There are two new Holly Ringland books on the way!

If you’re one of the countless Australians who loved The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, you’ll be delighted to hear that its author, the wonderful Holly Ringland, has signed on to write two more books for HarperCollins Australia in a six-figure deal!

The first of these books will be published in 2022 under the Fourth Estate imprint, and the good news is that we already have a title: The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding.

It’s described by HarperCollins as “a haunting novel about exile and belonging, and about how allowing ourselves to feel joy amidst grief can be our most powerful act of transformation and homecoming.” It will reportedly also deal with issues around women’s choice and resistance.

Holly Ringland rose to fame in 2018 with the publication of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, a book which we absolutely loved here at Booktopia (read our review). It’s gone on to sell over 80,000 copies across all formats within Australia and scooped up a number of accolades, including the 2019 ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year and a spot on the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award longlist.

Holly Ringland said, “Publishing Alice Hart with Catherine Milne and HarperCollins made my lifelong dream of becoming a novelist a reality. Signing Esther Wilding and my third novel with them is a life-changing joy. Becoming a career writer is something I only ever imagined in my wildest hopes; this deal couldn’t mean more to me. I feel elated to continue working with Catherine and my impassioned HarperCollins team.”

Catherine Milne, Head of Fiction at HarperCollins, said, “I am thrilled at the prospect of working with Holly Ringland again. I love her ability to balance an awareness of the darkness in life – centring around themes of loss and grief, and a deep sense of exile and powerlessness around women’s bodies – with character-driven, absorbing, lyrical narrative. I am in awe of the delicate beauty of her writing, her ongoing sense of wonder at the natural world, and, most importantly, the way she writes a kernel of hope into the heart of things. She is a beautiful writer.”

While 2022 seems very far away, we can always revisit the wonderful book that is The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart while we wait. Congratulations Holly and all the best on your writing journey!

Find out more here

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

by Holly Ringland

A young girl loses both her parents in a tragic event, and is taken to live with her grandmother on a flower farm. Growing up, Alice learns the language of Australian native flowers as a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. But she also learns that there are secrets within secrets about her past. An unexpected betrayal leaves her reeling, and she escapes to try to make her own - sometimes painful - way through the world, and to find her story.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a story about stories...

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Olivia Fricot

Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.

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