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Black Flowers

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 123 ratings · 30 reviews

This is not a story about a girl who disappears. This is the story of a little girl who comes back. As if from nowhere, she appears one day on a seaside promenade, with a black flower and a horrifying story about where she's been. But telling that story will start a chain reaction of dangerous lies and deadly illusions that will claim many more victims in the years to come...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published April 1st 2011 by Orion Publishing

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Dec 08, 2012 Bücherplanet rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dieser Thriller handelt von einer gestohlenen Lebensgeschichte. "Manche Geschichten", heißt es dazu im Buch, "sind so gefährlich, dass man damit warten muss, sie zu erzählen, bis man niemandem mehr schaden kann".
Was wäre also, wenn solche gefährlichen Geschichten und Ideen eines Thriller-Autors zu früh erzählt und sich dann in das echte Leben hineinschleichen würden? Oder wenn jemand irre genug wäre, sie wahr werden zu lassen....?

Ein kleines Mädchen kehrt ins Leben zurück und wird von einem Poli...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Steve Mosby's sixth novel is an intricate thriller, the theme of which is the idea that stories have power – in this case a deadly power.

Neil, a wannabe writer, finds a novel among his recently deceased father's belongings. It's called The Black Flowers, and is about a girl who appears from nowhere, apparently having fled the family farm which holds dark secrets. Is the out-of-print, disturbing novel true? Was the girl a real person, thinly fictionalised? When Neil's pregnant partner is kidnapp...more

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Nov 27, 2012 James Everington rated it 5 of 5 stars

I don’t read tons of crime fiction – I'm a dabbler. But Steve Mosby's name has been floating around the part of my mind devoted to the ever-present ‘what book to read next?’ question for some time, partly because of his excellent short stories in both Off The Record & Off The Record 2 - At The Movies - A Charity Anthology, and partly from seeing a recommendation for his book Black Flowers from Ramsey Campbell.

So I was expecting this one to be a bit tasty. I wasn't wrong.

Black Flowers tells...more I don’t read tons of crime fiction – I'm a dabbler. But Steve Mosby's name has been floating around the part of my mind devoted to the ever-present ‘what book to read next?’ question for some time, partly because of his excellent short stories in both Off The Record & Off The Record 2 - At The Movies - A Charity Anthology, and partly from seeing a recommendation for his book Black Flowers from Ramsey Campbell.

So I was expecting this one to be a bit tasty. I wasn't wrong.

Black Flowers tells the story (and I use that word deliberately) of Neil Dawson, a young writer looking into the apparent suicide of his father, who was also a writer. His investigations dig up not just real life clues, but links to his father’s writing and that of another writer, who wrote a book called The Black Flower. Extracts from that book feature as a story within a story in Black Flowers.

Things get even stranger when a story that Neil wrote himself, expressing some of his temporary unease at the idea of becoming a father, seems to start to come true. And it wasn't a pleasant story; not at all.

His partner is kidnapped, and the only way to save her appears to be to understand events buried in the past, and in the pages of The Black Flower. Side by side with this, the book also tells of Hannah Price, a police detective also finding out disturbing things about her own father and the stories he may have told her…

Black Flowers is obsessed with the way stories and narrative shape our lives – and not just stories in books, but those told to us by those we trust. The book presents two opposing, but equally disturbing ideas. Firstly that the stories we have based our beliefs and principles around might actually be false, and that one day we might find our world crumbling as we face up to that. But secondly, that stories have power over our lives regardless of whether they are true or false; that as well as fearing stories turning out to be false we should also fear stories that might start to become all too true.

Lots of books that use meta-fictional trickery do so in a playful way, but Black Flowers plays it straight off the bat and is as dark as hell. It’s this, over and above the horrifying specifics of the crimes featured in the story, that for me makes this book as much horror as a crime novel. I've blogged before about how I don't view horror as a genre as such, but as an ingredient that features in many books that aren't marketed as such. Mosby certainly seems to prove my point here, although the crime genre elements are equally strong and gripping.

The prose is tight, the setting vivid, the characters realistic (even the doubly-fictional ones in the book within a book). Most memorable for me is the imagery of the black flowers themselves, and what the reader comes to understand they represent...

