reveal truths and repeated mistakes.
I wished the narrator handled men's voices better.
As an Australian, I wished I could better share the travel with real cues as to where the story was based. (That's part of the fun of reading a book set in your own country).

Enjoyable

I liked this book mostly but the ending was rushed and I had questions. Just need a little more refinement with the end.