The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her questioning what’s been missing in her life, and when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness





I love fresh flowers.  Even when money is extra tight, I try to ensure that I have some fresh flowers in the house, they cheer me up - they brighten up the room and there is nothing better than the smell of things such as freesia and stocks to make me feel better.  

I was delighted when Chloe from Macmillan sent me a copy of Vanessa Diffenbaugh's novel The Language of Flowers - it will be published here in the UK on 18 August 2011.

What a beautiful book, both the story itself and the actual book.  The cover is a stunning design,  and different parts of the story have front pages with gorgeous calligraphy - it really is beautifully designed and presented. 

The subject of the novel fascinated me, the language of flowers and each flower's individual meaning - something that I knew nothing about, although I believe that our latest member of the Royal Family - Kate Middleton is very interested in the subject.   

I was also drawn by the fact that the lead character of the story is a foster child - I've worked for charities now for many years and for four years I ran a drop in project for young people that were 'leaving care'.  Aged between 17 and 21, these were kids that had been in the system for all of their lives and were making that difficult transition from being 'looked after' to living in the wide world by themselves. I'd also run a project for young parents who had been in the care system, so had many memories of these children and their unique problems.

Victoria is 18 years old and has spent her life being moved from one foster carer to another and between different group homes before finally leaving the system as the book opens.   

During her time in the system she has had no consistency, except for her Social Worker Meredith - a woman who has only displayed frustration and anger towards her.     

The reader is made aware that Victoria did once have the chance to make a new life with a lady called Elizabeth and this back story is interwoven with Victoria's present day situation.  It is clear that Victoria and Elizabeth loved each other, but that they have been estranged for the last 8 years - as the story unfolds, we learn more and more about their relationship, but it is not until the end of the novel that we find out the whole truth. 

This really is a wonderful read.  It is beautifully written and it is clear that Diffenbaugh has spent a lot of time researching the language of flowers.   

Victoria is homeless when she meets Renata, the owner of Bloom, a florist shop.   Victoria has always loved flowers and their meaning, something that Elizabeth taught her during their time together.  Renata recognises her talents and gives her a chance in the shop.  It is not long before Victoria's bouquets become famous in the neighbourhood and at last she has found something that she is good at. 

There is a wariness about Victoria - she finds it difficult to love and to be loved.  She trusts no one and is afraid that she will be hurt and that she will hurt anyone who gets close to her.   One day at the flower market she meets Grant, Elizabeth's nephew.   Grant knows more about Victoria's history than anyone else and although this scares her, it also draws her to him. 

I can't go into more detail or I would spoil the book for those who have not yet read it.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Language of Flowers is a joy to read.     

I loved every page of it.  Victoria is a flawed but vulnerable heroine - a girl who is desperate for affection, but also terrified of rejection. 

It is a story of relationships and love, especially between mothers and daughters, and the added intrigue of the meaning of flowers only adds another dimension to the novel.   

An excellent first novel that I would highly recommend.

Macmillan Publishers have set up a wonderful website for the book, you can find it here, you can watch the trailer for the book and also send a beautiful virtual bouquet of flowers to your friends and loved ones.  Choose the flowers according to their meaning and add your own message.

Again, a huge thank you to Chloe from Macmillan who sent me a copy to review.

We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

How far would you go for your children?

Would you lie for them? Flee with them? Let someone else mother them if you thought they would do a better job?

As a single parent, Letty does everything for her two children - apart from raise them. Being a mother terrifies her more than she can admit, and so she's always let her mother take that role. When Maria Elena ups and leaves, however, Letty has to confront her fears and become the parent she doesn't think she can be.

Even as she tries to give her children a future, Letty's teenage son, Alex, struggles to forgive his mother for choices she made in the past. But he and Letty are not so dissimilar, and both are prepared to risk everything for those they love.

Honest and compelling, We Never Asked for Wings is about family; it's about the decisions we take, the mistakes we make, the people we trust, and, above all, how - and where - we find love.