So all in all, very strongly recommended. Dark, clever, and compelling. As I said, I knew it would be a bit tasty.(less)

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Jun 11, 2012 Marije rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Marije by: VN Thriller- en detectivegids

Shelves: monsters-and-mysteries

Oh, this was nerve-wracking. Gripping from the start. The evilness is surreal and almost beautiful, but horrible. I like it when books and writing play a role in fiction, but it can turn out wrong. In that case, bringing up books creates a barrier that prevents you from forgetting that you are merely a reader, sitting safely in the comfort of your couch with a work of make-belief. Mosby made it convincing and natural. The short draft written by one of teh protagonists creates the right atmospher...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Jaime Haight rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wish I could give half stars as I would prefer to rate this one 2 1/2. 2 seems a bit meager but 3 overreaching. Though it starts off quite simplistic and almost cliched, it gathers momentum as the story progresses and generates some genuinely unexpected twists and tense moments. The ending however falls back into the old cliched pattern and some of the shock of the novel's climax is dulled by its over-ambition to be dark and horrifying.

I found the writing style to be jarring at first, swingin...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Readerella rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2011

Originally published on Readerella.nl

Onlangs heb ik het eerste boek van de Britse schrijver Steve Mosby gelezen. De thriller De 50/50 Moorden, over een sadistische seriemoordenaar die het op stelletjes gemunt heeft en steeds één daarvan laat kiezen wie van de twee de nacht zal overleven. Een ijzingwekkend spannend boek dat veel indruk op me heeft gemaakt. Ik ben dan ook erg blij dat uitgever A.W. Bruna me de gelegenheid heeft gegeven om Steve Mosby’s allernieuwste schrijfsel te lezen, dat in okt...more Originally published on Readerella.nl

Onlangs heb ik het eerste boek van de Britse schrijver Steve Mosby gelezen. De thriller De 50/50 Moorden, over een sadistische seriemoordenaar die het op stelletjes gemunt heeft en steeds één daarvan laat kiezen wie van de twee de nacht zal overleven. Een ijzingwekkend spannend boek dat veel indruk op me heeft gemaakt. Ik ben dan ook erg blij dat uitgever A.W. Bruna me de gelegenheid heeft gegeven om Steve Mosby’s allernieuwste schrijfsel te lezen, dat in oktober in de winkels zal liggen. Weet Zwarte Bloem, zoals de titel van dit nieuwe boek luidt, mij ook van begin tot eind in zijn greep te houden?

Op een dag wordt Neil Dawson, zoon van een succesvol auteur en zelf ook schrijver, gebeld door de agent van zijn vader. Ze maakt zich zorgen dat er iets met hem gebeurt is omdat ze hem al dagen niet kan bereiken. Neil besluit een kijkje te gaan nemen bij het huis van zijn vader en komt tot de ontdekking dat hij inderdaad verdwenen is. Zijn laptop is ook weg en op zijn bureau ligt een manuscript met de titel ‘Zwarte Bloem’. Over een meisje dat ineens ergens opduikt terwijl niemand weet van wie ze is of waar ze vandaan komt. Het enige wat ze bij heeft is een grote handtas met een zwarte bloem erin. Neil heeft al snel in de gaten dat er iets niet helemaal in de haak is. Het lijkt erop dat het meisje en de duistere gebeurtenissen uit het verhaal niet helemaal fictief zijn en er mensen zijn die er niet op zitten te wachten dat de aandacht daarop gevestigd wordt.

Wanneer het lichaam van Neil’s vader gevonden wordt, is het aan rechercheur Hannah Price om Neil dit slechte nieuws te vertellen. Tijdens haar onderzoek naar de dood van Neil’s vader, stuit Hannah op een confronterend geheim uit haar eigen verleden dat ze liever zo ver mogelijk weggestopt houdt. Zowel Hannah als Neil starten los van elkaar een zoektocht naar de lugubere waarheid…

Zwarte Bloem laat je door de ogen kijken van zowel schrijver Neil Dawson als rechercheur Hannah Price. Daarnaast krijg je ook regelmatig fragmenten te lezen uit het boek Zwarte Bloem dat Neil op het bureau van zijn overleden vader gevonden heeft. Hierdoor kun je het verhaal van meerdere kanten volgen en kom je erachter dat Neil en Hannah ieder hun eigen persoonlijke redenen hebben om uit te zoeken wat de moord op Neil’s vader met het mysterieuze boek te maken heeft. Maar voordat dat duistere geheim ontrafeld wordt, neemt Steve Mosby je mee in een razenspannende achtbaan van gebeurtenissen die allemaal in verband lijken te staan met de Zwarte Bloem. Is het boek op de waarheid gebaseerd? Is het meisje een fictief personage of bestaat ze echt? En waar is ze nu dan?

