foster care

In his second standalone novel after the award-winning debut Avenue of Champions, published in 2021, Conor Kerr once again presents the lives of Métis people in Edmonton​​, Alberta: his own home town. Of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry with roots dating back to the early years of fur trading on this continent, the Métis are one of three Indigenous groups recognized in Canada’s constitution. Kerr's own Métis background informs his writing: suffusing this novel, like his first, with sensitivity to the experiences and challenges of contemporary Métis living in modern cities.

In this book

While the protagonist, Victoria, is incredibly flawed in The Language of Flowers, it is unlikely you will ever feel anger towards her.  Trapped in the uncaring hands of foster care her entire life, she is socially inept, volatile and completely mired in grief and rage. 

After being booted out of foster care at the age of eighteen, Victoria struggles to find a foothold in adult life.  Thanks to a florist, Renata, and a flower vendor, Grant, Victoria finds anchor in her passion, the language of flowers.  While she is busy healing the lives of others through her remarkable talent of arranging

Sea Swept is vintage Nora Roberts. Told from the male perspective, this is the first in The Chesapeake Bay series. Three adult brothers are called home by a dying father’s wish, and they must band together to take care of Ray Quinn’s youngest “lost boy.” The Quinn brothers are not bound by blood but are indisputably family. Each boy had been saved by Ray and Stella Quinn in their teens. Now that their parents are gone, Ethan, Phillip and especially Cameron must convince Seth’s sexy social worker that they can provide a stable, nurturing home.

Is it realistic? No, it’s romance. The characters

Victoria Jones has just aged out of the foster care system, and her case worker is transporting her to a transitional home. In alternating chapters, the reader watches Victoria make her way in the world while learning about her past. Whether looking forward or back, her past, present, and future are riveting.

Like those chapters, I alternately wanted to shake the adult Victoria by the shoulders, and hold little Victoria in my lap. Through her gift with flowers, Victoria meets an array of insightful, compassionate, and loving people. Through the ghosts of her past, she pushes them away.

Victo

Orphan Train is a story about two different people whose lives are connected in so many ways, yet they are separated in age by about 75 years. Ninety-one-year-old Vivian Daly lives alone in an old Victorian house, when 17-year-old Molly gets assigned to clean her attic as part of a community service project to avoid juvenile detention. The project that begins as a punishment for Molly turns into an unexpected friendship with Vivian. As it turns out, both of them were unwanted orphans that had been passed from one dysfunctional family to another. Vivian and Molly end up creating an unexpected

The setting is San Francisco, current day.  A wayward teen never adopted has maxed out on state help and is forced out into the world.  As the story unfolds the back story of Victoria’s life is revealed, including the many mistakes she has made.  She has a gift with flowers and shares that gift with others.    The reader watches her develop and grow and yet continue to make mistakes.  A frustrating read, though engaging.  Victoria is not particularly likeable yet I found myself rooting for her.  Appropriate for teens and up.

When Terry and Laura Sheldon lose their twin daughters in a flood, understandably, it takes them a few years to adjust to their seemingly empty life. Upon deciding to become foster parents they anxiously await the arrival of whom they envision to be a sweet, blonde-ringleted child who might resemble their own precious girls. They are charged, however, with Alfred, an introverted young black child who is as dismayed at his own presence in rural Vermont as the rural Vermontians are with him.