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Publication date 11th January 2018
Harper Collins UK, Harper Fiction
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I received an advance review ebook from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Book description:
The first thing is that she’s my best friend.
The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better.
And the third thing… might take a little bit more explaining.
84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly a man who died sixty years ago?
From the author of THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP, this book will teach you many things, but here are three of them:
1) The fine threads of humanity will connect us all forever.
2) There is so very much more to anyone than the worst thing they have ever done.
3) Even the smallest life can leave the loudest echo.
My review:
This book is in my top 3 reads of the year. The descriptive writing is top notch and I don't think I have highlighted more passages in a book ever.
Flo is 84, lives in sheltered accommodation and has fallen in her flat. The story portrays Flo's thoughts as she lies on the floor waiting to be found. Elsie is Flo's best friend since childhood, and she plays a large part in Flo's life. Flo has a secret though which has clearly bothered her ever since it happened and Flo's thoughts keep reverting back to it as she lies there. All becomes clear by the end, but it is a tale you have to let Flo tell in her own way in order to understand it all.
The cover of this book is absolutely perfect in reflecting the story as the jigsaw pieces of Flo and Elsie's lives gradually get put together throughout the book and the reader puts the facts together to make the picture whole. I loved the characters - there really isn't one person I disliked in the whole book. Each of them is travelling their own journey of self discovery in this tale and I am not embarrassed to say that I cried a tear or two for more than one of them by the end.
A lovely tale, amusing and heartbreaking in equal measure. This book will definitely be hitting the bestsellers lists and staying there for some time. Just make sure you have a tissue handy for the tears.
A couple of my favourite quotes from the book:
"I looked at the criss-cross of walking sticks around the waiting room and all the people, drawn in grey and beige, with whispers of white where their hair used to be and shoes too big for their feet."
"We looked up at a wall of photographs, and the past gazed back at us. Black-and-white ballrooms. A hundred foxtrots, captured forever within a lens."
"...everything was so bright and so happy, it looked as though someone had given God a new set of felt tips."
Find out more about the author at www.joannacannon.com
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