Flower POWER
THINGS START UNRAVELLING FOR A PERFUME BLOGGER WHEN HER HUSBAND DISAPPEARS
Ikept spritzing on perfume whenever I picked up this novel because scents are such an important part of the story. The main character Polly is a successful perfume blogger who posts regularly on FragrantCloud. net (it exists – check it out) and runs regular events for her followers. She is also a part-time yoga teacher whose kids are both at university, so all in all, she has a pretty nice life.
Things go wrong when Polly’s husband of 24 years disappears. David, who is an academic, claims he is overseas on study leave but if that is the case, why isn’t she allowed to contact him or discuss his absence with anyone?
He has left her to deal with his stinky rescue dog, their son’s sudden tendency for heavy drinking and her own mother, a fiercely glamorous former model, who seems to be showing signs of dementia.
Not surprisingly, Polly is feeling dejected but fortunately she has some interesting new friends to distract her. There is loud, pushy Shirlee from her yoga class; Guy, an enigmatic perfumier who designs a signature scent for Polly; and an old flame from college called Chum who is very posh, extremely attractive and rather sad for some mysterious reason.
The story is interspersed with Polly’s blog about perfume. If you’re a fragrance fan, this adds another dimension, and if you’re not, you could probably skip those bits because this is a pretty chunky book and her posts aren’t vital to the plot.
There was stuff I didn’t completely love about this novel. Most of the characters are too much like “types” rather than being layered and real. And I also struggled to understand why beautiful Polly ever married awful David, who seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
What I enjoyed was its sense of fun and the way Maggie Alderson sends up things like faddy clean eating. Also Polly’s dilemma, as she falls for Chum but struggles with loyalty to her husband, makes for an absorbing mid-life love story.
Oh, and I found out quite a lot about fragrance along the way – did you know you shouldn’t rub your wrists together after spraying it on as that bruises the perfume?