Assessment:
Plot/Idea: The Blue Iris is engaging and easy to follow as it explores the rich interplay between a group of people with very different backgrounds, motivations, and hardships. Readers will be intrigued by the cast's individual stories, all closely woven together against Stone's vividly launched backdrop of a neighborhood flower market.
Prose: Stone writes familiar, crisp prose that entertains as it builds multiple perspectives. The nuances of Tessa's interactions with the staff at the Blue Iris are carefully fashioned, with gentle direction and guidance from Stone that gives each character a brilliantly developed voice.
Originality: The flower market setting brings this lush story to life, allowing multiple perspectives to bloom across the novel as they grow into one cohesive, stunning storyline.
Character/Execution: Stone attentively nurtures each character, with Tessa and Charlie as standouts, using a rotating first-person viewpoint to allow readers an intimate glimpse of the cast's emotions and thoughts.
Date Submitted: August 12, 2024
Stone debuts a gorgeous literary novel with a nostalgic aesthetic and themes of complex friendships, family trauma, and healing through self-discovery. Tessa Lewis is afraid that the defining “big” she hoped to find for herself after grad school will be subsumed by her role as Will Westlake’s not-quite-fiancee as he prepares to take over the family’s Toronto law firm, assuming his father’s bid for mayor is successful. A stop at the Blue Iris flower shop brings Tessa a sudden reminiscence of her late mother and leads her to impulsively take a summer job there, while the staff who form a dysfunctional family remain off balance in the wake of the disappearance of Sam, the wandering alcoholic brother who has failed to reemerge as usual for the season.Stone’s writing is rich and evocative, digging right to the difficult emotions under the surface of the often antagonistic interactions between the characters. She deftly utilizes a multiple-narrator format, offering a deeply intimate look into each character’s trauma and how it shapes their interactions. Although the twists of plot on both sides of Tessa’s split life keep the story moving forward at a slow but steady pace, there’s illuminating power in the contrast between the Westlakes’ world of public political maneuvering and that of bored housewives taking on landscapers as playthings with the visceral messiness of managing plants. Stone offers real emotional depth for characters of both genders.
Line drawings of flowers with a short phrase about the meaning head each chapter, beautifully setting the tone. Sam is most effective as a missing presence in the life of the flower shop; snippets of his point of view, written in free verse, feel by contrast underdeveloped. Nevertheless, the novel’s emotional current, showing broken people whose lives become better when they care for and forgive one another, carries through powerfully.
Takeaway: Riveting story of becoming unstuck, exploring family and trauma with a touch of hope.
Comparable Titles: Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here, Barbara Davis’s The Echo of Old Books.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
