The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Laura Resau: The Alchemy of Flowers
In this episode, I'm chatting with author Laura Resau about her novel The Alchemy of Flowers.
A walled garden in the south of France. A woman carrying the weight of infertility and the ache of what might have been. An author who believes that myth, nature, and careful attention can turn pain into something living. That’s the ground we walk together with Laura Resau, whose debut adult novel, The Alchemy of Flowers, blends sensory delight with hard-earned hope.
We start with Laura’s unusual path—trilingual, trained in cultural anthropology, shaped by seasons in Provence and Oaxaca—and how immersion in other cultures taught her to write with reverence for place and people. She shares why she shifted from award-winning children’s books to adult fiction, carrying forward wonder while making room for layered reflection. Magical realism isn’t a trick here; it’s a way of telling the truth. Laura draws on myth to map inner journeys, then roots that map in the real work of a healing garden: herbs, salves, teas, and the slow patience of tending.
At the heart of our conversation is the compost metaphor that sparked the novel: how do we turn our crap into flowers? Eloise, our protagonist, manages literal compost while metabolizing years of loss, guilt, and tightly controlled routines. We explore restraint versus freedom, the cultural noise around fertility, and the relief of stepping off that hamster wheel—even inside a garden with walls. Found family deepens the story’s warmth, especially through Mina, whose act of writing through trauma echoes Laura’s real-life collaboration on The Queen of Water, a testament to storytelling as a path to repair.
Come for the rich textures—French meals that stretch past midnight, treehouses and yurts, a garden that feels both sanctuary and crucible. Stay for the craft insights, the mythic threads, and the gentle insistence that transformation is possible. If you’ve ever needed fiction that meets your pain without flinching and still promises bloom, this conversation is for you.
Subscribe, share with a friend who loves literary fiction and magical realism, and leave a review to help more readers find the show. What part of your life is ready to turn into flowers?
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson Beverly, and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe, and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media. And remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to episode 313. Well, here we are, and it is almost Thanksgiving. It's hard for me to comprehend. This year has just flown by. So here's a roundup of what I've been up to. Last week was the final lunch with an author literary series in Santa Barbara for 2025. Ivy Pakoda was my guest author, and we had a lively discussion about her novel These Women. While this book is not Ivy's most recent, I chose the book because it is a favourite of mine. Brilliantly written with strong voices. I highly recommend picking up a copy of These Women if you haven't already done so. I've mentioned this a couple of times, but as of January 2026, I'm adding Ohi to my list of locations for the literary series. And in addition to participating in the luncheons, some of the authors will also be teaching writing workshops. Our first is with Anne Hood in OHI on Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. I'm excited about partnering with Hotel El Roblah, and let me tell you why. The first time I entered the hotel was shortly after the remodel was completed. The feeling of the lobby is what captivated me with its dark wood, leather sofas, and warm, earthy, coloured lounge chairs and cushions. The space beckoned to me the same way as libraries and indie bookshops. For a moment I wondered if I stepped back outside, if I'd see horses in the driveway rather than cars. Although this is OHI and I've seen horses in the driveway. Eric Good, Raman Shamshiri, Warner Ebink, and Jeremy McBride have restored Oi's longest-standing hotel to its historical charm. True to both its Spanish revival and early California roots, Hotel El Roblar blends its historic design with a modern sensibility. I'm happy to announce that Hotel El Roblar is offering an accommodation discount to attendees of the literary lunches. To find out more about the luncheons and workshops, please sign up for my newsletter on my website at www.mandyjacksonbeverly.com. Scroll down the home page and you'll see where to sign up. Okay, now let's get on with this week's episode. Laura Risor is the author of The Alchemy of Flowers, her debut novel for adults and 11 acclaimed books for young people. Her novels won five Colorado Book Awards and appear on best of book lists from Oprah, the American Library Association, and more. Trilingual and with a cultural anthropology background, Laura has lived in Provence and Oaxaca and now teaches creative writing at Western Colorado University. You might find her writing in her cozy vintage trailer in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she lives with her rock hound husband, musician's son, wild husky, a garden of healing flowers, and a hundred houseplants. Hi Laura and welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much, Mandy. I am thrilled to be here.
