Samantha Smith, incredibly talented tattooist, artist and storyteller, thank you for bringing Alice to life in and on my skin. I’m so grateful to have found you and to know you.
Melissa Acton, you are a woman who can turn a sensory deprivation chamber into a wonderland. Thank you for being one of my first readers and giving Alice a home in your book-loving heart.
Tanmay Barhale, Batman might have the notoriety, but you’re my favourite superhero. Thank you for telling me stories, some of which I hope to have honoured in this novel.
Viridiana Alonso-Lara, fire warrior, thank you for sharing your heart with me through your Mexican stories, right from the first night we met. Thank you for sharing your family and guacamole with me. Thank you for your love. Lulu wouldn’t be who she is without you.
Thank you Ammna Winchester for your friendship, and for doing me the honour of sharing your experiences with me. I couldn’t have written Alice’s time in hospital the way I have without your generous support and inspiration.
Boryana Pashova, beloved Banana, thank you for help with Bulgarian translations, for believing in me as a writer, and for showing me how to yell at a dish in the oven to make it bake faster.
Iva Boneva, Money Honey, woman extraordinaire, thank you for sharing Bulgarian fairytales with me. Thank you for all the belly-aching laughter we have had between Manchester and Sofia as we live fairytales of our own together.
Matt Warren and Nick Walsh, thank you for reminding me that laughter and love are medicine, and for teaching me never to be afraid or ashamed of being a honker.
Brooke Davis, there is not an In Gratitude section long enough for me to name everything I love and am grateful for about you. Nor are there enough daisies. Thank you for seeing me, for loving me, for letting me love you in my Doug apron whether you’re up or down your tree. Thank you for absolutely everything you have done to enable and empower Alice Hart, and me. I am bettered by the mere thought of you.
Myf Jones, incomparable friend, captain of our floating worlds, teacher of wind-leaning and sister through it all, there is no one I would rather eat my congratulations with than you. Thank you for being the very first to wholly bring Alice to life.
Sophs Stephenson, thank you for making my first year of writing in Manchester magnificent, and proving Elizabeth Bennet is alive and well. Jonny, thank you for putting Mr Darcy to shame. And HazelPop, Violet Crawley doesn’t hold a candle to you, my dear girl.
Sarah de Vries, my love-at-first-sight sister soul, there are not enough 1 pm starts to a day, naked trees, road trips, dogs in flower crowns, trinkets, house pants, king prawns, nutritional yeast, fabreezay, dark horses, fairytale collections or choreographed GoT arm dances in existence to measure the love and joy you bring to my life. Thank you for picking me up and dusting me off through all weather. Here’s to our future of purple rinses and butterfly hoarding.
Libby Morgan, when I was a kid and wished for a Golden Book best friend, I never thought she actually existed outside of the pages in my books. Thank you for surpassing my wishes and for fifteen years of true and extraordinary love. Thank you for talking every knot in this novel through with me and being a tireless and always loving voice of reason. Thank you for every hour of the countless hours we’ve spent talking over land and sea. Andy, Jess, Nath, Raff, Mick, Jordy, Lani, Rainy, and Razor: thank you for loving me like your own.
To my extended Harris family, Merilyn, Matt, Gabe, Leo, Arley, Buggy, Chris, Vicky, Sue, and Annie, thank you for believing in me and cheering me on, with love.
Lee Steindl, thank you for screaming with me every step of this way. Thank you for teaching me the power of a broom, how to stare down crows, and making me belly laugh all my life. And for Moët. Always, for Moët.
Matty Hutchinson, Lulu and I will love you forever. Thank you for championing Alice into being, for naming your sunflower girl after her, and for bringing me her cupcake.
Joan Mary Corfield, thank you for growing an incomparable fairy garden that we all roamed wild in, and for the deep love of stories and writing in my blood.
Dadgee, Toby, Goose, Teapot, and Coco, there is nothing that compares to coming home to you. Thank you for giving me love and the safest place I could ever hope for to write my way through the dark into bloom.
To Hendrix, the littlest Thor, and Kira Navi, Queen of the Wild Frontier, thank you for reminding me how powerful and essential imagination and stories are.
To my mother, Colleen Ringland. You taught me how to be brave. You taught me how to read by the time I was three. Thank you for my life, Mamaleen. Thank you for showing me what it means to never give up.
To the rest of my family and friends, thank you for your love and support.
Saving the best to nearly last, Sam Harris, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank you for teaching me that peace is a fire. Your love is the truest magic I know.
My final thanks are to you, dear reader. A writer’s words are brought to life by being read: Alice Hart would not fully live without you. My gratitude is yours.
About the Author
HOLLY RINGLAND grew up wild and barefoot in her mother’s tropical garden in Southeast Queensland. When she was nine years old, her family lived in a camper van for two years in North America, travelling from one national park to another, an experience that sparked Holly’s lifelong interest in cultures and stories. In her twenties, Holly worked for four years in a remote Indigenous community in the central Australian desert. She moved to England in 2009 and obtained her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester in 2011. She now divides her time between the UK and Australia. Holly’s essays and short fiction have been published in various anthologies and literary journals.
Praise for The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
‘I loved this brave and beautiful book. Alice Hart has the strength and magic of an Australian wildflower in bloom.’ – Favel Parrett
‘Not everyone who visits the central Australian desert understands the landscape of it. Holly Ringland does and shares her heart instincts in this epic telling. Each page arrives to us like the first flight of the butterfly from its cocoon … a literary gift.’ – Ali Cobby Eckermann
‘An astonishingly assured debut, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a story of love, loss, betrayal and the redemptive power of storytelling, set in the blazing heat and ancient mythic landscape of Australia’s Red Centre. Written with intelligence, grace and sensitivity, Holly Ringland’s novel is both heart-breaking and life-affirming, following the journey of her heroine Alice as she discovers the strength of spirit to break the patterns of violence of her past.’ – Kate Forsyth
‘The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a book that glows – in the fire and heart of it; in the wonder and hope of it. Holly Ringland is a gifted, natural story-teller and her novel – about finding magic in the dark; about the power of freedom and the freedom of story – is truly a light-giving, tender thing. A vivid, compelling, utterly moving debut.’ – Brooke Davis
‘A complex, literary debut that examines the dangerously fine line between care and control, sanctuary and prison. Holly’s writing is rich, vibrant and alive with the messy, sometimes violent song of human connection. She is a writer to watch out for.’ – Jenn Ashworth
‘The best fairy tales traverse the darkest corners of the human heart, and this beautiful novel is no exception. Questing and magic, struggle and triumph.’ – Myfanwy Jones
Copyright
Lines from If Not Winter: Fragments of Sappho © Anne Carson (trans), used with kind permission of Aragi, Inc.
Line from a personal letter © Alice Hoffman, used with kind permission of Alice Hoffman.
The poem ‘Seeds’, which appears on page 260, is drawn from Ali Cobby Eckermann’s collection of verse Inside My Mother (Giramondo, 2015), and is included with full permission of the author.
Fourth Estate
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Copyright © Holly Ringland 2018
The right of Holly Ringland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN 978 1 4607 0883 5 (ebook)
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Cover and internal design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover and internal illustrations © Edith Rewa Barrett 2018
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Page 35