I'm really not a fan of the typical boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl novel. It just doesn't do it for me if the romance is the sum of the story. 
 Thankfully Siri Mitchell's stories abound in so much more, with subtle humor and laugh-out-loud moments all the more delicious because all of us have experienced similar uncomfortable situations. And her novels are just interesting. She embeds a wealth of information about a particular topic or place so organically in her stories that you can't help being engaged by it as well as by the characters and plot. In the case of Like a Flower in Bloom, it's botany and the popular study of it during the Victorian period in England. 
 Like all Ms. Mitchell's books, this one is populated with quirky characters who add immensely to the fun: Charlotte's vastly preoccupied father; her gruff uncle, the Admiral, who is the disgrace of the family; Miss Templeton, who becomes Charlotte's fellow-schemer in avoiding matrimony and an unlikely friend; the mysterious Mr. Trimble who displaces Charlotte as her father's assistant; Mr. Stansbury, who takes great pride in his stumpery; the widowed rector, an excellent preacher but miserable botanist, who loves, but struggles to manage, his 8 young children. And first of all, Charlotte herself. Ms. Mitchell makes these characters not only hilarious, but remarkably believable and endearing.