SPEAKER_00:I absolutely loved The Alchemy of Flowers. The magical realism in the book is absolutely beautiful, as is your connection with nature. It's just a wonderful, wonderful book. Thank you for writing it.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for saying that. I and thank you for putting so much thought into the book as you are reading it. Yeah, I do love nature and I try and arrange my life so that I can be in nature as much as possible.
SPEAKER_00:That definitely shows throughout the book. Okay, let's begin with learning about you and what led you to study anthropology and languages. And was there a particular moment or experience that confirmed this was the right path for you?
SPEAKER_01:So I've always loved learning about other cultures and languages, and I've always loved reading from the time I was young. So I was exposed to different cultures through books. I um had the opportunity to spend a year in France during college. So I spent a year with a French family in Provence, and that was such an interesting cultural experience for me. And, you know, it gives you a perspective on your own culture and also kind of, you know, reminds you of all the possibilities out there, all the different ways to live life. So that was a very pivotal experience for me. And then after college, I went to teach English in a university in a very tiny town in Oaxaca, Mexico. And it was amazing. I learned Spanish there. I had really wonderful students from different indigenous groups who invited me to spend time in their villages on weekends and holidays. And it was it was amazing that people incorporated me into their everyday lives, um, you know, told me their stories. So I I loved, I loved learning about other cultures, immersing myself in other cultures. And um, so I did feel drawn to study anthropology. I did end up getting my master's degree in anthropology. Um, but then I decided to stop before getting my PhD because I realized that my true passion in life was creative writing, not academic writing. So I decided to kind of infuse my stories with different cultures, different languages, and kind of that um anthropological approach of um really trying to have an immersive experience in in other cultures with a great deal of respect along with it.
SPEAKER_00:Just out of interest, how old were you when you were in Oaxaca learning Spanish?
SPEAKER_01:It was ages about 23 to 26, I think. Um so I was I was pretty young. Um, and I had spoken French already. I was pretty fluent in French. So I went in, I went to Oaxaca not knowing any Spanish, like 10 words. I mean, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. Hardly anyone in my town spoke any English. So I within a few months I I was pretty conversational in Spanish just out of necessity.
SPEAKER_00:Kudos to you for being able to speak a few languages. What inspired you to write children's books and more recently delve into fictional writing for adults with the alchemy of flowers? And how did shifting from writing for children to writing for adults shape your voice or approach as a storyteller?
SPEAKER_01:That's such a good question. Um, so I think with my writing for children, I really embrace a sense of wonder and magic and kind of um heartwarming kind of sensibility. I like to infuse my stories with hope and make them feel uplifting. So I think those were things that I took from my children's writing. Um but I knew that I wanted to deal with the topic of infertility. And I that obviously is not territory that you find in children's books. Uh, so I wanted to like bring my favorite things from writing for children into the adult sphere, you know, while tackling some pretty, you know, deep issues that adults could relate to. And it was, it was interesting to figure out my grown-up voice. So I remember it really was. I remember uh I was very in love with an early draft of this manuscript and I shared it with my writing group. I was so excited. And um, but their response was, you know, oh, we we like a lot about this. We like the food, we like the magical flowers, but the voice is coming off as a young adult. So I was kind of disappointed. I was hoping that I would just, you know, hit the ground running with writing for adults and it would be an easy path, but I did have to go back and I did have to do a lot of thinking and reflecting on how do I make my voice sound more grown up? And it was really about giving myself permission to have some more layers of reflection, some more layers of self-awareness, um, to use kind of more sophisticated language. So once I gave myself permission to do that and started um just kind of experimenting with that voice, then it started to come more naturally. So in the next version, it was working.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's interesting to hear you say that because while I was reading The Alchemy of Flowers uh and about the little girl, which I'm not going to give away any spoilers, I couldn't help but think as a writer, you manifested her from the little girl in you because she is so attracted to nature, almost a part of nature. And there's something mystical about her. In some ways, it felt to me as if you were surrendering your inner child to the reader.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, oh, thank you for that insight. I love that. And um yeah, I I think I did put some of my inner child into it. And I also, so my son is 18 now, but when he was uh younger, I would write letters to him, to his future self. And so I would like basically talk about all the cute things he said and all the cute things he was doing, um, and things that touched my heart, especially. So a number of a number of that little girl's uh bits of dialogue came verbatim from things that my son said to to me that really, really warmed my heart. And um yeah, and and it's interesting, I'm working on my second adult book now, and there's also a child character in that. And I just was realizing I think it's important for me to always have a really vivid three-dimensional child character in all of my books for whatever age group I'm writing for.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, now I can't wait to read your next book.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you. It's it's uh going through the revision process right now with my editor.
