Margot Berwin delivers to us her debut novel Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire, a fantasy-adventure journey involving crush at first sight, rare plants, a journey to exotic places in search for more rare plants, and of course, magic.
When Lila Nova becomes love struck by the apparently overly handsome David Exley who sells plants, she also developed a fascination with nature, and that led to her being drawn into a Laundromat displaying a rare fern.
How about that, right? Then after she tells David Exley about the exotic fern she got from Laundromat, she finds them both missing a few days later.
Of course, what follows is an adventure-filled pursuit of the fern and the hunk, and this is where the magic and all the fantasy happen.
Other reviewers describe Margot Berwin's treatment of Hothouse Flower like an adventure comic book, which I assume to mean as being colorful and somewhat exaggerated.
But for what it's worth, I've only rarely seen a book dealing with such plot and topic.
It must have taken quite research to incorporate the information about the exotic plants in the novel that are also perfect for the story.
I'll give the book a rating of three out of five, mostly because of the author's effort to come up with something original and entertaining.
Whether she succeeded with both will be left to the public's criticism upon the book's release in June, but for now that's all I can say about Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin.