The Flower Trade

The Flower Trade is about a couple trying to heal the wound of unfaithfulness by moving with their young children from imperial America to peaceable little Costa Rica, where forces of desire and nature and the backwash of international politics sweep over them all. This gripping and darkly funny novel is about a family torn between the hunger for love and acceptance and the thirst for freedom and independence. Hoping to rescue their marriage by making a fresh start, Monica and Ted flee with their young children to peaceable and exotic Costa Rica-jungles, cloud forests, a failing flower farm. As the family members struggle to find their place in this perilous sanctuary, forces of desire and nature and the backwash of international conflicts sweep over them all. Ted finds the work of saving the flower farm complicated by criminal and political entanglements. Nine-year-old Stephen becomes best friends with the son of wealthy, horse-and-dog-raising, gun-owning, communist-hating expatriates. Monica falls in love with the enigmatic uncle of one of Stephen's Costa Rican classmates. Valerie, four, pursues her own blithely terrifying agenda. This contemporary family drama, spiked with mystery and danger, is a vivid and powerfully emotional literary adventure.