We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh was published by Mantle (Pan Macmillan) in hardback on 10 September 2015 and is the author's second novel.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh's first novel The Language Of Flowers was one of my first reviews on Random Things, I loved it then and I love it now. It's one of those quiet, slow, beautiful books that leaves a real imprint on your heart. It's a book that I recommend often. I have waited patiently for four years for her second novel, and I am delighted to say that the wait was worth it!

Just like The Language of Flowers, this novel is beautifully structured, the writing is elegant yet simple and the characters are so wonderfully created, each one of them with a voice of their own to add to this enchanting story.

The strongest theme within the story of We Never Asked For Wings is that of parenthood. Letty is the mother of two children; Alex is fourteen and Luna just six, and although she gave birth to them, and has lived with them for all of their lives, she has never been a mother to them. Letty can't tell you when they took their first steps, or said their first words. She's not sure what their favourite meal is or what they like to watch on television.

Becoming a mother at eighteen was not in Letty's life plan. It was not what her parents wanted for her either, or her teachers at high school. Letty was more than happy to hand over the parenting of Alex and Luna to her own mother, Maria Elana, whilst she stayed out late, went to parties and generally behaved just like her teenage friends.

When Maria Elena and her husband go back to Mexico and decide to stay there, Letty is terrified. She is on her own, sole provider and carer for two young lives. However, Letty is a fighter, and a worker and as she and Alex and Luna learn about each other, their love grows and Letty's maternal instincts take over. She becomes determined to make sure that her kids will have the best education, live in a nice neighbourhood and not make the same mistakes that she did.

Throughout this, young Alex is maturing too, and falling in love with Yesenia - a pretty Mexican girl who wears built up shoes and has scars on her back. He's also coming to terms with the fact that his beloved Grandfather will not be returning to guide him through life, so embarks on a mission to find out more about the father that he has never known.

I was completely entranced by We Never Asked For Wings, from the very first chapter. I started the book late on Friday afternoon and finally closed it on Saturday night. The characters had become part of me, I felt as though I was living and breathing their story.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh tells in her Acknowledgements, how difficult she found this second novel to write. She struggled for years and almost completely re-wrote it during that time. I can assure her, and her fans that the struggle was worth it. She once again, has produced a story that is so beautifully crafted, with characters that entrance and delight. Her intelligent insights into family relationships and the workings of the teenage brain is marvellous and adds such depth and meaning to the story.

Huge thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh was born and raised in northern California. 

After studying creative writing, she went on to teach art and technology to youth in low-income communities. She and her husband PK have four children: Donovan, Tre'von, Graciela and Miles. 

Vanessa is also the co-founder of Camellia Network, whose mission is to create a nationwide movement to support youth transitioning from foster care. 

She and and her family live in Monterey, California.

We Never Asked for Wings is her second novel. Her first, The Language of Flowers, was published in over forty countries, and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller in the UK.

More information can be found at her website www.vanessadiffenbaugh.com

Follow her on Twitter @VDiffenbaugh      Find her author page on Facebook



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Spaghetti Head by Sarah Tyley @sarah_tyley #BlogTour #SpaghettiHead #RandomThingsTours #MyLifeInBooks

In a peaceful world with a massively reduced population, the planet’s all-female governing System need Nell Greene to have a child, and fast. But there’s a problem: she’s still single and her manipulative inner voice wants her to remain that way. Nell meets a man she has liked for years and believes he could be ‘the one’ - but can she quiet her inner voice, overcome her debilitating fear of commitment, pressure from her family, and the consequences of the punishment she will face if she doesn’t fall in love with him and reproduce: or will the System win? `Spaghetti Head is a fun, quirky, and sweet read. I jumped into Spaghetti Head expecting the typical post-apocolyptic novel - but what I got was so much better. While the story is set against a backdrop of a world governed by computers, still recovering from a major natural disaster, and on the verge of a human revolution, the real heart of the book is Nell's journey of learning to love and trust. Nell struggles throughout the story to overcome SID, her inner voice that is a constant cause of pain and distrust. With the help of a few unique and special characters, Nell works to make peace with SID. There were so many moments in the book when Nell had a moment of enlightenment or a moment of insecurity, and I identified with her so much that it took me by surprise. Spaghetti Head is truly a special story.' Amazon reader. Spaghetti Head is Sarah Tyley's debut novel that addresses issues of modern womanhood, environmental devastation and the impact of technological advances on our freedom, relationships and mental health

