10% off all books and free delivery over £40
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

Three Things About Elsie

View All Editions

£9.99 £8.99

In Stock. Same day dispatch on orders before 3pm.

Add To Wishlist
Write A Review Read An Extract

LoveReading Says

LoveReading Says

January 2018 Book of the Month

Abundant in moving insights into identity and memory, this charming slice of humanity is as elegantly formed and sweetly satisfying as the Battenberg cake depicted on its cover.

Eighty-four-year-old Florence (Flo to her best friend Elsie) has fallen in her flat and, as she awaits help, wondering whether she’s “reached the end of her story”, her musings reveal a long-buried secret. “Everyone’s life has a secret, something they never talk about,” she remarks. “It’s what you do with your secret that really matters”, and what Elsie does with hers is determined by the unlikely reappearance of a man from her and Elsie’s past.

Florence’s reflections on she how hasn’t done enough with her life, how life takes you down paths you hadn’t intended to wander, are wholly heartrending. She wanted to be a scientist, to devise a world-changing invention, but instead she and Elsie ended up in a factory for the entirety of their working lives. While there’s loss and sadness as the twisting tale unfolds, this is also a tonic for the soul - upliftingly wistful, poignantly funny, and the relationship between Flo and Elsie is wonderful. At once a bittersweet ode to the elderly and the passing of time, and a compelling mystery, this proves that sometimes it’s entirely appropriate to judge a book by its cover. I adored it.  

Joanne Owen

Books of the Month
eBooks of the Month

Find This Book In

Primary Genre Modern and Contemporary Fiction
Other Genres:
Recommendations:

About

Press Reviews

Author

Collections Featuring This Book

You Might Also Like...

The Mermaid of Black Conch

Monique Roffey

Paperback

In Stock

£8.99 £9.99

The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne

Freya North

Hardback

In Stock

£15.29 £16.99

Ayesha at Last

Uzma Jalaluddin

Paperback

In Stock

£8.99 £9.99

Heart-shaped Bruise

Tanya Byrne

Paperback

In Stock

£8.99 £9.99

A Flying Fish Whispered

Elma Napier

Paperback

In Stock

£8.99 £9.99

Reader Reviews

See All

Secrets, friendship and love #ThreeThings

This is an amazingly deceptive novel. You're going along, learning about the main characters, Florence and Elsie, and slowly beginning to unravel the mysterious secrets from their past that bind them together. For a while you're comfortable, you think you know where you're heading, or you have an inkling at least and then BAM, all of a sudden everything is turned on its head - not once, but over and over again and all these little, insignificant details that you barely noticed when you were first told about them become huge pieces of a much bigger picture. 

As she did in ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’, Cannon does a fantastic job of making ordinary people extraordinary. You feel like you know them and more importantly you want to fight their battles with them.... Read Full Review

Nikki Whitmore

Joanna's style of writing is original and poetic. I have sat and read it from cover to cover, only stopped to sleep and eat! A wonderful book, one I am happy to recommend anyone to read.

I loved Joanna's first book and felt so excited when I was selected to review her second book.

Joanna's style of writing is original and poetic. I have sat and read it from cover to cover, only stopped to sleep and eat! As a member of a Creative Writing Course, she is someone who needs reading as an example of how to do it.

The book, in spite of being about some residents of Cherry Trees Retirement Home, moves at a pace and is a page turner. There is so much happening, a lot of it is in Florence's mind.... Read Full Review

Marjorie Lacy

This is a sad book - not "cry-your-heart-out-and-be-done-with-it" sad, but a sadness that is more subtle, small tragedies that hide inside bigger ones, but that are ultimately more difficult to bear.

After a fall, Florence is lying on the floor in her sheltered accommodation flat for hours. Not always sure of her own mind and memories, the reader sees Florence's past few weeks both from her perspective and from those around her, as Florence unveils a 60-year-old mystery surrounding her and her best friend Elsie.

I found this book incredibly sad - not "cry-your-heart-out-and-be-done-with-it" sad, but a sadness that is more subtle, small tragedies that hide inside bigger ones, but that are ultimately more difficult to bear.... Read Full Review

Sabine Little