Old Flames and New Fortunes

Informationen zum Autor Sarah Hogle is a mom of three who enjoys trashy TV and provoking her husband for attention. Her dream is to live in a falling-apart castle in a forest that is probably cursed. She is also the author of You Deserve Each Other, Twice Shy, and Just Like Magic. Klappentext "A steamy, riotous second-chance romance about a magical florist's unexpected reunion with her high school sweetheart--while she fake dates his soon-to-be stepbrother"-- Leseprobe Chapter One Blackthorn: Our path is beset with difficulties. Twin purple roses, one bud closed. Love at first sight. A two-leafed red carnation. I must see you soon. Eight-and-a-quarter inches of grape ivy. I desire you above all else. The magic hums to let me know I'm on the right track, and I smile, busily fulfilling a pickup order at my luckiest time of day. It is late April, when flowers have begun to swallow up the stone walls, when it's just warm enough that I can take my coffee in the courtyard at dawn and watch blue chase pink from the sky, stars popping like soap bubbles. My world is alive with the fragrance of freshly turned soil and shivering mist, chickens clucking around my ankles and eating the bugs on the brick pavers before the bugs can eat my crocuses. To my back is the carriage house I've lived in for the past three years, built in the French country style, with sandy stone and white shutters decorated with moss and ivy. Rows of elevated flower beds burst with riots of hellebores, bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots, bluebells. This courtyard, with its five-foot-tall perimeter and the witch hazel tree that's even older than the neighborhood, flowering quince with peach blooms, the shock of yellow sunrise forsythia-is all my kingdom. My heart tap-dances to a song in my soul, inherited from my grandmother, who inherited it from hers, and yes, I can believe it. Curious tourists in my family's shop ask me frequently: Do you believe it, truly? I reach for buttercups-What golden radiance is yours!-but catch my hand drifting, landing inexplicably on blackthorn: Our path is beset with difficulties. My hand jumps back. "No, it is not," I tell the flowers sternly, plucking a buttercup instead. "Your path is simple and happy, and ends in a September wedding, just like Cecelia dreams." Cecelia, one of my regulars, is determined to turn her boyfriend into a husband. Of course, my flowers won't force him to propose. They'll merely spark an idea in his mind, if magic agrees with the pairing. The spell is informed by the flowers' traditional symbolism and how each flower reacts to the others. The twin purple roses are representative of how they met, the carnation expresses urgency, and the ivy symbolizes how Cecelia feels. They tell a special story, one imbued with magic to help spur on Cecelia's wishes: Once upon a time soon to come, Gustav will happen to be ten minutes early for work, so he'll decide to walk the long way around, passing a jewelry shop. He'll glance in the window, and right there in the front, he'll notice a gem that'll remind him of his beloved Cecelia. Now, magic can tempt Gustav to the shop, but whether he chooses to walk inside is his own business. I'm pretty sure I invented flora fortunes. I call myself a flora fortunist since "creating floral arrangements using the language of flowers to magically bring a person's romantic hopes to fruition" is a mouthful. Much like tarot or palm readings, I can't cast my own will over a person's destiny. I can only intuit what a person's love life needs and try to attract what they desire-to get the object of their affections to notice them, to get over an ex, or to encourage their ex to get over them. My spells never force love, only open up possibilities. With the buttercup added to the mix, I'm overcome by a tingly slide of wrongness; whenever I make a misstep, ...

Product details

• Authors: Sarah Hogle
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 23.04.2024
• EAN: 9780593715055
• ISBN: 978-0-593-71505-5
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 201 mm x 20 mm
• Series: A Moonville Novel
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature