Lucinda Riley’s books never disappoint, even though she is one of my favourite authors, she never fails to take you on a journey of colourful landscape (as her books often take readers from a chilly castle in England to an island on some remote shore of Thailand) which this specific book does, and more.

Hothouse Flower is a beautiful and complex story that speaks of love, loss, death, pain and inextricable sacrifice – on many of the characters parts. In her writing, I have come to appreciate that her books almost always have a woman hero – someone who has made the ultimate sacrifice to insure the greater good is able to live on.
In this book, I felt however that there were three heroines, all of them with their own cross to bare so to speak as well as their own pain to live with for decades.

• Olivia – whom I felt was the one dealt the worst out of all. She was terribly lovely and one could not fault her on anything. She was perfect and her only detriment was falling in love with a man who was equally lovely but at the same time completely selfish – I felt like Harry spent so much time contemplating but his actions, and in most cases, lack thereof, where awfully thoughtless.

• Elsie, who was really the glue and the most wonderful of all, was loyal, caring, loving and so encouraging. She was everything a beautiful woman in love should be and she acted always out of a place of care and love.
• Lidia, who was obviously wise beyond her years, even when we met her for the first time. I loved how she communicated exactly what she felt with her limited vocabulary, and if I recall correctly, I think Harry mentions this as something he loved as well somewhere in the book.

I loved how the book was setup with one story, another was revealed and then just when you think the book is about to slow down, a third story comes in running parallel to the other two to tie all the pieces together. Lucinda Riley’s intricate storytelling ability is quite beautiful and I appreciate the attention to detail. Every time I have read one of her novels I can’t help but construct a mental family tree of the main (relative) characters.
I felt that Julia as a character was quite boring and repetitive and felt more could have been done her to make her more decisive – she seemed to always just “appear” – I know she suffered an unbearable, tragic loss but she also had a beautiful second chance laid out before her that indicated a perfect and wonderful path. I just wish she made more of an effort to show us how she was so excited about being given this chance and loving every minute of it as she should know how precious this is and Kit genuinely deserved more from her.

When Harry and Lidia met and their relationship began I was quite upset and resented how once again, Harry did not think of his wife or marriage and we waited out the war to see how their relationship would flourish just to see them reunite and have their lives to together. I still feel this way for Olivia’s but as we start to get to know Lidia I really began liking her and her ways of showing great wisdom and a pensiveness that is truly a gift.
Hothouse Flower has it all, and then some.