SPEAKER_00:Well, please keep me posted. Uh, the alchemy of flowers is a mix of magical realism and reality. Do you see magical realism as a way of expressing truths that realism alone cannot capture?
SPEAKER_01:I do, and I love how you put that. Um, I think that kind of my general worldview does incorporate some magic. I think it did when I was a child, probably from all the books that I read. And I think that that stayed with me into my adulthood. Um, so I also like to think about reality in in terms of myth or mythological framing. So a lot of my own experiences I do see through the lens of myth. And I think some of that comes from um, you know, I read Jung and Joseph Campbell in college, and then Clarissa Pinkola Estes. And so, you know, these are um thinkers who see mythology as a way to understand human psyche and our psychological journeys as humans on this earth. And so, you know, that's something that has been helpful to me, kind of dealing with my own struggles in my life. And I thought that it would be a good kind of magical mystical framework for this book. Yes, indeed, it's perfect.
SPEAKER_00:You know, whenever I walk through nature, walk through a forest or by the ocean and see shells in their incredible shapes that are absolutely perfect, or flowers that are perfect, even weeds, I can't help but think maybe magic is real. I mean, how can you not think like that, right, when you walk through a forest? It's extraordinary how magical nature is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree completely. And I I did, you know, when I was uh kind of getting the idea for this book, it was during the pandemic. So we all had a lot more time in nature and a lot more kind of unscheduled time. And so I did start a healing flower garden in my backyard, and I did feel like I started to develop a kind of mystical relationship with these flowers. I was very in tune with them. I was making teas and lotions and potions with them. And yeah, so I I really felt I felt their magic in a very visceral, kind of hands-on way, and I tried to bring that into the story.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it worked. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:The alchemy of flowers begins with Eloise answering a help-wanted ad in a French gardening magazine, leading her from the States to a walled garden in the south of France. The way you write about her, about Eloise, one can't help but wonder how much of your personal story is woven into her personality. What are the main similarities between the two of you? She embodies both vulnerability and resistance, which I found fascinating. And what universal struggles did you hope to capture through her journey?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she is um kind of inspired by my own infertility struggles and endometriosis and miscarriages. So a lot of her story um kind of is is similar to mine. I imagined like, what if I didn't have the support system and the family and the solid marriage? And, you know, what if I didn't have all of that? What might happen? How might I have hit rock bottom? And, you know, in my personal journey, I did, you know, I had five really, really tough years of of going through all of that. And then we did end up adopting my son from Guatemala. And, you know, he, yeah, he he just um brought so much joy to our lives. And um I like he's my happy ending, he's he's the treasure at the end of it all. Um, but so I was, but I was really drawing on how I felt, you know, during the struggle and in the immediate kind of aftermath and how I was healing from that. Um and and so I was, you know, it was therapeutic for me to write, even you're my son's 18 now, but it was it was still I in writing this, I felt like I could kind of let go of some of my last bits of pain over what I went through. Um I feel like her, you know, I wanted her to feel like a real character, vulnerable, as you say. Um, and I it was important to me to put in all the different kinds of emotions that you go through. So some of the emotions are kind of ugly, right? There's resentment, there's bitterness. And so I didn't want to shy away from that. I wanted it to feel real and relatable to anyone who was going through this. So that was important to me. Um, and I my hope was that readers would, uh especially readers going through infertility or related struggles, would kind of feel seen and feel heard and be able to kind of this could might be a step in their own healing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, as I was reading the book, I I felt that it was coming from deep within you. Uh, it felt like it came from experience. There's a childlike whimsy to The Alchemy of Flowers, which allows the reader to discover elements of their own childhood, specifically in relation to nature. Tell us about how your relationship with nature helped structure the story and what symbolic weight did you intend the garden itself to carry in the novel? Healing, mystery, rebirth, or was it something else?
