Review of "Dear Orchid" by Carol Van Den Hende

​Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)

Dear Orchid may be Carol Van Den Hende's best book yet!

And what's even more extraordinary about that is how this book really seems like it's intended as more of a companion piece or behind-the-scenes look rather than a mainline installment in the series. Yet, it hits so hard on an emotional level and says so much!

Hey, do you know what's often more interesting and exciting than a movie itself? The behind-the-scenes stuff—what inspired it, what was difficult, what was learned, what was gained, what was... earned. And that's somewhat how this book plays out.

Dear Orchid is a hybrid collection that sits somewhere between memoir, epistolary essays, and connected short stories. It is framed as a series of “letters” that explore where Carol Van Den Hende’s tenderness for wounded heroes comes from and how real people and moments fed into her fiction.

That's right. This isn't a conventional non-fiction or fiction book. Instead, it's a meta text in which fiction stories are explained and given significantly more weight and meaning by the real-life stories and people who inspired them. This book showcases, explores, and celebrates the many courageous and extraordinary wounded veterans who inspired Phoenix & Orchid's journeys in the series. It also provides a lot of insight into the author's personal experiences, serving almost as a memoir chronicling some of her extraordinary life as well.

The fact that the author was able to bring this all together into one cohesive text is a testament to her determination and skill in her craft. This is Carol Van Den Hende's magnum opus!

Let's dive in!

Ok, so what stood out to us?

How about the little individual stories that say a lot about the author's world view and mission? The stories that don't directly involve war or the veterans, but that greatly parallel their experiences.

One of those stories is how the author met her eventual husband, which shows a love and admiration for literature already budding, presumably long before the author was published. This is later followed by an act of profound selflessness in which Carol and her husband visited Berlin shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. Unable to use their German marks, her husband decides to give them all to a random woman, whose eyes light up and whose spirit seems to soar. The money doesn't just represent wealth, it also represents liberation and freedom from decades of oppression behind the wall. What's fitting is that a lot of this book and series deals with finding one's freedom—being able to move, to breathe, to live—which is powerfully paralleled by the Berlin Wall and this woman's experiences.

There is also the unforgettable story of the Coca Cola machine. Young Carol and her best friend figure out how to fish quarters out of the overflowing coin box with a stick and masking tape, dreaming of Creamsicles and Baby Ruths. It feels like a thrilling heist, at least until an older boy on a ten speed bike shows up and silently tries to buy a Sprite with no money. Instead of laughing or walking away, she slips two of the stolen coins into the slot and offers him the victory. Only later does she piece together that he likely has a hearing or speech disability and that he moves through the neighborhood mostly alone. The scene becomes more than just childhood mischief. It turns into an origin story for two core parts of her mission as a writer: her resolve to never again take what is not hers, and her belief in using whatever you have, even ill gotten pocket change, to give someone dignity, joy, and a sense of belonging.

And you know what? Those are the exact same things that many wounded warriors and amputees are searching for too. So when Carol later writes about Phoenix struggling to reclaim his agency after life changing injuries, or about the real veterans she profiles, you can feel the through line. This is someone who has been thinking about fairness, harm, and making things right since she was a kid feeding stolen quarters into a soda machine for a lonely, disabled boy.

There is another scene from the author’s earlier years in which she tries to give a moth to one of her college professors, a man living with hemophilia. On the surface, it is such an odd little moment, almost whimsical, yet it becomes another quiet metaphor. The moth is fragile, easy to crush, short lived. Her professor, whose blood does not clot the way it should, carries his own kind of fragility inside his body. The encounter captures how Carol’s mind works. She is always noticing the delicate, vulnerable things in people, always looking for symbols that can hold both their beauty and their risk. Those instincts are exactly what make her such a compassionate chronicler of wounded heroes later on.

Sadly, however, her professor decides to smother the moth in chloroform and pin it to his collection. What she meant as a small, living gift of beauty is instantly reframed as something to be controlled, studied, and preserved. It becomes a quietly haunting moment, a reminder that fragile things are not always cherished and that people who live with their own vulnerabilities are sometimes still capable of harming other delicate lives without even meaning to. But this story, while somewhat sad and disturbing, also causes the author to have another epiphany: should we be trying save life or preserve it? Because they're not the same thing. Keeping something in extended animation like a trophy or a statue isn't the same thing as giving them back their life and dignity.

And now, with that context, we can get into the meat of this book—the heart: the wounded veterans/heroes!

Sgt. Bryan Anderson does not simply “inspire” her. He challenges her. Here is a triple amputee who has every reason to be bitter, yet what he radiates most is humor, stubborn independence, and a very clear boundary around pity. He jokes about his prosthetics, shows her the thousand little workarounds that let him live on his own terms, and tells her plainly that he loves his life. Through Bryan, we learn right alongside the author that the job is never to make a character “brave enough” to endure tragedy. The job is to show the full human being who existed before, during, and after it.

Gosh, if we remember correctly, he gave us one of the best quotes in the whole book: "Do you think I'll get laid again?"

This quote, spoken in the middle of a warzone after an IED explosion has just collapsed his lungs and losing his legs and one of his hands, says a lot. Yes, it can be a bit humorous, even getting a chuckle from the observing friend, but it's also deeply and profoundly human. Something as foundational to our humanity as our sex drive is brought to the forefront, and a deeper set of questions: Now that I've lost my limb(s), can I love again? Am I still desirable? Am I still capable? Am I still human?

Doc Jacobs brings a different flavor of courage and grit. He is the competitor who refuses to let limb loss bench him. We watch him return to sports, chase a shot at professional baseball, and pour his energy into helping other veterans. His story is full of grueling rehab and setbacks, yet what lingers is his drive and sense of humor. From Doc, we see what it means to keep chasing joy and excellence in a body that has been permanently altered. He shows Carol that wounded heroes do not just “overcome” something once. They wake up every day and keep choosing to show up in their lives.

Then there is Noah Galloway, whose journey through injury, depression, and eventual visibility as an athlete and public figure underscores another crucial lesson. His missing arm and leg are the most obvious things about him at a glance, yet his story is about everything else he has built: fitness, family, new work, new purpose. He is honest about the dark seasons and about how hard it can be to look in the mirror, yet he also embraces opportunities that put his scars in the spotlight instead of hiding them. From Noah, Carol learns how important it is to let characters (and real people) own their stories, including the parts that are painful or messy.

Taken together, these heroes teach her how to write about injury and disability with integrity. They teach her to ask, not assume. To focus on what people can do rather than what they have lost. To center agency and choice instead of spectacle and suffering. We can feel those lessons woven into every fictional scene with Phoenix and Orchid, every letter, every quiet moment in which a character is trying to figure out how to move, breathe, and live again.

By the time we close Dear Orchid, we feel like we have been entrusted with pieces of many lives: the veterans and amputees who lent their stories, the childhood friends and professors who shaped the author’s conscience, the fictional lovers who carry all of those truths into a wider world. These heroes do not just teach Carol Van Den Hende how to tell better stories. They help her crystallize a mission, and they invite us to care more deeply and see more clearly in our own lives too.

What a beautiful bow on top of this gorgeous gift of a series!

Check it out on Amazon!