It's not often to find a fiction book that really appeals to plant people! I highly recommend SEARCHING FOR MISS FORTUNA- THE HUNT FOR A BROMELIAD by world-renowned bromeliad hybridizer Chester Skotak of Costa Rica. Chester Skotak, a Texas native raised in Houston, attended Texas A & M University, then moved on to South Florida and eventually drifted down to Central America. He has lived and worked in Costa Rica for 29 years and has published a novel loosely based on his lifetime of collecting, breeding, selecting, and propagating rare and beautiful plants. Skotak is a respected and accomplished nurseryman who has traveled widely throughout the Americas. On these trips, he has encountered oddball characters in unbelievable situations and has overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. SEARCHING FOR MISS FORTUNA is well-crafted fiction using vivid descriptions that allow the reader to become an armchair explorer. You smell the rain forests, feel the cool rivers, travel the by-ways of Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua -- territories the author knows well -- and even take a side trip into the ritzy Miami social merry-go-round of farce and fancy. Along the way, you encounter dreamers, schemers, seers, and liars -- each neatly embroidered into a tapestry of exploration and misadventure. As the free-spirited narrator (Skotak's alter ego) sets off on a river journey through Costa Rica to Nicaragua, the dam of his soul opens wide and spills out a fascinating, bizarre tale of his search for an elusive bromeliad, Guzmania 'Fortuna,' -- a pineapple relative of unsurpassed color and beauty -- lost in the hinterlands of Panama and Costa Rica. Chester Skotak's decades of isolation at his nursery in the highlands of Costa Rica have been punctuated by occasional collisions with the real and surreal worlds of botany, horticulture, and travel. SEARCHING FOR MISS FORTUNA brings all this together in such a manner that it beckons to be read with the understanding that it reveals as much of the author as of his provocative subjects and fictional characters. The book, which began as a father's simple attempt to leave a lasting memoir for his children of who he is and why he chose such a reclusive lifestyle, evolved into an elaborate story of broad scope and deep insight. SEARCHING FOR MISS FORTUNA will appeal to anyone with wanderlust, to those with horticultural interests, to the curious who appreciate the interesting characters that inhabit and visit remote areas of the globe, and especially to those who have come to grips with their need to find and acquire the ultra rare and the most unusual. Here is a link that might be useful: Author's web site

There are several anthologies of flash fiction out there. I think if you did a google search, they would come up. I really enjoy flash fiction....

Here's what the romance reader's board turned up: ": I can remeber this and I think this is the book you are looking for by Cathy Maxwell : WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE : Avon Books, 1998 - ISBN 0-380-79709-7 : Orphaned and virginal Eden is slated to become the latest "treasure" in a lasivious sultan's harem, when she escapes her prison ship during a violent storm. Washed ashore on the coast of England, she is greeted by jubilant townsfolk who asked the sea to send a bride for the handsome, unwed Earl of Penhollow. But can he find happiness with a beautiful maiden who has been taught to mistrust all men?"

I have attempted to read a truly dreadful book which I cannot throw anywhere as it was a gift, but as soon as decently possible I'll pass it on to a charity shop. The 'story' called Code Girls set during WWII is about a group of females sent to a large mansion to supposedly learn the 'art' of cypher breaking. But our three heroines are cooks/skivvies working in the kitchens. They are all endlessly describes by their brown/hazel/green/blue/flashing eyes, their long floaty/curly locks and their curvy/slim/long-legged figures. They giggle endlessly and their merry laughter 'tinkles' from dawn to dusk. I am rather hoping Hitler drops a bomb on the lot of them. The 'author' also makes several basic clangers . . . getting the name of the Prime Minister wrong, describing the vehicle driven by handsome local vet (he of the golden chest-hair and brown muscular arms) as a battered 'Land Rover' some ten years before it was designed, plus others too boring to relate. Many females reviewers at Amazon loved it!