Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

A fantastically satisfying read from start to finish. The writing is superbly evocative, transporting you effortlessly to another era. Brilliant characterisation and overall a totally captivating book.

I struggled a little with this book and felt that it took a long time to get into the story. Sometimes the changes in the time period didn't always work for me, which I think is why I struggled with it. I did like the conclusion to the story and how the family came back together in the end.

Review: Harriet Evans has pure magic coming out of her finger tips. So it is no wonder that this book is Richard and Judy's summer read for 2018! 

It is totally up my street as I love books by the sea with family secrets involved. I got totally lost in the Wildflowers story.

A beautiful read for the summer.

The Wildes are a family of means – father Anthony (Tony) and Mum Althea are both actors, living a glamorous life, but once which is jam packed with adultery. With their children, Cordelia and Ben, they spend their summers in the Bosky – a summer house down in Dorset. It is here that the family meet Mads, a year younger than Cordelia, but who has been abandoned by her own family. Each summer they take Mads under their wing, but it appears that their complicated lives start to unravel.

I have to be completely honest and say that I didn’t enjoy this book. The story didn’t really keep me guessing there was no magic twist at the end and one whole chapter towards the finish of the story was of Althea completely repeating what had already happened earlier on in the book. It felt like jury service – you sit and listen to all the evidence twice, once from the opposition and once from the defence, and then when you don’t think you can take anymore, you hear it all again in the judge’s summing up.

I felt no empathy towards any character…Cordelia annoyed the hell out of me, I thought she was spoilt and difficult, and I wanted Ben to grow a backbone.

Overall, I was really glad when the story ended, because I could then move on to something else.

I dislike giving books bad reviews, because an author will put blood, sweat and tears into composing a story that they want people to like, but I'm afraid that it just wasn’t for me, but that’s not to say that other people won't find it a wonderful story. After all, the world would be a very dull place if we all liked the same things!

A real sense of family drama with the undertones of previous generation’s experiences and secrets to unfurl again for younger members. Would have liked to holiday at the Bothy!

What a wonderful book with many threads skilfully weaved to Create a story that draws you in from page 1.. Tony and Althea Wilde are actors who enjoy spending the summer by the beach with their children . We follow their story from childhood and learn many secrets that have shaped the people they have become. Tony has a roving eye and we are never sure whether Althea is blissfully unaware The. Children befriend a local girl who has a tough life and we hear some of the story through her eyes. I love sagas that draw you in and keep turning the pages. Even through some questionable behaviour you feel for all he characters The house holds many secrets and becomes a strong part of the story. You can imagine spending summer days loving life as a child creating games to while away the time and how things. change as you grow up and look to your future

I really wanted to like this book. A family saga set between then and now but for some reason I just couldn’t gel with it. There are so many characters and I felt that I was always having to check who was actually speaking at the time. I also felt I got to the end of the book and was quite nonchalant about the whole thing. Sorry but this wasn’t one for me.

I really enjoyed this book once I got to know who the characters all were. I thought that it was an interesting and well-written story. It focuses on how a family has been torn apart by secrets and reunited when the truth comes to light and that knowing the truth can and will set your demons free. This is a clever story where both the present and past intertwine, we follow the stories of Tony, his children Ben, Cordy and Mads a little girl who they take under their wing each summer when they are staying at their summer home The Bosky as they grow up. At the start, I didn't like Tony but as his story unfolded I started to see him through different eyes and you realise he isn't all that bad.

As usual a great story from Harriet Evans. A little sad in places which gives it depth and as always so many dimensions to the characters. It is, as always, well written. I read this in two days, couldn’t put it down from when I started it, it is a great book and I will be recommending it especially to my book club and the older generation in the library who appreciate a book with a storyline that isn’t all happiness and light chic lit but with more life like interesting characters with depth and an intriguing past. It gets you hooked from the beginning to the end......a fabulous read.

The Wildflowers is a sweet, absorbing story about growing up, family secrets and the effect that glimping something you ‘shouldn’t have’ – even for a moment – can have such a profound effect throughout your life…

If that sounds a bit vague, good – I don’t want to give too much away about this story as I think it’s best to approach it without any preconceptions, as I did. It’s certainly a long read (at times I felt perhaps it could have been trimmed down, but only a little) and the fact that you feel like you’re with these characters for so long – some of them from kids right through to adulthood – means you feel far more absorbed in their stories; I always feel a deeper connection with characters when you experience big life events and emotions along with them – when you really see how they grow throughout their lives.

The characters in this story really make this story what it is, I feel; though some are far less likable than others, all had their own quirks and interesting aspects. We switch between characters, experiencing what life at that time was like for not only main narrator Cordelia but her mother Althea, her father Tony, and other people too! We also jump back in time, to the 1940’s of Tony’s youth, and this offers a brilliantly contrasting view of life, and helps link together some of the characters in the reader’s mind.

