The Secret Book of Flora Lea
At the start of WWII, Hazel and Flora lose their father to the war and are sent to Oxford from London as part of Operation Pied Piper, in which children were evacuated from areas expected to be heavily bombed. The two girls are lucky to be placed with free-spirited yet practical Bridie and her teenaged son, Henry, in a cottage near the Thames River. At fourteen, Hazel feels responsible for five-year-old Flora. To distract her sister from the grief of losing their father and being separated from their mother, Hazel makes up a magical tale of a land that belongs only to them. But what started as an innocent story eventually grows to a never-ending nightmare.
In 1960, Hazel is working at a rare book shop in London when she opens a package containing a picture book and original illustrations by an author in the U.S. She is shocked to realize it is the story she had told her sister as a young girl—a story she had told no one else and never repeated, once her sister went missing twenty years before. The realization of what the book might mean sets her on a course that will tear apart the life she has built for herself, though it just might bring to light what her heart truly desires.
This is a haunting tale of the bonds of family and love and how they can persevere through exceptional circumstances. This book will appeal to readers who enjoy lush descriptions and a slower, more internal exploration of a mystery. The evocative and immersive writing was enough to distract me from several circumstances that I would otherwise have dismissed as implausible.
