Listen free for 30 days

  • Three Things About Elsie

  • Written by: Joanna Cannon
  • Narrated by: Paula Wilcox
  • Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

Try for $0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Three Things About Elsie cover art

Three Things About Elsie

Written by: Joanna Cannon
Narrated by: Paula Wilcox
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $30.09

Buy Now for $30.09

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

There are three things you should know about Elsie.
The first thing is that she's my best friend.
The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better.
And the third thing...might take a little bit more explaining.

Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died 60 years ago?

From the author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, this audiobook will teach you many things, but here are three of them:

  • The fine threads of humanity will connect us all forever.
  • There is so very much more to anyone than the worst thing they have ever done.
  • Even the smallest life can leave the loudest echo.

©2018 Joanna Cannon (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Mystery Women's Fiction Literary Fiction Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction
Show more Show less

What the critics say

"Charming, wise and profoundly human. I lived every page of this book." (Erin Kelly)
"A warm, wise novel - brilliantly entertaining - that also manages to be a timely and profound take on ageing. I loved it." (Kate Hamer)
"A real treasure from Joanna Cannon's wry and amusing world, where the long view from the day-room is at once poignant and perceptive." (James Hannah)

What listeners say about Three Things About Elsie

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.ca reviews

Amazon Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Let Me Say This:

Great book, that takes its time.

"There are three things you should know about Elsie.
The first thing is that she’s my best friend.
The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better.
And the third thing… might take a little bit more explaining."
The third thing made me cry hard.

The book has a great story, with a couple of twists and turns, relatively predictable, but not the point to spoil the reading.
It is about lifelong love and friendship, about the sorrow right choice and wrong sweet lies we chose to believe to.
Most of the characters are very old people that reached the end of their life road and they live in the retirement facilities, trying to disguise their loneliness and fill their days as meaningful as they can.
Not an easy and fast reading.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for AA
  • AA
  • 2018-09-20

Florence and Elsie

This is the third book I have acquired since I joined Audible and this is the third, entertaining, wonderful book that has simply taken me right inside the story.
Florence Claybourne is a 80-year-old woman at Cherry Tree retirement home and she is slowly losing her memory. At the outset of the novel by Joanna Cannon and read by Paula Wilcox, Florence has fallen in her room and thinks about many things as she awaits someone to find her.
Elsie is also at Cherry Tree. "Let me tell you three things about Elsie" says Florence. "She is my best friend, she would do anything to make me feel better" and...we;; that's for the reader to discover.
The curious arrival of a Gabriel Price at the home gets Florence and Elsie and their friend Jack all atwitter because Florence believes it is actually Ronnie Butler, an old school chum who had something to do with the death of Elsie's sister.
The story is poignant, humourous and mysterious and Paula Wilcox is superb as narrator.
Wilcox captures all the emotion and inflections and different voices of characters perfectly.
Since I have a parent living in a home like Cherry Tree, I can really envision being right there with Florence and Elsie and the caregivers.
But especially with Audible. I don't know why I waited so long to join. I used to listen to books on CD during long drives that I frequently have (mostly to visit the nursing home) but got away from it for a while. Audible has been magical. I love reading and I love the feel of a book but I also love feeling like I am right in the story, as if I am watching the novel come to life.
Thank you Audible and thank you Ms Cannon and Ms Wilcox for Three Things About Elsie.
Jen Morrison

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!