There’s an element of mystery throughout – just a hint of one at some times, and as a much more pressing theme at others – which made me want to read on and find out what exactly happened all those years ago…

If you enjoy family sagas with a real sense of time and place (I could almost imagine being right there with them, in 1970’s Cornwall and onwards, at various points in this story, and I really enjoyed reading about the 90’s too – an era I only experienced as a child but which evokes some strong memories in me nevertheless) then you’ll enjoy The Wildflowers.

Set some time aside for it and really lose yourself in the characters, the time, the place… as I did!

This was such an interesting idea for a book, lots of eccentric characters over a long time period with one thing linking them together. This is proper storytelling at its best. I listened to this one on audio book and I have to admit that keeping track of who's who in the book whilst listening on audio was kind of tricky, maybe because it was one narrator so they all sounded similar, but I think the actual ebook was much easier to keep track of the names, do bear that in mind if you're thinking of downloading the audio for this book.

The characters in this book are interesting because a lot of them are particularly selfish, something which possibly comes with them being in the theatre. This didn't mean that I disliked the book, it was actually refreshing to have characters who were flawed to read about the whole way through. Some of the characters are quite illusive in the sense that we don't find out a lot about them in the beginning of the book, their development is very slow but this author made a choice to do that to develop the storyline further.

The way the characters and their various storylines are link together is pretty clever but I did sometimes find myself losing interest as we got further into their development just because the pace was that little bit slower, I would have like a few less stories about the children playing and a little more about thing that actually contributed to the storyline then and there. Nevertheless this was definitely a good read and if you like a longer book with lots of intricate development points then you will definitely enjoy this one.

An interesting read about how secrets can destroy lives, and what makes family. Harriet Evans has moved on from her previous light stories to some darker subject matter, and she does it quite well.

The Wildflowers is a brilliant read it spans the generations of the Wilde family. Sir Anthony Wilde his wife Althea and their children Ben and Cordy. This family on the surface are bright young things the Wildflowers who people envy and want to be around but there are secrets pushing the family apart all trying to keep their own secret safe. Little Madeleine from next door who is trying to escape her abusive father finds a summer home with the Wilde’s. And Aunt Dinah who becomes Anthony’s family when the war is at its worst. The unravelling of long forgotten secrets will maybe set them free. Such an beautiful haunting read.

It took me a little while to get into the book but once I was in I was hooked! I found myself immersed in the story and the family and despite the length of the book (over 500 pages) I could have kept reading once the story had finished. A triumph.

difficult book to review as I found it enchanting yet disappointing at the same time. I loved the setting; 'idyllic' childhood at a Cornish beach house with some larger than life theatrical characters. On the other hand, this family saga was told initially from the daughter, Cordelia's, point of view. However, later on it switched to the adult's point of view and became somewhat confusing and to be honest overlong. if this had been offset by a happy ending then perhaps it would have left me with a different perspective but even the ending was sad. There is some wonderful descriptive writing, some memorable characters who show all their foibles and eccentricities yet my overall feelings were of sadness mixed with poignancy.

Oh dear, just two stars from me, and I usually love Harriet Evans' books. To be quite honest it took me until I was over 50% of the way through to become interested. I thought about giving up, but as this was a review copy, I felt I should persevere.

My favourite character was Ben, but I couldn't warm to the other main characters. I particularly disliked Tony, and Althea wasn't much better. Selfish!

I think too much time was spent writing from the children's perspectives - I think this slowed down the pace of the book. It improved when they had grown up, and we got an adult's perspective.

Grim storylines, and I just felt sad at the end of the book, but at least there was a resolution.

There was no central romance, which was a shame.

I have not read one of Harriet's books for a few years, no particular reason except there are so many books. This one really caught my attention. I loved the building up of the characters and the unraveling of their complex lives. Interestingly some of which I really didn't like, which I quite like in a book.I would recommend to anyone looking for a gripping family story with twists and turns.

This was the first Harriet Evans I've read and I will definitely be reading more! I felt bereft when I'd finished and had to leave the characters behind. Although they are all very flawed in their own ways you can't help be caught up in their stories and I found they really got under my skin and I got emotionally attached. The relationships between the characters are so believably complex and real and as their stories are played out I found myself constantly having to reassess how I felt about them. The Bosky was so beautifully described it was easy to feel transported there and understand its emotional draw for the family and although this is quite a sizeable book I raced through the pages and took whatever opportunity I could get to re-enter The Wildflowers’ glamourous , intricate world. It’s already on order for Mother’s Day and I’ll be putting it into the hands of as many library borrowers as possible and recommending Harriet Evans as their new must-read author.

A theatrical family, a house by the sea and an abandoned girl. Story told by Cordelia, how all the shenanigans affected her adult life. Normally I love family sagas but this was a bit of a struggle for me sadly. Disappointing because it sounded so good and it had a great cover, but it was much too long and wordy with such a fine set of selfish individuals, full of self entitlement. The style of writing and words used made it seem much older than the times it was set in. Loved the Dorset house though!