SPEAKER_01:I love that question. So when I got the concept of the garden, um, I was thinking I wanted it to be a dreamy, wish fulfillment kind of place, paradise. You know, the one of the characters calls it a refuge for the broken. So a place where we would love to go to heal, you know, there's our magical flowers, um, really interesting lodging that is off-grid. So there's like the elegant tree house, there's a yurt, there's a caravan, a hobbit hole. So I felt like it was fun to get into this immersive, fantastical setting. Um, but and I thought it would be a really interesting place, a setting for healing. But then I also wanted to honor the shadows and the dark parts of the experience. And so there, you know, paradise has this dark underbelly. And, you know, all of the characters are facing the shadowy parts of themselves and their experiences, and that's kind of essential to their healing. Um, and and I like, I always am drawn to locked room kind of settings and thrillers and mysteries. And so it seems like that kind of locked garden situation would add a really interesting eeriness and tension. Um, and like you're saying, I think there is a lot of symbolism that readers can, you know, readers can bring their own experiences and ideas. Um, but uh she Eloise has felt very trapped in her situation with infertility and miscarriages for many years. And so she's kind of has a new type of freedom in the gardens where she's finally letting go of a lot of that. But ironically, she is kind of imprisoned there as well. Um, and I as far as the off-grid setting there and the closeness with nature, um, I really got the idea for this book. Um, if I really trace it back to the beginnings, when I was at our little piece of land surrounded by national forest in the Rocky Mountains, we have a teeny tiny cabin that's completely off-grid, not even any internet or cell service there.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness, that sounds like heaven.
SPEAKER_01:It is heaven, it's heaven. And I love brainstorming and free writing book ideas up there because there are no distractions except for nature. Um, so I was up there and uh I had asked my husband and son for mother's for a Mother's Day present one year to build me a composting toilette. So basically an off-grid toilet and so a glorified bucket, um, but surrounded by like an outhouse, like a pretty kind of rustic looking outhouse um structure. So they did it for me and I love it. I don't think it's disgusting at all. And um I was one day I was managing the compost. So it goes through stages from you know human waste to fertile, rich soil after a year or two. And so I was managing the compost one day and it was summertime, and I was looking at the hillside and it was covered in beautiful wildflowers. And this big, beautiful metaphor just was filling my vision, which was how do we turn our crap into flowers? How do we turn the difficult stuff life hands us into something beautiful and wise? Um, so that was really kind of the framework I had for this story. And then I just kind of took it from there. And I, you know, I gave Eloise a job, you know, in the garden. One of her, one of her roles in the garden is to manage the compost, the composting toilette. So she's kind of literally doing this, and then metaphorically, she's kind of turning her own difficulties into, you know, beauty and wisdom.
SPEAKER_00:Just hearing you talk about it, there is an alchemy to composting.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Agreed, yes.
SPEAKER_00:And that brings me to the title of the book, which is perfect in so many ways. Was this always the title, or did the name itself also go through an alchemy of sorts?
