Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Flora
Flora | Gail Godwin
6 posts | 9 read | 3 to read
Ten-year-old Helen and her summer guardian, Flora, are isolated together in Helen's decaying family house while her father is doing secret war work in Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. 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 mother's 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 a backdrop of a lost America, will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.This darkly beautiful novel about a child and a caretaker in isolation evokes shades of "The Turn of the Screw "and also harks back to Godwin's memorable novel of growing up "The Finishing School." With a house on top of a mountain and a child who may be a bomb that will one day go off, "Flora" tells a story of love, regret, and the things we can't undo.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
Mshookquilts
Flora | Gail Godwin
post image
Pickpick

I wasn‘t sure about this book when I got it, but it quickly captivated me. A 10 year old loses her grandmother, her main caretaker. As she‘s still grieving, her father brings a 2nd cousin, Flora, to take care of her while he leaves for the summer. The story is about their relationship and Helen‘s coming to know herself.

blurb
Eggs
Flora | Gail Godwin
post image

Days of rain are good for my flowers 💐 and I am grateful and blessed to be surrounded by them

Coleen_Nieto Gorgeous!! 6y
Tanisha_A Just so beautiful 6y
tammysue So pretty!!💜 6y
74 likes4 comments
blurb
Clwojick
Flora | Gail Godwin
post image

Making bridesmaids bouquets with @Jamiemac1985 #literarywedding #librarywedding

TricksyTails Love the little 😺 bag!! 7y
Clwojick @TricksyTails lol. Also from shopmissa 7y
120 likes2 comments
review
Bevita
Flora | Gail Godwin
post image
Mehso-so

Story of a strange child, Flora, and her cousin-caretaker who spend the summer holed up at home while the dad works at Oak Ridge. Interesting to think about that moment in time, before the atomic bomb, when people were most worried about catching polio.

blurb
Eggs
Flora | Gail Godwin
post image

Great characters, ingenious dialogue, authentically told by the aging Helen through the perspective of 10 yo Helen.

11 likes2 stack adds