Forget-Her-Nots

Amy Brecount White’s Forget-Her-Nots leans on the Victorian language of flowers, the idea that different blossoms carry specific meanings that could be combined into messages. The protagonist Laurel discovers she has an unusual gift for arranging flowers in ways that produce real effects on the people who receive them, which complicates her life at her boarding school in inconvenient ways.

The boarding school setting gives White room to play with friend dramas, romance, and the secrets students keep from each other. The flower magic is quiet rather than flashy, which suits the book’s overall tone.

This is a debut. Some pacing issues in the middle. The mystery thread doesn’t quite land as cleanly as the romance does.

For readers who liked Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver or Jenna Black’s Faeriewalker series, this is in similar territory. The flower lore alone makes it worth picking up if the genre is your thing.