2025 Carol Award Winner
Babies are a gift of God, a fact Marigold Parker knows full well.
Fourteen-year-old Marigold (Mary) Parker spends the summer of ’78 with her cousin and best friend, Sharon, biking the roads of their rural neighborhood in Pleasant Waters, North Louisiana. The girls while away the days at the local pond, listening to the BeeGees and talking about boys. Caring for her emotionally fragile mother is Mary’s only worry, until Sharon''s older half-brother finds Mary alone at the pond one day.
She can’t speak of what happened in the woods. The truth will destroy her family and cost her the relationships she holds most precious.
But secrets have a way of making themselves known, and when Mary finds herself pregnant, she’s forced to grapple with hard decisions. Babies are a gift from God. Mary knows this full well, but she doesn’t know how to deal with a pregnancy, or who to turn to for help.
Trials seem to multiply as Mary struggles to keep faith in the God her parents have taught her to trust.
Richly detailed and evocative, When the Wildflowers Bloom Again captures the emotions and the heart, vividly detailing the struggle of facing impossible choices, the true test of family ties, and of the hope found in new beginnings. Infused with both sorrow and faith, Marigold Parker’s tale is a story you won’t soon forget.
‘Stories like When the Wildflowers Bloom Again spread empathy about heartbreaking topics. In this coming-of-age novel, author Donna Jo Stone delicately, yet directly, addresses such a topic with a grace and love for the main character that I wish every young woman who has faced such a horrific situation could feel. This is not an easy story to read, but it will, I pray, sprout compassion—and perhaps healing—in everyone who reads it.’—Danielle Grandinetti, author of Selah and Daphne du Maurier Award Finalist Confessions to a Stranger
Genre: Inspirational
Babies are a gift of God, a fact Marigold Parker knows full well.
Fourteen-year-old Marigold (Mary) Parker spends the summer of ’78 with her cousin and best friend, Sharon, biking the roads of their rural neighborhood in Pleasant Waters, North Louisiana. The girls while away the days at the local pond, listening to the BeeGees and talking about boys. Caring for her emotionally fragile mother is Mary’s only worry, until Sharon''s older half-brother finds Mary alone at the pond one day.
She can’t speak of what happened in the woods. The truth will destroy her family and cost her the relationships she holds most precious.
But secrets have a way of making themselves known, and when Mary finds herself pregnant, she’s forced to grapple with hard decisions. Babies are a gift from God. Mary knows this full well, but she doesn’t know how to deal with a pregnancy, or who to turn to for help.
Trials seem to multiply as Mary struggles to keep faith in the God her parents have taught her to trust.
Richly detailed and evocative, When the Wildflowers Bloom Again captures the emotions and the heart, vividly detailing the struggle of facing impossible choices, the true test of family ties, and of the hope found in new beginnings. Infused with both sorrow and faith, Marigold Parker’s tale is a story you won’t soon forget.
‘Stories like When the Wildflowers Bloom Again spread empathy about heartbreaking topics. In this coming-of-age novel, author Donna Jo Stone delicately, yet directly, addresses such a topic with a grace and love for the main character that I wish every young woman who has faced such a horrific situation could feel. This is not an easy story to read, but it will, I pray, sprout compassion—and perhaps healing—in everyone who reads it.’—Danielle Grandinetti, author of Selah and Daphne du Maurier Award Finalist Confessions to a Stranger
Genre: Inspirational
Used availability for Donna Jo Stone's When the Wildflowers Bloom Again