The Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop

by Tracy Corbett

[Leah]

I’ve been on a very strange reading jag at the moment - normally I devour the same genre for a while until I get bored, then move onto the next one but at the moment I’m reading whatever appeals, in whatever genre and it’s kind of freeing. When looking through my Kindle for my next read, because I’ve been neglecting it recently in favour of paperbacks, I dithered a bit with what to choose - it’s hard to pick a book to read when you can’t see the cover, or read the blurb or flick through to the front page real quick, but The Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop caught my eye a little while ago, so I decided why not? I’m giving my books three chapters to hook me in and if I’m not totally sold, I move on to the next one. Thankfully, that didn’t happen here.

The Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop tells a few different stories, all based around the flower shop. Evie has just moved to town and taken over managing the Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop; her friend Laura runs the bridal boutique, and plumber Scott has his hands full looking after his mum, his nephew and dealing with being self-employed. There’s Patricia as well, Mum to Amy, who is getting married to Scott’s nephew Ben, which causes ripples because they’re only eighteen. There’s quite a lot to keep up with, but once you get the jist of the important characters, it was fairly easy. I really liked Evie - reeling from a break-up, she felt like she’d found herself a good place to land, and was hoping to buy the flower shop, eventually. I loved her character, I loved it when she went and adopted Marlon the dog (who felt like SUCH a character, I’m not even kidding, I adore authors who really put effort into making animals part of the book). I was invested in all of the characters, in fact. They all added something to the book and I was never bored by any of them.

Laura probably was my least favourite character. Here’s the thing: I hate cheating. Despise it, and I feel like if you want to be with someone else so bad, then split up with your spouse/partner/whatever. So Laura frustrated me because her entire plot line revolved around her marriage imploding - Martin worked a lot, things Laura tried to spice up the marriage didn’t work, it just wasn’t good. And instead of breaking up, or trying to fix things, Laura decides that the only thing to do - OBVIOUSLY - is to take up the flirtation offered by the dad of one of her brides. Then she goes and asks her friend Evie to lie to Martin, so she can hook up with this dad. And then has the gall to call Evie a bad friend for not doing that. I mean how conceited can you actually be? How much of a horrible person do you have to be? It was the only part of the book I didn’t like. I wanted to punch Laura in the face, in fact, when she got giddy over flirting with a married man, as a married woman. (And before I am accused of slut-shaming Laura - the married man was just as frigging bad.)

Apart from that, I loved The Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop. Reading about a flower shop always makes me want to become a florist, for some bizarre reason (its’ not like every time I hear about a pilot, I want to *become* a pilot, but a florist? YES PLEASE). I  loved all the characters. The writing was spot on - it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me angry, it just made me feel the whole gamut of emotions that you want to feel whilst reading. If a book doesn’t make you feel something, what’s the point, you know? Tracy Corbett has written a fascinating, absorbing read. I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to reading whatever Tracy writes next.