Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Readers of Eve Chase and Kate Morton will devour this bewitchingly atmospheric, melancholy modern ghost story set in the lush hills of England’s Lake District. There, a solitary woman’s quiet life spent in her crumbling ancestral manor house with the company of a child’s ghost is dramatically interrupted when her estranged sister returns to share a horrific story of cruelty and desperation from decades earlier…

Francine Thwaite has lived all her fifty-five years in her family’s ancestral home, a rambling Elizabethan manor in England’s Lake District. No other living soul resides there, but Francine isn’t alone. There are ghosts in Thwaite Manor, harmless and familiar. Most beloved is Bree, the mischievous ghost girl who has been Francine’s companion since childhood.
 
When Francine’s estranged sister, Madeleine, returns to the manor after years away, she brings with her a story that threatens everything Francine has always believed. It is a tale of cruelty and desperation, of terror and unbearable heartache. And as Francine learns more about the darkness in her family’s past—and the role she may have played in it—she realizes that confronting the truth may mean losing what she holds most dear.
 
As moving and poignant as it is chilling, Her Little Flowers is a story of grief and enduring love—and of the haunting regrets only forgiveness can dispel.

About the Author

Shannon Morgan

Shannon Morgan has had a nomadic life involving, but not limited to, nearly being shot in Kashmir, playing a marathon 10-hour game of backgammon on the side of the road in Turkey, getting horribly seasick off the coast of Madagascar and milking a camel in the Sahara Desert. More recently, she spends her time with her husband and their four unruly boys in Wiltshire, England, where she collects a worrying number of unusual and rather macabre plants, many of them poisonous as they tend to produce the most interestingly weird flowers.

Her Little Flowers is Shannon’s debut novel.

Our Review

Her mother called them ‘her little flowers’ and I loved all the descriptions of these flowers. The moonflower was my favourite… ‘it smells witchy and secret…’ but that wasn’t its real meaning, not for Francine…

Francine Thwaite lives alone in an ancient manor, but she has plenty of company. When her sister returns after a long absence, Francine’s life changes as she discovers the secrets of her past.

This is a wonderful ghost story about a family’s painful history. Not scary, but deeply emotional. An intriguing mystery, beautifully written with down to earth, living characters, especially the adorable Bree.

The full meaning of the words ‘my little flowers’ becomes clear in the last chapter. I knew it would be sad, but it was so painful too.

The epilogue at the end with its snowdrops of purity tried to lay the sorrow to rest, but this story is for remembering…

It was so hard to review without giving anything away, but you will love her little flowers…