SPEAKER_01:I love that question. So this was not always the title. Um, my working title was How We Become Flowers. So it's similar in some ways, but my agent asked me to brainstorm a bunch of different titles. And so then we talked about them, her our favorites, then she ran them by other agents in our agency. They talked about their favorites, and we landed on the alchemy of flowers. Um, we felt that it showed, you know, it gave a sense of magic. It also kind of gave a sense of some of the gothic kind of vibes of the story as well, some of the darker, um uh mystical kind of kind of vibes. So, but yet it still maintains that idea of transformation. Uh so I was I was really happy with with the title that we landed on.
SPEAKER_00:Well, not only is the uh title of the book beautiful, but also the cover. It is delicious. Let's talk about other characters in the book. Is it Antoinette Bellux? Beaulieu, uh-huh. Thank you. Uh Mina, Raphael, and Bao. Did they develop as you wrote the story or do they manifest at the beginning? And do you see these characters as reflections of archetypes or as people drawn from your own life?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, very interesting question. Uh, I think most of them I was drawing on some specifics of some people in my life, and then letting those seeds bloom into something completely new. Um, except Antoinette, we can get back to her. I do think that she kind of was uh kind of more heavily influenced by some goddess kind of archetypes. But um, but for example, Mina. And so Mina, Bao, and Rafael are kind of the found family that uh Eloise encounters and becomes close to in the book. Um, so Mina, for example, um she's from Senegal, she's a refugee, and she had some um, I don't want to give away too much, but her her backstory involves some child trafficking. And um, she's healing from that. And she's healing from that by writing her story. And she's been writing it for years, and Eloise kind of acts as a support to help her get her story out in the world, which is another layer of healing for her. And that was really directly inspired by my own experiences. I was teaching English as a second language here in Colorado. Uh, this was years ago, like almost 25 years ago. And um, a woman from Ecuador, an indigenous woman from the Ecuadorian Andes, when she found out I was fluent in Spanish and that I had an anthropology background, she asked if I would write her story with her. And this was, yeah, this was before any of my books were published. I I had the pipe dream of becoming a writer, and I warned her that, but she took the chance on me. It took us seven years to write her story, but she um was taken from her indigenous family at age seven to become an unpaid servant. Um, and so she's had she spent eight years serving this family and finding ways to resist their oppression. And when she's 15, she escaped, she created a new life for herself. She now is a psychologist in Ecuador with two master's degrees in psychology.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness, that's a great accomplishment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she's helping people who've been through their traumas. So I had the honor of seeing how collaborating on a story or supporting someone and telling their story can be incredibly healing for them. And then it can create this really beautiful bond of friendship. She and I are very close. She calls me her sister. And so I wanted to infuse some of Mina and Eloise's relationship and Mina's story with kind of that idea of how telling your story can be healing in incredible ways. Um, so that's kind of one example of how a real life experience with the person kind of bloomed into something different, but with maybe the same emotional core. And so I tried to do similar things with the other characters that she creates that's her found family.
SPEAKER_00:What a wonderful story about your friend. Did she ever get her book published?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we have it's called The Queen of Water. It came out uh, I think around 2011 with Random House. So it's young adult slash adult. It's kind of a crossover. Um, but yeah, it's um I I feel so we both feel so proud of that book. We we we love it and it it was life-changing for both of us.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think there's a better feeling in the world than giving back, helping someone with a project or helping someone who's stuck in their life, you know, or just listening. I always think that when you're feeling down, the best thing to do is to go and volunteer.
