From the author of the bestselling Seven Sisters series, Lucinda Riley's Hothouse Flower is a moving story of love, heartbreak and, above all, hope.
Read by Stephanie Racine (Daisy Darker)
Georgian mansion Wharton Park was a place of childhood solace for Julia Forrester, spending summers in the Norfolk countryside with her beloved grandfather. So after tragedy strikes, she finds herself seeking comfort at Wharton and the allure of its hothouse, once home to exotic flowers from all corners of the globe but now lying abandoned. There she meets the new owner, the charming and magnetic Kit Crawford, whose own past is shrouded in sadness and mystery.
When Kit finds an old diary, light is finally shed on Wharton Park's past – revealing a century of secrets and heartache, through war-torn Europe and taking them to the vibrant streets of Thailand. Drawn together on this quest, Julia and Kit can but hope to unearth the truth behind the fortunes and failures of the Crawford family . . .
'Thoroughly addictive storytelling with a moving, emotional heart' – Dinah Jefferies, author of The Tea Planter's Wife
This title has been published outside the UK under the title The Orchid House.
Author Information
Lucinda Riley was born in 1965 in Ireland, and after an early career as an actress in film, theatre and television, wrote her first book aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and continue to strike an emotional chord with all cultures around the world. The Seven Sisters series specifically has become a global phenomenon, creating its own genre, and there are plans to create a seven-season TV series.
Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Italian Bancarella prize, The Lovely Books award in Germany, and the Romantic Novel of the Year award. In 2020 she received the Dutch Platinum award for sales over 300,000 copies for a single novel in one year – an award last won by J K Rowling for Harry Potter.
In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised a series of books for children called the Guardian Angels series, based on stories told to her children whenever they were facing a challenging situation. Harry then wrote the books, and they are now being published internationally.
Though she brought up her four children mostly in Norfolk in England, in 2015 she fulfilled her dream of buying a remote farmhouse in West Cork, Ireland, which she always felt was her spiritual home, and indeed this was where her last five books were written.
Lucinda was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and died on June 11th 2021, surrounded by her family.
