Marigolds for grief, purple dahlias for dignity, periwinkle for tender reflections. Basil for hate. The meanings attached to each flower underpin the life of Victoria Jones, the prickly and suspicious ...

Flowers most certainly speak to us. Even those who don’t make a living from flowers will hear and answer their call. At weddings, at funerals, and at so many less momentous occasions that come between ...

A dozen publishers got into a bidding war for Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s debut novel, “The Language of Flowers,” about a young woman emerging from foster care who has an unusual way of communicating with ...

“You have to want it,” Victoria Jones in Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s “The Language of Flowers,” remembers her social worker saying. Eighteen years old, Victoria has “emancipated out” of foster care, ...

My wife knows I love flowers, so recently she gifted me a book about flowers: “The Language of Flowers a Fully Illustrated Compendium of Meaning of Literature and Lore for the Modern Romantic.” It was ...

Victoria Jones is often sullen silent, and hostile, but she speaks the language of flowers. She knows that red roses signify love. The primrose means childhood, which she never really had growing up ...

After three weeks in a halfway house, she sleeps rough in a nearby park, where she secretly plants a small garden. Her talent is noticed by the owner of a nearby flower shop and Victoria discovers her ...