“Lighthearted but with pleasing depth, told with warmth and humor . . . a bloomin’ good story” from the author of My Big Greek Holiday (Book’d Out). Can life ever be a bed of roses? When Lily misses out on a well-deserved promotion the day her boyfriend is offered a job overseas, she faces a choice: should she embrace an expat life, or follow her childhood dream and become a florist? Deciding to follow her heart, she moves to the coast to start over. But fitting into the tight-knit community proves harder than she expected. As she navigates new friendships, financial worries, and the pull of returning to her city life, she learns how flowers can bring her the happiness she’s been looking for. And when romance appears on the horizon, Lily realizes she can’t commit until she reconciles her mistakes. Can she overcome her past and learn the true meaning of love? Discover the perfect feel-good read for all seasons.

Can life ever be a bed of roses? When Lily misses out on a well-deserved promotion the day her boyfriend is offered a job overseas, she faces a choice: should she embrace an expat life, or follow her childhood dream and become a florist? Deciding to follow her heart, she moves to the coast and decides to start again. But fitting into the tight-knit community proves harder than she expected. As she navigates new friendships, financial worries and the pull of returning to her city life, she learns how flowers can bring her the happiness she's been looking for. And when romance appears on the horizon, Lily realises she can't commit until she reconciles her mistakes. Can she overcome her past and learn the true meaning of love?

The best things come in small packages! Beloved florist Jill Rizzo (coauthor of the bestselling Flower Recipe Book) is back, and this time she has turned her attention to charming miniature arrangements. Projects are organized seasonally, and range from a thimble-sized vase of pansies to a tiny teacup holding a bundle of zinnias to a bud vase with a single Japanese anemone. All told, the book contains over 100 easy-to-follow recipes: ingredients lists specify the type and quantity of blooms needed; clear instructions detail each step; and hundreds of photos show how to place every stem. The featured flowers include varieties widely available at florists or farmers’ markets as well as tiny treasures found sprouting from sidewalks and walls, clipped from the landscape or garden, or pruned from common houseplants. The book also includes ideas for unexpected vessels (dollhouse suppliers are a great source for miniature vases!), a flower care primer, and all the design techniques readers need to know.

Flower arranging has never been simpler or more enticing. The women behind Studio Choo, the hottest floral design studio in the country, have created a flower-arranging bible for today's aesthetic. Filled with an array of stunning, easy-to-find flowers, it features 400 photos, more than 40 step-by-step instructions, and useful tips throughout. The arrangements run the gamut of styles and techniques: some are wild and some are structured; some are time-intensive and some are astonishingly simple. Each one is paired with a "flower recipe"; ingredients lists specify the type and quantity of blooms needed; clear instructions detail each step; and hundreds of photos show how to place every stem. Readers will learn how to work with a single variety of flower to great effect, and to create vases overflowing with layered blooms. To top it off, the book is packed with ideas for unexpected vessels, seasonal buying guides, a source directory, a flower care primer, and all the design techniques readers need to know. Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo are the founders of Studio Choo, a San Francisco-based floral design studio that serves up fresh, wild, and sophisticated flower arrangements for any occasion. Their work has been featured in publications such as Sunset, Food & Wine, and Veranda and in the blog Design*Sponge.

Follow Lily through her day in this enchanting book, and learn simple facts about the environment of a familiar pond flower. As you turn the pages in these tactile board books, the fabric petals magically fold and unfold. Follow each flower through her day, and learn simple facts about her environment. The tactile element attracts any child's attention and the simple, rhythmic text encourages dialogue. Introducing non-ficiton books alongside fiction at an early age ensures that they are perceived as having equal value and enjoyment.

Time spent with family can be challenging, especially at Christmas actually . . . Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer. But with her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt. Then, as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens—both personally and professionally. Can she move on from past events and rebuild her future? And can the power of social media finally stop hindering her family, and help her create something successful? Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness, and a snapshot of modern family life—addressing subjects from social media to motherhood and everything in between.

In 1837, while charting the Amazonian country of Guiana for Great Britain, German naturalist Robert Schomburgk discovered an astounding "vegetable wonder"--a huge water lily whose leaves were five or six feet across and whose flowers were dazzlingly white. In England, a horticultural nation with a mania for gardens and flowers, news of the discovery sparked a race to bring a live specimen back, and to bring it to bloom. In this extraordinary plant, named Victoria regia for the newly crowned queen, the flower-obsessed British had found their beau ideal. In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway's colorful narrative captures the sensation stirred by Victoria regia in England, particularly the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom. We meet the great botanists of the age, from the legendary Sir Joseph Banks, to Sir William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, to the extravagant flower collector the Duke of Devonshire. Perhaps most important was the Duke's remarkable gardener, Joseph Paxton, who rose from garden boy to knight, and whose design of a series of ever-more astonishing glass-houses--one, the Big Stove, had a footprint the size of Grand Central Station--culminated in his design of the architectural wonder of the age, the Crystal Palace. Fittingly, Paxton based his design on a glass-house he had recently built to house Victoria regia. Indeed, the natural ribbing of the lily's leaf inspired the pattern of girders supporting the massive iron-and-glass building. From alligator-laden jungle ponds to the heights of Victorian society, The Flower of Empire unfolds the marvelous odyssey of this wonder of nature in a revealing work of cultural history.