Spaghetti Head by Sarah Tyley was published on 4 May 2018. As part of the #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour I'm delighted to welcome the author here today. She's talking about the books that are special to her in My Life In Books.

My Life in Books - Sarah Tyley

The first book I loved as a child was the Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. I didn’t understand the horrors of bullfighting at the time, but I did love Ferdinand because he would rather smell flowers than fight. He was different. And we’ve all loved him for it.

Then I started reading poetry and I couldn’t imagine my life without a Spike Milligan poem in it:

My sister Laura’s bigger than me

And lifts me up quite easily.

I can’t lift her, I’ve tried and tried;

She must have something heavy inside.

Need I say more? A Children’s Treasury of Milligan is one of my absolute favourites, and I would say that Spike has influenced my writing more than anyone else. I wrote a lot of poetry whilst travelling in my late teens and early twenties and many of them were daft. The world needs daft.

In my early twenties I read The Chariots of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken and believed many of Von Daniken’s theories of extra-terrestrial influences on early human culture were plausible. From this book onwards, I set out on a journey of looking at and feeling differently about the world around me.

A few years later a friend passed me a copy of The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, and although sometimes a little long-winded, this book explores psychological and spiritual ideas, many that have their roots in ancient Eastern traditions. The mix of Celestine with Chariots really strengthened my quest for a greater meaning to life and have both impacted on what I like to write about.

Another I read shortly after I’d well and truly tucked into reading self-help was What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter. I bought this in a tiny and very dusty treasure-chest of a book-shop in Islamabad and devoured its contents in days. Again, it was all about changing energies – this time on an internal basis. I have read it and re-read it over the years and it played a direct role in Spaghetti Head evolving into the story that it did.

I had many self-help books open at this point in my life and I went to a spiritual church one evening where I received a message from the medium that it was time to shut all my books – I had all the information I needed: it was now time to start writing.

And so I closed my non-fiction books, started writing Spaghetti Head and returned to reading fiction: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert was a good one. I had travelled on every continent throughout my twenties and been questing for a higher purpose throughout my thirties and Eat Pray Love brought all of these aspects together in a funny, brilliant novel. Chapter 42 with Gilbert’s portrayal of an attempt at meditation is a classic to any of us who have ever tried it.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is another book that I loved. I read it as I was starting out as a professional gardener and it is a great tale of self-development, loss, love and hope. I found the way it uses flowers as the main thread throughout the story really inspiring and genius and I learnt an awful lot about gardening in the process!

After some years away from reading self-help/spiritual books, I stumbled upon Butterflies Are Free to Fly by Stephen Davis – It is an easily readable look at quantum physics and how recent scientific experiments can change our understanding of life, our reality, and our spirituality. I love the author’s style, the fact that it is a free eBook and the way he challenges us to ‘step out of the movie theatre’.

Trying to maintain a balance of fiction/non-fiction these days, We Were Liars by E Lockhart is the best and most moving novel that I have recently read - I just could not put it down. We are used to stories giving us a happy ending, which this one most certainly doesn’t. After I’d finished reading it I thought about it constantly, and even now, three years later it still bothers me – isn’t that the sign of a brilliant read?

