Sixteen year old Lucy Clark feels like she is always apologizing for something–for taking up space, for not being able to get over her grandmother’s death, but mostly for resenting her parents, who have created a self-help empire with no room for their own daughter. Lucy had always lived with her Nana while her parents toured to promote their business. Now that Nana has died, Lucy is forced to attend a second rate Texas boarding school, where she is tortured by mean girls until she finally pushes back–a little too hard. Before she knows it, Lucy is suspended and sent to live in New York City to live with her largely absent cousin and set up with a part-time job caring for a “mentally impaired” elderly woman. But instead of being frail and confused, Edith Fox is smart, stylish and a whiz when it comes to all things plants and gardens. She just has one problem: someone is trying to murder her and she needs Lucy to help her discover who it is. As Lucy starts to investigate, she becomes convinced that if she can get to the bottom of Edith’s wild assertions, “It would prove I wasn’t bad. I could be trusted. I could find out the truth about myself. About who I really was.” Maybe by solving Edith’s mystery, Lucy will also solve the mystery of how she has ended up so far away from the person she wants to be. This cozy, quirky puzzler of a novel, set in a soft-focus fairy tale Manhattan and full of fascinating flower lore, is the perfect summer read for anyone wondering how they fit in: with their friend group, their family or a post-pandemic world that is suddenly wide open and full of possibilities.