Thursday 18 July 2019

The flower girls by Alice Clark-Platts

Synopsis


Three Children went out to play. Only two came back.

The flower girls.  Laurel and Primrose.

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

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

And the flower girls are about to hit all over again.

Author: Alice Clark-Platts
Publisher: Raven Books
Publication Date: 24th January 2019

I bought my own copy of this book to read and review.

My Review


This was a dark and disturbing read which kept me intrigued from page one until the very end.

Laurel aged just 10 was convicted of the brutal killing of a toddler. Her sister Primrose aged just 6 was allowed to walk away and start a new life.  As Laurel is abandoned by her parents and swept into the prison system, she makes appeals to review her sentence but no to avail.  

Her sister Primrose changes her name and begins living her life as Hazel.  She is a misfit in society and prefers to keep herself away from other people until she meets Jonny.  He takes her under his wing and before long and despite knowing her history he asks her to marry him.

On a weekend break a child goes missing and the eyes of blame are thrown onto Hazel. This sets off a roller-coaster and Hazel is urged to tell her side of the story of what happened on that fateful day. As memories start to come back to Hazel all is not quite as it seems.

This book made me think an awful lot about the way that we see people.  Mud can stick and if we are told a version of events enough times it must be true, mustn't it?  The waters are soon muddied in this story and it's difficult to know who to believe.  

This was a very cleverly told story as we flitted back and forth from the day of the Murder, to the current missing child, back to Laurels version of events and then to Hazels before the story is sort of tied up together at the end.  I am still non the wiser as to who actually committed the murder but this is the perfect end to the story.

I really enjoyed this book even though the ending left me with lots of unanswered questions about what the future has in store for all of the characters.  With some books I do find this quite irksome but with this one it was quite fulfilling to not really have all the answers and still not know the complete truth about the sisters.

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