Many thanks to NetGalley, Magnolia Press, and Karen Hugg for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review of The Forgetting Flower. My thoughts and opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advance copy.

This had such a solid premise. I mean a plant whose flowers make you forget? Yes!!! Think of all the possibilities and where do I sign up. Renia has left Poland, moved away from her whole family including her estranged twin sister. Trying to make a go of it in Paris, she works at a flower shop where, in the back, she has a special plant hidden away. When one of the shop’s best customer dies of an apparent suicide, Renia becomes worried the plant may be responsible. Around the time Renia is trying to avoid the police, the shop’s owner gives her some bad news. Renia is now going to be able to make ends meet financially.

Lo and behold, her sister’s ex-boyfriend shows up in Paris from Poland. He says he has customers who will pay dearly for the flowers of the plant and pay a lot of money. The boyfriend is bad news, treated her sister horribly, including beating her up. So, of course, Renia decides to do business with him. Now the Russians are involved and after a couple of deals, Renia can’t reconcile her conscience and wants to stop selling the flowers. She tries to work a couple of extra jobs to meet her financial commitments but is still having problems. But the really bad people want those flowers and are willing to do anything to get them. Including murder.

This story just didn’t do it for me. It wasn’t that interesting. The suspense never built up enough and I don’t think that I cared enough about the characters to be emotionally invested in their outcome. Renia tried to be a character with a moral compass. That never held true. She caved too easily when she was up against it. That’s when your moral compass has to kick in and stop you from doing things you know are bad. You’re supposed to hold onto what is right, even when it is the hard thing to do. She had a lot of options. She didn’t have to live in the expensive part of Paris. She could have found a different job. She could have left altogether. She knew the aftermath of using the flower.

Her decisions weren’t very sound. Why get into business with the one person whom you supposedly can’t stand. The one who beat up your twin sister and caused such a rift that you don’t speak to her anymore. The other characters in the story didn’t seem to be nice enough to care about. I didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other. The plant was the most interesting part, but it never developed. We knew it did something, but we never got to see it up close and personal. It would have been better to have a character in the story use it and for the reader to see the effects happen. Renia should have used it, maybe on the shop owner?

I can clearly see that I am in the minority but I didn’t really enjoy the story. I wasn’t caught up in it to care enough about the outcome. But I wasn’t railing against what was happening either. It just sort of plunked along. I was maybe a little bored? I was glad when it was over. I was hoping for much more. ( )