The Wildflowers – review

The Wildflowers is a Richard and Judy Book Club summer read for 2018. 

Tony and Althea Wilde. Glamorous, argumentative … adulterous to the core.

They were my parents, actors known by everyone. They gave our lives love and colour in a house by the sea – the house that sheltered my orphaned father when he was a boy.

But the summer Mads arrived changed everything. She too had been abandoned and my father understood why. We Wildflowers took her in.

My father was my hero, he gave us a golden childhood, but the past was always going to catch up with him … it comes for us all, sooner or later.

This is my story. I am Cordelia Wilde. A singer without a voice. A daughter without a father. Let me take you inside.

In my continuing quest to discover what makes a book popular, I’ve been reading several of the Richard and Judy picks lately.

The Wildflowers is a very long book, so possibly good as a holiday read. The pace was a little slow in the middle but the complex characters had me hooked. The seemingly idyllic family summers spent by the seaside, however, concealed a much darker side to the story.

I was curious to discover how and why the sad and lonely little boy, Ant, grew up and turned into Tony – a lecherous actor who definitely lost his earlier charm. When the answer to this mystery was finally revealed, I found it quite shocking.

The Wildflowers is a poignant story of a damaged family.

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