Top Ten Tuesday is a listicle created by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was created from a love of lists, books and creating bookish friends. Each Tuesday she assigns a new topic for others to join in with. Here is where you can learn more information about Top Ten Tuesday. Ad/Affiliate – Some of these books have affiliate links, you can read my disclaimer here.
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday has the theme of May Flowers, with suggestions of any books related to flowers, flowery colours, gardening, springtime, etc. I feel that I could do this prompt so many times, as there are endless theme options! I have included a mix of flower-themed books, including fiction, non-fiction, books I’ve read and books I want to read. I hope you find a book or two you would like to read ♡
1. The Secret Garden
StoryGraph synopsis:
After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle’s gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed – and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly, she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.
2. So It Grows by Andie Burke
StoryGraph synopsis:
Felicity Gallagher thought inheriting her aunt’s plant shop would be the fresh start she needed. She never expected that the trendy, mac and cheese themed restaurant next door–and its inconveniently hot chef–might be her downfall.
Nicholas Holm-Bozic is arrogant, presumptuous, and just flat out gets under her skin. Felicity has made ignoring him an art form—until the exploding popularity of his restaurant leads to renewed interest in Felicity’s quirky corner of Kansas. Now, a greedy developer is threatening both their businesses with a towering parking garage that could steal the sunlight from her plants. With her shop’s future in jeopardy, Felicity must join forces with her least favourite neighbour.
As the pair fight back, Nic and Felicity’s formerly contentious relationship blooms into something new, but hidden battle scars, old secrets, and a devastating storm threaten everything they’ve built. Will they choose to cut and run, or are they finally ready to put down permanent roots?
Publication date: 22/09/26
3. Kitty’s Countryside Dream by Christie Barlow
StoryGraph synopsis:
New home. New life. New beginning. Love affairs can blossom in the most unlikely places…
When Kitty inherits Bluebell Lodge from her grandmother, a farm in the beautiful Staffordshire countryside, it’s time for fresh air and a fresh start. Up to her elbows in chickens and ponies, Kitty soon realises there’s an awful lot to learn about farming. Still, at least the locals seem friendly, not least her handsome neighbour Tom…
But just as Kitty is beginning to find her feet and the possibility of love, the discovery of a long-hidden diary by a mysterious character called Violet changes everything. Who is Violet, and what is her message for Kitty?
As Kitty fills in the lost pieces of her family jigsaw and discovers some shocking revelations, will her countryside dream and blossoming relationship fall to pieces? When it comes to life in the country, nothing is ever quite as it seems…
4. The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan
StoryGraph synopsis:
It’s the summer of 1822, and Edinburgh is abuzz with rumours of King George IV’s impending visit. In botanical circles, however, a different kind of excitement has gripped the city. In the newly-installed Botanic Garden, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower – an event that only occurs once every few decades.
When newly widowed Elizabeth arrives in Edinburgh to live with her late husband’s aunt, Clementina, she’s determined to put her unhappy past in London behind her. As she settles into her new home, she becomes fascinated by the beautiful Botanic Garden, which borders the grand house and offers her services as an artist to record the rare plants’ impending bloom. In this pursuit, she meets Belle Brodie, a vivacious young woman with a passion for botany and the lucrative, dark art of perfume creation.
Belle is determined to keep both her real identity and the reason for her interest in the Garden secret from her new friend. But as Elizabeth and Belle are about to discover, secrets don’t last long in this Enlightenment city…
5. Glass Houses by Melanie Murphy
StoryGraph synopsis:
Jenna Walker has suddenly found herself with no job, no boyfriend, nowhere to live – and she’s been wondering for a while now if, apart from her beloved cat Bertie, she has anything to live for. The last thing she wants is to turn up on her sister’s doorstep, but that feels like her only option…
Rosie Walker spends a lot of her time thinking about the life she used to have. These days she’s stretched too thin, and she’s not sure she can cope with taking care of another person. If only one thing in her life would work out the way she wants it to…
David is Rosie’s next-door neighbour. A retired doctor, he has had a big idea, one inspired by his late wife June: a community garden project for those who are struggling.
The sisters reluctantly agree to take part, even though they’re sure it’ll be a waste of time. How could fixing up an overgrown plot of land make anyone’s life better? But as the group works together to bring the garden back to life, new friendships blossom and old wounds start to heal. And Jenna and Rosie come to realise that the world around them might have more to offer than they had once believed.
