Alexandra Andrews

This was recommended as a good summer beach read. I haven't been to a beach yet this summer but I listened to it while doing other summer activities. It was fast-paced and compelling but really quite unbelievable.

Florence Darrow has been working in New York City as an editorial assistant in a publishing firm. At a holiday party she goes off to have a one-night stand with her boss's boss who, of course, is married. Although she assured the man afterwards that they were good, she started stalking his wife and kids. Then, unbelievably, she sent him pictures that she had taken of them. Of course, she was fired. Like everyone else (it seemed) she had read Mississippi Foxtrot by Maud Dixon. Maud Dixon is a pseudonym and only her agent knows who she really is. Then Florence gets offered a job as a personal assistant for the reclusive author, Helen Wilcox, and learns that she is Maud Dixon. Florence moves into the guesthouse on Helen's property and is soon acting like a rock musician fan by trying to look and sound and write like Helen. (Naturally, Florence is an aspiring writer.) Helen, for her part, seems to quite like Florence. When Helen suggests going to Morocco to do research for her new novel Florence is thrilled. They set themselves up in a villa on the coast near a small town that gets its share of American tourists. Life seems too good to be true to Florence and that is when everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Florence is pulled from the car they have rented after driving off the coast road. In the hospital when she regains consciousness everyone starts calling her Madame Wilcox Florence cannot remember driving or going off the road but she thinks Helen must have been with her. Does that mean Helen died in the crash? The only identification left to her is Helen's so she decides to become Helen. Possibly not the best decision Florence has made as later events will show.

Neither Helen nor Florence are very likable characters. I always stuggle with a book when I can't like or at least empathisize with the main characters. Yet another reason for my less than rave of a review.… (plus d'informations)

I can't help but wonder what a good writer would have done with this plot. Andrews isn't a bad writer in the sense that someone like Dan Brown is. She puts together sentences quite well, and the setting of the story, whether it is New York City, an isolated house in the woods, or Morocco, is well done. It is the gaping holes in the plot that made this an exasperating listen. We can see from the start that our protagonist, Florence, is not a very good person, or a very smart person. But her inability to spot the obvious gets trying after a while. The reader (or listener) can pretty much predict the plot turns before they happen. The author manages to throw in a twist or two regarding the details, but the big shocks aren't that shocking, because the paint-by-number plot requires them. There are so many problems with the plot that it would take too long to list them all, but, for one, does the author understand that modern US passports include biometric information? Even if two people look alike, the biometric information will clearly differentiate them. To sum it up, I certainly had to listen to this book to the end to find out the final details of what happened. There again, we have some serious issues. Such as wills being contested by actual relatives....

I don't expect to read this author again. (The audiobook narrator was quite good, however. She was able to give the characters very different voices without turning them in to caricatures.)… (plus d'informations)