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Strange Flowers

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What to expect

In 1973, twenty-year-old Moll Gladney takes a morning bus from her rural home and disappears.

Bewildered and distraught, Paddy and Kit must confront an unbearable prospect: that they will never see their daughter again.

Five years later, Moll returns. What - and who - she brings with her will change the course of her family’s life forever.

Beautiful and devastating, this exploration of loss, alienation and the redemptive power of love reaffirms Donal Ryan as one of the most talented and empathetic writers at work today.

'Endlessly surprising and incredibly moving' David Nicholls

'With each new novel Donal Ryan's ink seems to sink deeper into the page. In Strange Flowers he gathers together the fragments of broken lives and makes us something new and beautiful from them' Rónán Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul

'Exquisite … you will love the quiet world of Paddy & Kit Gladney and all it is their daughter Moll brings to their door. Beautiful' Anne Griffin, author of When All Is Said

Critics Review

Here is love as a weapon and a balm. Love as faith, fate and redemption ... a gorgeously wrought book - compassionate without dissolving into nostalgia
Guardian
Endlessly surprising and incredibly moving
David Nicholls
A triumph ... Ryan slowly and beautifully reveals the way that even broken people can open the door fully to the truth of themselves
Independent, Best Books of 2020
His moving story of love and loss deserves to win a host of awards. It's an outstanding read
Sunday Express
I think you have to truly love people to write like this
Rachel Joyce
A triumph of quiet but devastating power, by some distance the best novel I've read so far this year
Joseph O'Connor
A big-hearted, beautiful work of art, full of truth and intensity
Kit de Waal
Classic Ryan; poignant and atmospheric storytelling ... quiet but intermittently explosive
Observer
I knew Donal Ryan's latest would be good and I was right - it's a risky act of imagination that works, and the sentences are as beautiful as ever
The Times
The lyricism of Ryan's prose, laced with compassion, is astonishing
Irish Independent
Author Donal Ryan
Narrator Donna Anita Nikolaisen
Duration 5 hours and 58 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781473571792
Format Audiobook
Publisher Transworld
Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Interior life, Narrative theme: Love and relationships
Availability AU, GB, IE

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