Rinette Leslie of Granmuir is from a family gifted with the knowledge of flororamancy -- they can read the flowers and herbs and prophesize about the future. Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, knows this and entrusts Rinette with a small silver casket that contains some of the darkest secrets of Scotland, prepared by Nostradamus himself. And it is up to Rinette to deliver this box of secrets to Queen Mary, but before she can do so, her young husband is brutally murdered right before her eyes.

Devastated by his death, Rinette demands that a full investigation be carried out before she turns over the casket to the Queen. This demand sets in motion a series of events that puts Rinette, her family and those who love her in immediate danger. Ruthless men, hungry for power, will do anything to force Rinette to give up the casket— threatening her life, stripping her of her beloved castle by the sea, forcing her to marry a man she hates, and driving her from the man she has reluctantly grown to love. She must be very careful who she trusts and learns to follow the messages the flowers send to her in order to find her way back home once again.

THE FLOWER READER is an amazing, yet complicated tale of life in the court of Mary of Scots. The cast of characters is immense - you know it's going to be when the beginning of the novel has three pages of characters! But author Elizabeth Loupas does a wonderful job of blending the intriguing story with the historical cast to keep her readers mesmerized to the very end of the story.

I highly recommend THE FLOWER READER for anyone interested in historical fiction, fiction about royal families, and well- told stories in general.