Steve Mosby weet de spanning in deze thriller perfect op te bouwen en laat je van het begin tot het eind op het puntje van je stoel zitten, in het duister tastend naar de gruwelijke waarheid. De personages in Zwarte Bloem komen allemaal erg realistisch en menselijk over, iets waar ik in De 50/50 Moorden ook al erg over te spreken was en waardoor je je makkelijk inleeft in hun persoonlijke situaties. Ik denk en hoop dat we nog veel meer gaan horen van Steve Mosby!(less)

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Apr 19, 2012 Elizabeth A. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Aspiring author and father-to-be Neil Dawson finds himself a bit overwhelmed with the idea of being tied down with a wife and child. It’s not that he doesn’t want them, he’s just not entirely sure how he will manage both them and his job, and still find time to devote to his writing.

To let off a little steam, Neil writes a story about the Goblin King. In Neil’s story, the Goblin King grants a young man his wish… that his girlfriend’s pregnancy conveniently disappear. Neil feels slightly guilty a...more Aspiring author and father-to-be Neil Dawson finds himself a bit overwhelmed with the idea of being tied down with a wife and child. It’s not that he doesn’t want them, he’s just not entirely sure how he will manage both them and his job, and still find time to devote to his writing.

To let off a little steam, Neil writes a story about the Goblin King. In Neil’s story, the Goblin King grants a young man his wish… that his girlfriend’s pregnancy conveniently disappear. Neil feels slightly guilty about the topic, but still, better to write a story than say things out loud that can’t be taken back, no? Eager for some feedback, Neil sends the story off to his father, himself an author, for review.

It’s not until several days later when he receives a call from his father’s agent that Neil realizes he hasn’t heard back from him. The agent is concerned she hasn’t gotten a response from Dawson in awhile, so Neil pays a visit to his father to touch base. What he finds is an empty house, with a message on the answering machine from the police asking someone from Dawson’s family to call them. Neil’s father, it turns out, has been found dead in a neighboring town.

Enter Detective Sergeant Hannah Price. Price has built her career around trying to live up to the standard set by her father, who also rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant on the very force on which Price now serves. Having recently lost her father, when she’s assigned to investigate the apparent suicide of Christopher Dawson she’s particularly attuned to what Neil is going through struggling to cope with his father’s untimely death. What she doesn’t realize is that she too will soon be struggling once again with her own father’s death, but for reasons she couldn’t ever possibly have anticipated.

Trying to understand why his father would kill himself, Neil begins looking into the circumstances surrounding his father’s death and comes across an old detective novel called The Black Flower amongst his father’s possessions. His father appears to have been obsessed with the book, and when Neil begins to read it he is disturbed to discover the plot eerily mirrors events occurring in his own life. And this is where Black Flowers really takes on that special feeling that author Steve Mosby brings to his writing. Never one to give his readers a conventional offering, Black Flowers is very cleverly, and quite intricately, presented as a story within a story… with flashbacks thrown in as well for good measure.

Interspersing excerpts from The Black Flower with current events, Mosby slowly reveals to both Neil and readers the story of a young girl who appears out of the blue one day in a small seaside town not unlike the one where DS Price works and Neil’s father died. The girl carries with her nothing but a mangy bag containing a withered black flower, and a horrifying account of her past. According to the book’s author, the story was based on crimes that actually occurred in the seventies, crimes DS Price’s father investigated and which she comes to question whether he handled appropriately.

The multiple narratives – Neil and his father, Price and her father, the story in The Black Flower – are seamlessly interwoven, carefully overlapping not unlike the petals of a flower. As Mosby brings them ever closer together on their inevitable collision course he plays with the concept that fiction can fuel reality, that if stories are powerful enough and retold often enough they can take root as ideas that result in action. It’s an intriguing concept, one which Mosby brings vividly and disturbingly to life in Black Flowers.