And as far as my writing life is going, I don’t think I’d have managed to finish my debut novel, Spaghetti Head without having read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Written as a novel I love the writer’s style and the fact that it is packed with great writing advice. It is witty, easy to read and as I consult my daily ‘to do’ lists I always attempt to tackle them ‘Bird by Bird’.

Sarah Tyley - August 2018 

I grew up on a dairy farm in Somerset and had a lovely childhood running around outside, spending alot of time surrounded by cows. I would have to be biased towards Friesians, but really any cow will do - I love them all.

I have written a diary since I was twelve, and some years ago I thought to myself ‘hey, that must mean I’m a writer’ – and so I embarked on short stories. I never quite got the hang of those so moved on to trying a novel.

I currently live in France splitting my time between my gardening business, writing, and playing tennis. I love Roger Federer almost as much as I love cows

Website http://www.sarahtyley.co.uk/

Author Page on Facebook

Twitter  @sarah_tyley

Unaccustomed To Grace by Lesley Bannatyne BLOG TOUR #UnaccustomedToGrace @BannatyneLesley @RandomTTours

Unaccustomed to Grace is a collection of short stories where the unlikely outcome for irresponsible acts and unfortunate events result in redemption. 

Bannatyne's mastery of the written word informs these stories of common conflict with a brilliantine magic rarely found in contemporary literature. 

From the unlikely romance between a zoo employee and a spiritualist/activist to the redemption of a grandmother's long-rehearsed vengeance, these heart-warming stories are the contemporary fables we need in these stressful days.

Unaccustomed to Grace by Lesley Bannatyne was published on 8 March 2022 by Kallisto Gaia Press. As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I'm delighted to share an extract from the book with you today. 

Extract from Unaccustomed To Grace 

by Lesley Bannatyne

Corpse Walks into a Bar

JUST ME THERE AROUND CLOSING and Sid the owner is back in the kitchen loading highball glasses into the dishwasher and this corpse stumbles in and starts going on about how I gotta bury him. The juke is pumping heavy metal because that’s what Sid likes and it’s just me in the bar so he doesn’t care. Well it’s not just me and that’s the problem here.

“You’re none of my business,” I say to the corpse. “I don’t know you. I don’t know your people.”

“A decent person would honor a dead man’s request,” the corpse says. “A decent man would help a pal,” he says.

“You’re not my pal,” I say, eyes steady on my glass. “And I’m not a decent man.”

“You don’t have to be a decent man to do a decent thing.”

“Right.” I grab my jacket and head for the door. The corpse lets out this long spew of rot breath and starts to wail. I mean, really wail, like he’s crying for the sadness of everyone that ever lived, for the mothers that lost their babies right inside their own stomachs, for the little kids that wandered into swim- ming pools. I mean a deep, shin-splitting, gutted kind of crying.

I take a good look at him. Skinny guy, couldn’t have been much to him even when he was alive. Feet too big for his body. Not that old, maybe 50s. Thinning black hair combed straight back and shellacked. Hands—a little pulpy.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Dick Doyle.” He smooths his rumpled button-down. 

“Can you walk alright?”

“No,” he says, rubbing his eyes with a filthy sleeve. 

Every instinct says leave the bar. Go home. But when a man cries, well, I don’t know. What’s the harm, I think. I put on my jacket, sling the corpse’s arm over my shoulder. I know that this is not my last mistake.

Fucker still weighs about 120 pounds and I got arthritis in my shoulder from when I dislocated it when I was ten. August, me and Ray down by the Neponset River behind the power plant where the water’s always warm. Tied a fat rope to a sycamore and climbed up to swing out. But Ray pantsed me and shoved me from the tree so I flew out over the water with one arm holding onto the rope and the other holding onto my shorts. Doc eventually snapped the shoulder back into place. Man that hurt, but we laughed for years about me swinging Tarzan-style over the river with my white ass hanging out. It used to make me happy to think of us all as kids—me, my little sister Patty, Ray. Now I stuff the memories as far down as I can. When they pop up, I hammer them back.

