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Three Things About Elsie

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Three Things About Elsie

Written by: Joanna Cannon
Narrated by: Paula Wilcox
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About this listen

 The Sunday Times Bestseller

‘Lovely, lovely, lovely… Sue Townsend meets Kate Atkinson meets Nina Stibbe’ MARIAN KEYES

‘Powerful and profound’ Guardian

‘Another sure-fire hit’ Daily Mail

‘Funny, melancholy, acutely observant’ Sunday Express

‘Cannon is so attuned to other people’s stories… a chronicler both of the human condition and the quotidian details which speak to who we are’ Guardian

84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she considers the charming new resident who looks exactly like a man she once knew – a man who died sixty years ago. His arrival has stirred distant memories she and Elsie thought they’d laid to rest. Lying prone in the front room, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light …

©2018 Joanna Cannon (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Mystery Women's Fiction Suspense
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What the critics say

"Charming, wise and profoundly human. I lived every page of this book." (Erin Kelly)
"A warm, wise novel - brilliantly entertaining - that also manages to be a timely and profound take on ageing. I loved it." (Kate Hamer)
"A real treasure from Joanna Cannon's wry and amusing world, where the long view from the day-room is at once poignant and perceptive." (James Hannah)

What listeners say about Three Things About Elsie

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Great book, that takes its time.

"There are three things you should know about Elsie.
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."
The third thing made me cry hard.

The book has a great story, with a couple of twists and turns, relatively predictable, but not the point to spoil the reading.
It is about lifelong love and friendship, about the sorrow right choice and wrong sweet lies we chose to believe to.
Most of the characters are very old people that reached the end of their life road and they live in the retirement facilities, trying to disguise their loneliness and fill their days as meaningful as they can.
Not an easy and fast reading.

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Florence and Elsie

This is the third book I have acquired since I joined Audible and this is the third, entertaining, wonderful book that has simply taken me right inside the story.
Florence Claybourne is a 80-year-old woman at Cherry Tree retirement home and she is slowly losing her memory. At the outset of the novel by Joanna Cannon and read by Paula Wilcox, Florence has fallen in her room and thinks about many things as she awaits someone to find her.
Elsie is also at Cherry Tree. "Let me tell you three things about Elsie" says Florence. "She is my best friend, she would do anything to make me feel better" and...we;; that's for the reader to discover.
The curious arrival of a Gabriel Price at the home gets Florence and Elsie and their friend Jack all atwitter because Florence believes it is actually Ronnie Butler, an old school chum who had something to do with the death of Elsie's sister.
The story is poignant, humourous and mysterious and Paula Wilcox is superb as narrator.
Wilcox captures all the emotion and inflections and different voices of characters perfectly.
Since I have a parent living in a home like Cherry Tree, I can really envision being right there with Florence and Elsie and the caregivers.
But especially with Audible. I don't know why I waited so long to join. I used to listen to books on CD during long drives that I frequently have (mostly to visit the nursing home) but got away from it for a while. Audible has been magical. I love reading and I love the feel of a book but I also love feeling like I am right in the story, as if I am watching the novel come to life.
Thank you Audible and thank you Ms Cannon and Ms Wilcox for Three Things About Elsie.
Jen Morrison

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