The Orchid Delirium

1964: In the wetlands where the past refuses to die, a mythical orchid blooms—beautiful, impossible, and hungry.

It gleams like silk in the dark, tasting the air for love, memory, and the sorrow that binds them all, its legend as alluring as it is dangerous.

As Miami’s Black neighborhoods are leveled for new highways and developers move to carve a jetport into the Okeela Grove wetlands, botanist Dr. Nora Crawford is determined to prove the existence of the Ballgown Orchid, a bloom said to have sprung from a trail marked by silk and the ruins of a forbidden love. Her mother lost her mind chasing the same flower, and Nora fears she might share her fate. If she can prove the orchid is endemic to Okeela Grove, she could halt the jetport’s construction, redeem her mother’s legacy, and save her community from vanishing altogether.

When she’s forced to partner with Dr. Callum Santiago, an infuriatingly brilliant anthropologist and descendant of Ellie Cypress, her childhood hero, Nora vows to let data, not desire, guide her. But the orchid’s intoxicating influence begins to distort her senses, making her question her research, her growing feelings for Callum, and her own fragile grip on reason. As obsession deepens and trust erodes, Nora must decide whether the visions the orchid stirs are warning or revelation, and how much she’s willing to sacrifice for truth, love, and the world she still hopes to save.

The Orchid Delirium is a lush, haunting literary novel about madness, scientific wonder, and the fragile connections that endure across generations. Perfect for readers of Lauren Groff, Isabel Allende, and Jesmyn Ward, it reminds us that in the lush decay of Florida’s wilds, beauty and danger grow from the same roots.