“I can pay you,” the corpse says. “I’m serious. You bury me and I’ll sign over my store.”

“What store?”

“Stationery store. I’m not nobody, you know.”

I couldn’t turn it over in my head. I tried to picture the guy not as a corpse. Like a regular guy, with all his skin. Tried to imagine him in a sweater, pushing buttons on a cash register. Couldn’t do it.

I’m thinking I should leave the corpse at a shelter or church where someone would find out who he was and call the right people. Guy’d get put in a potter’s field. Or maybe they’d make his ashes into diamonds and sell them. They do that now, turn bodies into diamonds. The carbon. Only takes a pound of ashes, says my ex-buddy Ray, and he reads the Globe every day. I wouldn’t have turned Patty into diamonds for a million bucks. Buried her right, in a nice coffin, St. Mary’s. Rose quartz stone.

Praise for Unaccustomed to Grace 

 

There is a clear-hearted and humane writer at work here, whose work holds room for both suffering and grace.

--Shruti Swami, A House is a Body and The Archer

 

Bannatyne’s stories are full of heartache and loss, but they are never bleak or cynical. [She] is a superb writer of the mind, but an even greater reader of the heart. This book, filled with characters caught in between futility and redemption, was, for me, an exercise—a deliberation—in empathy."

--Sui Li, 5 Under 35 honoree, Transoceanic Lights

 

From macabre fantasy to raw reality, Lesley Bannatyne's terrific stories introduce an authentic voice and unique vision. UNACCUSTOMED TO GRACE revels in danger, in warped heroes, in ebullient—sometimes devastating—fearlessness. A wise and thoroughly enjoyable book!”

Daphne Kalotay, Russian Winter, The Blue Hours

 

These carefully observed, sometimes surreal stories capture characters in freefall. Each one—wolf wrangler, tarot card reader, guru, anthropologist, Soviet farmer, or parents of children taken, gone, returned, or fragile—will find a place in your heart.

—Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

 

Lesley Bannatyne’s stories in Unaccustomed to Grace are harrowing, funny, magical, and heartbreakingly, reassuringly human. Here we are with our flaws and troubles, and also our insight and even our grace. There’s a shimmering mythic streak through them, too, that sets Bannatyne in the tradition of seanchaithe – storytellers – who wield the old enchantments with an unerring instinct for revealing the soul’s sickness and its perfect cure. She seems to have x-ray vision that peers straight into the human heart, and a flawless ear for the bumps and rhythms of talk. This is a marvelous book, full of wonder, courage, and truth, and it’s a great pleasure to read. I loved it!

--Dr. Kate Chadbourne, A November Visit

 

These are stories to read and ponder, to share with others, to admire, and then to read again. Bannatyne’s themes are universal and her storytelling completely original. Pick up this book as you would a shining stone on the beach. Carry it with you and don’t let it go.

—Lynn C. Miller, The Day After Death and The Unmasking

LESLEY BANNATYNE is an American author who writes extensively on Halloween, especially its history, literature, and contemporary celebration.  

She also writes short stories, many of which are included in this debut collection Unaccustomed to Grace (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022). 

Her work has been published in the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Christian Science Monitor, and Zone 3, Pangyrus, Shooter, Craft, Ocotillo Review, Fish, and Bosque Literary Magazines. 

She won the 2018 Bosque fiction prize and received the 2019 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for fiction, the 2020 Ghoststory.com fiction prize, and was a finalist for many others, including the Tennessee William Literary Festival Writing Award, the Carve Prose & Poetry Contest, and the Hudson Prize. 

As a freelance journalist, she has covered stories ranging from druids in Massachusetts to relief workers in Bolivia. 

Lesley is a graduate of Wheaton College (MA) and holds an ALM from Harvard University Extension Studies. 

She lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.

www.lesleybannatyne.com

Twitter @BannatyneLesley