Flora

(Paperback)

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Description

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin's penetrating and haunting narrative about intimacy and loss and remorse, set against a background of world-changing events 'The perfect summer read can come in unexpected guises ... Dive into its deep waters and witness a novelist at the peak of her powers' The Times 'A beautiful examination of character and the far reaching repercussions of our actions. Gail Godwin brings grace, honesty, and enormous intelligence to every page' Ann Patchett Ten-year-old Helen and her summer guardian, Flora, are isolated together in Helens dilapidated family home while her father is doing secret war work during the final months of the Second World War. At three Helen lost her mother and the beloved grandmother who raised her has just died. A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact with all its ghosts and stories. Flora, her late mothers twenty-two-year old first cousin, who cries at the drop of a hat, is ardently determined to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout, played against the backdrop of a lost America, will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.

Reviews

Word-perfect and taut ... A luminously written, heartbreaking book * John Irving *
The perfect summer read can come in unexpected guises ... Dive into its deep waters and witness a novelist at the peak of her powers -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times *
A beautiful examination of character and the far reaching repercussions of our actions. Gail Godwin brings grace, honesty, and enormous intelligence to every page * Ann Patchett *
If it reminds me of any other novel its actually Atonement, but, dare I say it, Flora is a sharper, clearer portrait of a life lived remorsefully * Observer *
Flora is Godwin at her best, a compelling story Told with fearless candor and the poignant wisdom of hindsight -- Valerie Miner * Boston Globe *
Perfect summer evening: a garden, a glass of wine and a novel like this one, both highly intelligent and thoroughly engaging -- Kate Saunders * Saga *

Author Bio

Gail Godwin is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels, including Violet Clay, Father Melancholy's Daughter, Evensong, The Good Husband and Evenings at Five. She is also the author of Heart and The Making of a Writer, her journal in two volumes. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gail Godwin lives in Woodstock, New York. Visit her website at www.gailgodwin.com