Top Ten Tuesday: May Flowers

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week the theme is May flowers and I immediately thought of Flower Fables (1854),which was Louisa May Alcott’s first published book, written for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s daughter. It features six to nine fairy tales involving flowers, sprites, and fairies, inspired by LMA's walks near Walden Pond. I won’t count this because I haven’t actually read it but I’ve seen a first edition at the Concord Public Library. Here are some other flower favorites:

I recommend Eight Cousins (1875) and Rose in Bloom (1876), my two favorite books by Alcott. Rose, the eponymous heroine, is an orphan who pays visits all her relatives before choosing the one she wants to live with.

Alcott wrote sympathetically about children playing house and would have enjoyed Dandelion Cottage by Carroll Watson Rankin (1904), in which four little girls turn a deserted house into a clubhouse. 

One of my favorite juvenile historical series is the Mantlemass books by Barbara Willard, which extend from 1485 to 1644. In The Iron Lily (1973), Lilias runs away from an unhappy home situation and ends up running an iron foundry, although the pressures of being a girlboss make her seem hard and rigid to others, including the daughter she loves. The Iron Lily won the Guardian Award for Children’s Literature for 1974. I feel a Mantlemass reread coming on and I wonder who else read this series.

The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene (1930) is Nancy Drew’s fourth mystery as she tries to locate her friend Emily Crandall’s inheritance. Not one of the best, but don’t we all have a weakness for Nancy?

My Lady of the Fuchsias by Essie Summers (1979) is one of her classic stories of an upright young woman trying to do the right thing but it not working out as planned: Priscilla is in love with her boss but he is engaged, so she leaves to help elderly Rosina with three children - and the boss turns out to be Rosina's difficult nephew.

Rhododendron Pie - a cake made of flowers - is a birthday tradition in this novel about a quirky family by Margery Sharp (1930), which I read for Dean Street December. My review.

Daisy’s Back in Town by Rachel Gibson (2004) is a fun contemporary romance, launching a series set in Texas. Daisy Monroe is back in town but not everyone is pleased to see her, especially Jackson Parrish, the man she walked out on 15 years ago (she had her reasons).

I carried The Golden Tulip by Rosalind Laker (2007) to Amsterdam and back a year ago without finishing it but there is still time! The main character, Francesca, is studying painting with Vermeer, as one does, and maybe knowing there is no historical evidence he actually taught any women, except possibly his daughter, caused me to lose interest. Francesca is in love with a tulip merchant but her father has other plans for her.

I found out that Iris in Winter by Elizabeth Cadell is back in print and my copy is arriving today! You’ll have to wait for me to review it as I think it is one I have never read.

For those who enjoy historical fiction set in India, Flowers in the Blood by Gay Courter (1990) is about a powerful Jewish family in the opium business in the 19th century.  Courter was a bestselling author when I worked at Penguin/NAL and this was one of our best cover designs. 

Have you read any of these? If you participate, what was your Top Ten list this week?