The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

Under the menacing shadow of the German Luftwaffe, sisters Hazel and Flora are sent from London to the countryside of Oxfordshire in 1939. Promising their mother she will watch over Flora, young teen Hazel creates a secret enchanted world – Whisperwood – to soothe the 5-year-old.  This new life in the country seems idyll, peaceful and safe in their unexpectedly happy billet assignment. Then Hazel lets down her guard and Flora disappears, possibly swept away in the Thames, their mystical river of stars.

“Superbly paced and skilfully written, this book reveals its secrets one by one, sweeping the reader deeper into the mystery of what happened to Flora.”

Twenty years later, still burning with the guilt and grief of her sister’s loss, 34-year-old Hazel has found some satisfaction in her job at an old book store, and the love of her boyfriend. Yet, when a book crosses her path – a fairy tale called Whisperwood and the River of Stars – she is willing to risk everything, chase down the reclusive author in America if she must, to find out if this means Flora survived. Only Flora, she is convinced, knew of Whisperwood.

Flowing back and forth between 1939/40 and 1960, The Secret Book of Flora Lea slowly unfolds the story of Hazel and Flora, of their mother left widowed by the war, of their enigmatic, free-spirited billet mother and her son, Harry. It is the story of the Pied Piper Children, those evacuated from their city homes during the Second World War, sent off to the country or overseas, some never to be seen again by their parents. It is also the story of the strong bond of sisters, of mothers and their children, and the power of unconditional love and forgiveness.

Superbly paced and skilfully written, this book reveals its secrets one by one, sweeping the reader deeper into the mystery of what happened to Flora. I read it over two days, engrossed in the beautiful prose and the agony of the characters’ losses. Patti Callahan Henry has masterfully recreated the world of WWII England, from the bombed-out streets of London to the pastoral river meadows of Oxfordshire, and I lost myself in the beauty of her seaside 1960s Cornwall. It is a bit too neatly wrapped up at the end – it very much has a happily-ever-after ending – and left me wanting more of some characters, yet it was still a deeply satisfying read and never too mawkishly sentimental.

For fans of Kate Morton, Barbara Erskine, Kate Quinn and Claire Fuller.


Patti Callahan Henry is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of several novels, including Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis. She is the recipient of the Christy Award, the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year Award, and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year. She is the cohost and cocreator of the popular weekly online live web show and podcast Friends and Fiction. A full-time author and mother of three, she lives in Alabama and South Carolina with her family. Find out more at PattiCallahanHenry.com.

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Canadian edition (May 2 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 166802313X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1668023136

Heather McBriarty is an author, lecturer and Medical Radiation Technologist based in Saint John, NB. Her love of reading and books began early in life, as did her love of writing, but it was the discovery of old family correspondence that led to her first non-fiction book, Somewhere in Flanders: Letters from the Front, and a passion for the First World War. She has delivered lectures to the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, NB Genealogy Society, and Western Front Association (Central Ontario Branch), among others, on the war. Heather’s first novel of the “Great War”, Amid the Splintered Trees, was launched in November 2021.