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Copyright © 2011 by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Diffenbaugh, Vanessa.
The language of flowers: a novel / Vanessa Diffenbaugh.
p. cm.
Summary: “The story of a woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own past”—Provided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52556-7
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Florists—Fiction. 3. Flower language—Fiction. 4. San Francisco (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.I2255L36 2011
813′.6—dc22 2010051026
www.ballantinebooks.com
Jacket design: Anna Bauer
Jacket photograph: Wildcard Images/Glasshouse Images
v3.1
Contents
Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and would never be again.
But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out.
It was my eighteenth birthday.
