Flora Mosswood has never stayed anywhere longer than a season.
A traveling flower arranger with a heart that refuses to put down roots, she moves from town to town taking temporary contracts, until a letter arrives informing her that she has inherited a flower shop at the edge of an enchanted forest.
The front door is unlocked. A single fresh rose sits on the counter, a rose that should not be alive after months of neglect. On the workbench, a small creature made of petals and golden light watches her with patient eyes. This is Bloom. The shop has been waiting for her.
Thus begins a cozy fantasy novel about floral correspondence magic, where every flower carries a meaning and every arrangement is a spell with a cost.
When Flora touches a wilted rose and it briefly blooms before crumbling to dust, she discovers she has inherited a magic system rooted in Victorian floriography.
Lavender means peace. Rose means love. Yarrow means courage.
And every flower used for magic wilts permanently.
But the greenhouse is dying. The root network that connects every plant in the enchanted forest is fading.
A cold-eyed Guild Botanist has issued an ultimatum: restore the greenhouse in thirty days, or the shop closes forever.
To save it, Flora must reach the Heartwood Bloom, a legendary flower that blooms once every hundred years, and perform the Grand Arrangement, a seven-layer ritual that will demand she sacrifice the only identity she has ever known, her traveler’s heart, the part of her that needs to leave.
Flora has spent her entire life learning that staying is dangerous and belonging is a trap.
But the sentient flower shop hums when she is happy.
Its door sticks when she tries to leave.
