The Secret Book of Flora Lea

The Secret Book of Flora Lea is a dual-timeline historical novel by American author Patti Callahan Henry, a bestselling author of 17 novels. The novel follows Hazel Linden, who was evacuated from London at the start of World War II at age 15, into her mid-30s as she searches for her younger sister, Flora, whom she lost in the countryside where they were staying as children. The novel explores themes of The Restorative Power of Storytelling, Personal Interpretation of Religion and Spirituality, and The Double-Edged Power of Hope.

Patti Callahan Henry has won the Christy Award and the Harper Lee Award, while The Secret Book of Flora Lea was also a New York Times bestseller.

This study guide references the 2023 hardcover edition from Atria Books.

Plot Summary

The novel opens in 1940, in Oxfordshire, as six-year-old Flora Lea Linden wakes up alone in a wooded area next to the River Thames. She plays near the river in a glade, imagining that she is in the imaginary world she and her 15-year-old sister Hazel call Whisperwood, but she notes that Hazel doesn’t come to Whisperwood anymore. Flora thinks she hears someone calling her name as she drops her teddy bear, Berry, close to the water’s edge, and the chapter closes as she reaches for his paw.

The narrative jumps to its present timeline in 1960 as Hazel Linden is finishing her final shift at a rare bookseller’s shop in London, about to begin a new position at Sotheby’s auction house. She receives a shipment of a new fairy tale by an American author called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel is astonished to see that the book features the story world she developed when she was living in Oxfordshire with her younger sister, Flora, during the wartime evacuation. Flora disappeared two decades prior, and Hazel thinks whoever wrote this book might know what happened—or might even be Flora grown up. Hazel impulsively steals the valuable book to track down its origins.

Hazel manages to get in touch with the author, Peggy Andrews, but Peggy becomes defensive at the thought that she might have stolen her ideas. Peggy heard the story of Whisperwood from her own mother during childhood, who heard it from her sister. Hazel begins a quest to find anyone Flora might have told about Whisperwood, which leads her back to the village of Binsey, where she and Flora stayed as evacuees. Hazel lived with a kind woman named Bridie Aberdeen and her son, Harry, whom Hazel had become close to as a teenager. However, Hazel hasn’t spoken to them for many years due to her guilt for spending time alone with Harry and leaving Flora unattended prior to her disappearance.

Through her journey to find her sister, Hazel and Harry reconnect and try to track down what happened to Flora. However, Hazel is also balancing her increasingly tense relationship with a wealthy man named Barnaby alongside her obsessive quest. Barnaby tries to support Hazel, but he disapproves of her theft of the book, which puts her career at risk. He is also skeptical of her quest, especially after Hazel admits that the body of a young girl had been pulled from the river several years prior, though it was never identified.

Peggy, to the chagrin of her overbearing mother, arrives in London to speak with Hazel. Hazel leaves Barnaby alone at a train station instead of going on their holiday to Paris as planned. When Peggy and Hazel meet, Peggy is unable to shed any light on the mystery apart from the fact that her aunt first heard the story from a child living in Newcastle. After avoiding her attempts at contact for years, Hazel reluctantly agrees to enlist the help of a persistent Vanity Fair journalist, Dorothy Bellamy, who’s writing a series of articles on lost evacuated children and has even written about Flora, whom she calls the “River Child.”

To Hazel’s astonishment upon meeting Dorothy and seeing the distinctive birthmark on her arm, Dorothy turns out to be Flora all grown up—but with no memories of her previous life. Hazel realizes that Flora was abducted by a religious nurse, Imogene, who lived near the Aberdeens in Binsey, after her sister had lost a child. After Imogene abducted Flora, she was raised by their family with a new identity. Dorothy slowly puts her lost memories together and struggles to bridge her two different lives, while Hazel informs the police and has Dorothy’s kidnapper arrested.

Hazel realizes that she doesn’t want the Sotheby’s job after all, nor a life with Barnaby, as she still loves Harry. Two years after taking her job back at the bookshop, Hazel has begun her new life with Harry and is expecting a child with him, and both Hazel and Dorothy write down their stories to share with the world.