It’s no secret Steve Mosby is one of my favorite authors (I did devote an entire week to him on my blog last year), but he has really outdone himself with Black Flowers, in which he essentially tells three stories simultaneously, keeping them distinct yet also making it quite clear they are parallel versions of one another. It’s an incredibly tricky feat, but one which Mosby pulls off sublimely. Black Flowers is a book which will both challenge and stick with you, and was easily one of my Top 5 reads of 2011.(less)

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Jun 22, 2011 Simon Gosden rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very dark, horror-crime thriller. A little girl appears on a seaside promenade and tells an horrific story of where she's been. Neil Dawson's dad commits suicide and in his possessions he finds an old novel "The Black Flower". It appears to tell a similar story but things soon escalate and soon nothing is what it appears to be. A really gripping page-turner. Highly recommended

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Mar 12, 2012 Joke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mosby's new novel is yet another real pageturner.
The story alternate between different perspectives and characters but they are seamlessly interwoven. You never have the feeling to lose the thread and pace of the narratives, and the collusion of the stories really is built up to a climax.
It is written in graphic details and the tension is perceptible

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Jun 16, 2012 Joanne Parkington rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was recommended to me, i'd never heard of Steve Mosby before but i'm very glad i've heard of him now ... this is a great book & a good story with a nice twist ... but the best thing about this author is his turn of phrase, his atmospheric scene setting, his beautiful emotive sentences ... it was a joy to read & i've already ordered his earlier publications and await them with baited breath .....

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Aug 28, 2012 Trina Hollis rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very dark, crime thriller. A little girl appears on a seaside promenade and tells a horrific story of where she's been. Neil Dawson's dad commits suicide and in his possessions he finds an old novel "The Black Flower but things escalate and soon nothing is what it appears to be. A really gripping page-turner. Highly recommended

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May 22, 2013 Chantal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wederom een prima thriller van Steve Mosby! Het feit dat het boek wat mij betreft iets te traag van start ging, wordt aan het einde helemaal goed gemaakt. De personages zijn geloofwaardig en het verhaal is interessant. Is het boek waar ze het in het verhaal over hebben, gebaseerd op een waargebeurd verhaal of is het pure fictie, dat is de vraag die de lezer bijna het hele boek bezig houdt! Dit boek krijgt van mij 4 sterren.

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Feb 21, 2012 Citra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Full review is here

It's the first crime novel I read and I am glad that I picked it. The description is very graphic, it is as if I am watching a movie instead of reading a book.

A dark and unpredictable story, a must read!

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Aug 16, 2012 Sarah rated it 1 of 5 stars

Seldom does a book defeat me as this has done and I was unable to finish it. I will return to it and have another try at a later stage.
My reasons for disliking it were that I felt complete disinterest for the protagonists and the plot.

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Mar 06, 2013 Jane Fenn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Incredibly compelling story. It starts with a missing girl appearing mysteriously on the sea front. Intricate plot lines intertwine, with fact becoming fiction and fiction fact. Behind it all, a gruesome and disturbing story of horrors.

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Sep 03, 2012 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

At first I was totally lost. I couldn't keep track of the characters and couldn't follow all the stories. However I ended up loving the way the whole murder-mystery came together. It kind of felt like reading an episode of Criminal Minds.

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Dec 14, 2012 Caroline Barr rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed the book a lot of characters with similar names though and it was gruesome it bits

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Aug 12, 2012 Kirsty rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, hoped-it-would-be-better, trashy-fun

One of the most ludicrous, unbelievable setups for a novel ever. Still, it was good fun.

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Aug 12, 2012 cHieFRocKer rated it 2 of 5 stars

... teilweise etwas verwirrend und nicht so richtig spannend.

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Oct 27, 2012 Kelaine Blades rated it 5 of 5 stars

Awesome! This guy is the new Stephen King!

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Jul 09, 2012 Lynne Elsisy rated it 5 of 5 stars

An author to watch! Gripping stuff.

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Aug 15, 2012 Carey Combe rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ludicrous plot but quite fun.

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Oct 31, 2012 Tommy Trevino rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sailed through this great book

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Feb 08, 2011 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dark and chilling.

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Feb 14, 2013 Yvonne Clark rated it 1 of 5 stars

boring book could not finish it .

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Sep 25, 2012 Stephen Holman rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought this was all in all a good read. at times a little confusing with the switching between characters, but there were some good twists and genuine tension at the end. Enjoyed reading it.

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Aug 03, 2012 William rated it 5 of 5 stars

A dark crime novel that pulls you in to it's gripping story. I loved it.

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May 05, 2013 Phil rated it 3 of 5 stars

Definitely worth a read, but for me, it tailed off a bit after a gripping start.

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Nov 25, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

a very confusing book found it hard to read and never got hooked

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May 24, 2013 Sharon Stevenson rated it 3 of 5 stars

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