The White Flower

Stella is turning 30 and lives alone in an apartment on the banks of the Thames in south-east London. Her mental health has unravelled after her mother's death from cancer, leaving her unemployed, isolated from friends, and estranged from her father, who has quickly remarried. During therapy sessions, the image of a white flower appears in her mind and grows into an obsession. When she meets Anna, a violinist who has lost a sister, Stella's existence gradually regains a sense of meaning. In Edwardian England, Julia is surrounded by friends but longing for solitude. She is mourning her elder daughter, who has died in her twenties from a mysterious illness soon after her return from an expedition to photograph the jungle of Sri Lanka. Julia and Stella's stories are obliquely connected across space and time. The White Flower charts the ebb and flow of the grieving process, explored through the prisms of memory, imagination and photography. Charlotte Beeston's elegant, spare writing style captures the impact of loneliness on the female psyche, and the permanence of love, art and friendship.