SPEAKER_01:I agree a hundred percent. And then I think also like the bonds it creates, like the bonds that I have with my her name is Maria Virginia Farinango. The bonds that we have is really deep and really special. And I feel like, you know, I I have learned so much from her, and I have gotten so much out of this relationship in this book as well.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's so beautiful. I'd like to talk more about Eloise. While the garden is walled, she finds a certain freedom, which you describe on page 29. Quote, I noticed my now empty glass. I wasn't much of a drinker. Not for the past decade, at least. Every aspect of my diet had been tightly controlled. Caffeine, alcohol, gluten, meat, dairy, sugar, you name it. I'd been a frantic rat in a maze, trapped in trial after trial. Most of my adult life had been about withholding every indulgence, tempering every pleasure, daily sacrifices for something monumental that never came to pass. End quote. Can you expand on this idea and what led you to Eloise almost being haunted by her previous life? And do you feel this theme of restraint versus freedom reflects broader cultural pressures, or is it more personal to Eloise's inner struggle?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love, I love those insights. Thank you for thinking so deeply about it. Um I I think that I think that Eloise is dealing with her own personal struggle, which is she really, really, really loves children. And I, you know, I really, really love children, and that's one reason I became a children's writer. And um so I I feel like in that sense, my desire for a child came from within in a pretty profound way. And I see that with Eloise too. But I think where this in her case and my case, I think where the societal pressure came in was, you know, when you're trying to get pregnant and you're trying to stay pregnant, you have, you know, information coming at you from everywhere. You have, you know, guidance and rules and instructions coming from everywhere. You know, change your diet in this way, take these supplements, take these herbs, go see these kinds of doctors, don't do this, do this. And it can feel like a very, it can feel very claustrophobic. It can feel like you're trapped. And also you, I think have a lot of guilt and shame. Like, oh, I did I did something wrong and that's why I had the miscarriage, or oh, I did something wrong and that's why I didn't get pregnant this month. So I think, you know, it is, you know, it is constraining and it is kind of um, yeah, like I remember feeling a lot of anxiety and fear about doing anything because I thought anything could be the wrong thing to do. And so I did want to kind of capture that feeling in in Eloise's experience. Um and yeah, I think going to the gardens that as I mentioned earlier, she had a new type of freedom because she'd given up on trying to have a child. She'd let go of that. So that was very freeing. She could do, you know, she could have some glasses of wine, she could eat whatever she wanted. So it was very liberating. Um, but the irony, of course, is that she is, you know, in prison. There are walls around her. Um, so a different, a different type of prison there.
SPEAKER_00:Laura, when you began writing The Alchemy of Flowers, did you have a clear structure in mind, or did the story reveal itself organically as you wrote?
SPEAKER_01:So, with pretty much all of my books, I I start out by free writing. So I'll just, you know, I often try to be in nature. I take a little notebook with me and I just do free writing and brainstorm about characters, possible plots, the kinds of vibes or emotions that I want to give in the book. And so I do that for a while. And then when I feel ready, I move to my computer and I start doing a very rough outline and some rough character sketches. And I look at what are the characters' arcs going to be and where do they begin, where do they end? What are their conscious needs? What are their unconscious needs? So I try try and think about all of this. And then I do dive into the writing, but I'm always going back and forth between my provisional outline and the writing because as I'm writing, I'm always making new discoveries about the characters, about the story, and new plot twist might come in. And so then I go back to my outline and tweak it. And I really think about writing a book as kind of a dance between your unconscious dream self and your conscious rational self. And so I try and let the dream self kind of take the lead, but I want my analytical self, my rational self, to also provide some structure and guidance. So it's kind of, you know, this kind of going back and forth and learning how to let both types of consciousnesses uh participate in a way that's going to uplift the story as much as possible.
SPEAKER_00:And do you write in sequence or do you write the way the story comes to you, maybe a scene at a time?
SPEAKER_01:Usually I do write in order, usually. But then during the revision stage, I might do some reordering of things. Um and if there is, I usually have a sense of the ending. I have a sense of the kind of emotional core of the ending. So I often, I might not write that right away, but I have this sense of that's what I'm working toward emotionally and plot-wise. Um, and but I would say generally I am writing chronologically, um, unless I feel like incredibly passionate that I need to write a particular scene out of order, which I do sometimes.
SPEAKER_00:What emotions or reflections do you hope linger with the reader after they close the final page? And have readers shared any interpretations of the book that surprised you or revealed layers you hadn't consciously intended?
