Audiobook Review – The Flower Girls

Title: The Flower Girls

Author:Alice Clark – Platts

Genre: Crime/Thriller

Goodreads Rating: 3.68

My Rating:

Source: Audiobook

Synopsis:

The Flower Girls. Laurel and Primrose.

One convicted of murder, the other given a new identity.

Now, 19 years later, another child has gone missing.

And the Flower Girls are about to hit the headlines all over again….

My Review:

I originally chose this book on Borrow Box because the narrator was Emilia Fox. I thought she would have a really easy voice to listen to and I wasn’t disappointed. What I hadn’t expected were all the accents Emilia managed. Each character had a distinguishing voice which made it really easy to follow and to identify the characters.

We begin at a hotel in Devon where one of the Flower Girls is staying nineteen years after the original crime. Whilst Hazel (Primrose) is staying there a five year old girl is abducted and she is terrified that the police will think she had something to do with it. From there we learn more about Hazel’s past and what happened with her sister all those years ago as well as uncovering the mystery of what happened to the missing child at the hotel. Alice does a great job of unravelling the story and giving you snippets of the past but keeping you on the edge of your seat for the final revelation.

There were so many intriguing characters throughout the story but two of my favourites were Max and Joanna. They were both deeply affected by past and current events and paid the ultimate price. I felt sorry for Joanna and the life she had chosen to lead, she lived forever in the shadow of what had happened to Kirsty and put her life on hold. Her final letter to Laurel was the release she needed and I hope that she started to finally enjoy her life. Max was definitely career motivated in his ambitions to help Hazel, if only he knew what was in store for him maybe he would of changed his mind?

I did find it difficult listening to the description of what happened to Kirsty. Its never pleasant hearing murder details but when a child is involved it is a lot harder. Thankfully the details were given once and only briefly referred to later in the story.

Whilst I did find this listen entertaining, chilling and enticing I’m afraid I had guessed part of the ending quite early on. I still enjoyed the ride getting to that point but the ending was a little abrupt for me. I was slightly confused about the final revelation of the missing girl and wanted a little more clarification.

I’m really enjoying finding some different reads to listen to on Borrow Box and this is one I’ll be adding to my Beat the Backlist numbers.