Continue reading – May flowers: 10 flower-themed books
6. Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams
StoryGraph synopsis:
Annie Walker is on a quest to find her perfect match—someone who complements her happy, quiet life running the local flower shop in Rome, Kentucky. But finding her dream man may be harder than Annie imagined. Everyone knows everyone in her hometown, and the dating prospects are getting fewer by the day. After she overhears her latest date say she is “so unbelievably boring,” Annie starts to think the problem might be her. Is it too late to become flirtatious and fun like the leading ladies in her favourite romance movies? Maybe she only needs a little practice . . . and Annie has the perfect person in mind to be her tutor: Will Griffin.
Will—the sexy, tattooed, and absolutely gorgeous bodyguard—is temporarily back in Rome, providing security for Amelia Rose as excitement builds for her upcoming marriage to Noah Walker, Annie’s brother. He has one personal objective while on the job: stay away from Annie Walker and any other possible attachments to this sleepy town. But no sooner than he gets settled, Will finds himself tasked with helping Annie find the love of her life by becoming the next leading lady of Rome, Kentucky. Will wants no part in changing the sweet and lovely Annie. He knows for a fact that some stuffy, straitlaced guy won’t make her happy, but he doesn’t have the heart to say no.
Amid steamy practice dates and strictly “educational” tutoring lessons, Annie discovers there are more layers to Will’s usual stoic attitude. As the lines of their friendship become dangerously blurred, Annie reconsiders her dream guy. Maybe her love life doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be real.
7. Where the Wildflowers Grow by Leif Bersweden
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Leif Bersweden has always been fascinated by wild plants. From a young age, his afternoons were spent hunting for and cataloguing the plants in his local area. But it is a landscape that is fast disappearing. Climate change, habitat destruction and declining pollinator populations mean that the future for plant life looks bleaker than ever before. Many of us are also unable to identify, or even notice, the plants that grow around us.
Now a botanist, Leif decides to go on a mission to explore the plants that Britain and Ireland have to offer and to meet those who spend time searching for them. Over the course of a year, Leif goes on a journey around the UK and Ireland, highlighting the unique plants that grow there, their history and the threats that face them. His journey takes him from the Cornish coast to the pine forests of Scotland – even to the streets of London, proving that nature can be found in the most unexpected places. Along the way, Leif highlights the joy and positivity that can be found through understanding nature and why it is so desperately important to protect our wildflowers.
8. The Garden Jungle by Dave Goulson
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The Garden Jungle is about the wildlife that lives right under our noses, in our gardens and parks, between the gaps in the pavement, and in the soil beneath our feet. Wherever you are right now, the chances are that there are worms, woodlice, centipedes, flies, silverfish, wasps, beetles, mice, shrews and much, much more, quietly living within just a few paces of you.
Dave Goulson gives us an insight into the fascinating and sometimes weird lives of these creatures, taking us burrowing into the compost heap, digging under the lawn and diving into the garden pond. He explains how our lives and ultimately the fate of humankind are inextricably intertwined with that of earwigs, bees, lacewings and hoverflies, unappreciated heroes of the natural world.
The Garden Jungle is at times an immensely serious book, exploring the environmental harm inadvertently done by gardeners who buy intensively reared plants in disposable plastic pots, sprayed with pesticides and grown in peat cut from the ground. Goulson argues that gardens could become places where we can reconnect with nature and rediscover where food comes from.
9. Common or Garden by Ken Thompson
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We often imagine that rarity is special – we seek out the most uncommon wild plants to tick off our lists, while overlooking the extraordinary appeal of the species we encounter day-to-day. Yet it’s these plants -the most successful, able to adapt and thrive – which are truly fascinating.
Botanist, writer and expert gardener Ken Thompson has set out to chart Britain’s fifty most abundant wild plants and reveal the secrets of their success. He explores the roots of their common names, from the dog rose to Yorkshire fog, and explains the key traits that have led them to flourish across Britain. And, along the way, he shares his tricks for making your garden a haven for green life. Stunningly illustrated by Sarah Abbott, Common or Garden is a celebration of the everyday wonder of the plants that you can see, as Thompson enthuses, ‘before you even have lunch’
10. The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
StoryGraph synopsis:
Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam ‘West’ Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.
Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.
Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents – his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.
But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.
Are there any flower-themed books you are excited to read?
Caroline ♡
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