SPEAKER_01:I would love for readers to feel uplifted. I would love for them to feel like they were just immersed in a really engaging story. I would like them to feel like they just had a lot of wonderful gourmet meals in France and a lot of great tea. And that they had that just kind of escapist immersive experience in these magical gardens. I would like them to feel a sense of hope and a sense of, you know, whatever they're going through in life, a sense that they are capable of at some point eventually transforming all of this into something meaningful. And so that, and I feel lucky, I feel fortunate to have heard from some readers who have read this early, or it's been out a few weeks already. So I some people have actually like bought bought the bought the final version of the book. But I have heard from readers who've been through infertility and miscarriages and have said that they felt seen and heard and they really connected with the story. So that was one of my greatest wishes. So I'm I'm really, I feel very uh moved that that has happened.
SPEAKER_00:I love the creativity of the characters in the book. I love the mythical part about it. But for me, it was a really good reminder, and I know I've used this word before, to keep whimsy in your heart. Because as we get older, we forget about that. And uh it's just a wonderful thing to remember. Now that you've explored magical realism, do you see yourself continuing in this genre or are there other literary landscapes you're eager to explore?
SPEAKER_01:I love it. It feels very natural for me to write. Uh, and and my next book, The River Muse, it's coming out in May 2026, and it also has magical realism in it. Um, it's got a similar kind of vibe as far as um uh woman's healing journey. It is set in uh rural south of France, lots of nature in it, um, but completely different characters, different plot line, different issues and themes. But I it feels very organic for me to write and uh incorporate, incorporate bits of magic. And again, this new one has a lot of mythology in it as well, um, which which I love. It's always an excuse to do more research and take a deep dive into different kinds of uh nooks of of mythology across history, across cultures.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, while I was speaking about France, your last name is French. I researched how to pronounce it and it said uh Razau. So I don't know how would you like it pronounced?
SPEAKER_01:So a lot of people say Rousseau or Rissau. My family says Rissaw, so it's Rissaw, but um I I kind of like it when people pronounce it in a French way, like Rousseau. So I don't correct them when they say that. I'm fine with it.
SPEAKER_00:Have you spent much time in France?
SPEAKER_01:I have. So I spent a year there, my junior year in college with my French host family and became very close with them. And so I go back and visit whenever I can. I just was back with I took my son there. Uh, he had met them when he was a toddler. So he got to see them again as a teenager. And of course, my French family makes amazing food or meals, you know, in a lot of people have enjoyed the meals in The Alchemy of Flowers. And they were inspired by the amazing five-course meals that my French mom would make every single night. And these would last for hours, sometimes past midnight. Um, and and so I I do love that part of French culture where you're just sitting and having meals together and you know, having conversation and just letting the rest of the world kind of do its thing while you're in this cozy group of people just enjoying life.
SPEAKER_00:That sounds perfect. Okay, Laura, my final question. What are you currently reading?
SPEAKER_01:So, right now I am reading The Compound by Ashlyn Rawl. It just came out pretty recently. And uh I'm at the beginning, but it sort of seems like um almost the locked room style kind of mystery thriller is where I'm thinking it's headed, but I can't be sure yet. But it is uh based on kind of a reality TV kind of model of interacting. Um, so it's yeah, it's it's been it's interesting so far. It's um very unique. So I'm I'm definitely turning the pages and enjoying it.
SPEAKER_00:And just a reminder for our listeners a list of all the books we've mentioned and links for Laura uh will all be in the show notes. Laura, it has been great chatting with you. I absolutely loved The Alchemy of Flowers. It is a beautiful, beautiful book, and I love the cover. I love the way you write, and I wish you all the best of luck with the book.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much. I I am so grateful that you took the time to read my book so thoroughly and think about it and connect with it and ask such great questions. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00:You've been listening to my conversation with Laura Rissaw about her new book, The Alchemy of Flowers, one I highly recommend. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media. And remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to thebookshoppodcast.com and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy JacksonBeverly, on Instagram and Facebook, and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcast.com. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, Mandy Jackson Beverly. Theme music provided by Brian Beverly and my personal assistant is Kaylee Dishinger. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.