Theresa Smith's Blog, page 112
February 1, 2019
#BookBingo – Round 3
Another double round! I am so pleased with how this challenge is progressing. This last fortnight, I’ve checked off:
500 pages or more:
The Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon
Which I read as a way of finding out what was going to happen in the rest of season four of Outlander. Waiting each week for the next episode was proving torturous! I did admit in my original post that I didn’t actually read all 1070 pages, but between skimming the first half, partially reading until I got to where the series was up to and then solidly reading from that point on, I definitely read more than 500 pages of the tome.
Comedy:
How to be Second Best by Jessica Dettmann
The title of the novel really is a great one, linking in with the whole point of the story (for want of a better phrase). It’s not about being second best in a negative way, like you’re not as good as someone else. It’s more about not overwhelming yourself with trying to always be the best to the point where you burst apart at the seems. It’s about scaling back, just a little, and settling for the second best of your own efforts. At least sometimes. Because there are always times when near enough is good enough. I think that’s an incredibly insightful point to a story, to be honest, particularly today where so many of us are so busy yet still insisting on putting ourselves under the microscope, competing with ourselves, each other, and even people we don’t know. How to be Second Best is a lesson in taking a breath and slowing down, focusing inward instead of outward. It’s a terrific novel and I recommend it highly.
For 2019, I’m teaming up with Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse for an even bigger, and more challenging book bingo. We’d love to have you join us. Every second Saturday throughout 2019, we’ll post our latest round. Feel free to join in at any stage, just pop the link to your bingo posts into the comments section of our bingo posts each fortnight so we can visit you. If you’re not a blogger, feel free to just write your book titles and thoughts on the books into the comments section each fortnight, and tag us on social media if you are playing along that way.
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January 31, 2019
Challenge Check In – January
Since I’m doing a few challenges this year, I thought I’d do a monthly check in post by way of keeping myself on track. January has been a super month for reading and I was making a huge effort to chip into each of my challenges.
January’s efforts look like this:
#aww2019: 10 books
#AussieAuthor19: 10 books (not the same 10 as above as this challenge includes Australian male authors)
Book Bingo with Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse: 10 books
The Classics Eight: currently reading 1st title for this challenge
Total books read in January: 15
I’m back at work now and expecting these numbers to drop between now and Easter. Still, it’s nice to start the reading year off so well.
January 30, 2019
New Release Book Review: Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox
About the Book:
Crimson Lake is where bad people come to disappear – and where eight-year-old boys vanish into thin air . . .
On the fifth floor of the White Caps Hotel, four young friends are left alone while their parents dine downstairs. But when Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son is missing. The boys swear they stayed in their room, and CCTV confirms Richie has not left the building. Despite a thorough search, no trace of the child is found.
Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators: disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. This case just the sort of twisted puzzle that gets Amanda’s blood pumping.
For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation and most importantly his family. But now Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake.
Ted must dredge up the area’s worst characters to find a missing boy. And the kind of danger he uncovers could well put his own child in deadly peril . . .
My Thoughts:
You never really know exactly how a Candice Fox novel is going to pan out. She’s a marvel, the way she twists her plot and turns everything upside down and inside out. Three books into this series now and she just keeps on delivering.
‘There’s something deeply wrong with Amanda Pharrell. Whatever it is, it defies logic. It’s a slippery, indefinable thing that arms her with an eternal supply of social confidence, while at the same time preventing her from doing anything except horrifying, disturbing or annoying people everywhere she goes.’
Amanda and Ted are back, requested by the mother of a missing boy to work alongside the police on her son’s case. Amanda is as inappropriately marvellous as ever. As far as characters go, she is one of my favourites. One day people will stop underestimating her and realise she’s about as clever and analytical as they come.
‘Everything about Amanda Pharrell was clouded. Her whole history was impossible to lay out in a straight line – it was more a collection of sharply angled pieces that appeared to fit while held in a certain light, and did not in another.’
This was an interesting case and certainly didn’t play out in the way I expected (not surprising really, I am notoriously bad at guessing crime plots). I’m going to come right out and be a judgemental parent here, something I tend to avoid doing as it usually generates backlash, but the parents in this novel really stretched my tolerance. Maybe it’s my age, the generation I come from, but the whole idea of leaving children alone in a motel room so that the parents could have a child free night out in the restaurant is something I find so appallingly neglectful, not to forget risky. It’s akin to attending a neighbourhood bbq with a baby monitor in your pocket and your children left at home alone. Maybe I worry too much, but these sorts of actions just court disaster in my opinion. My sympathy for the missing boy’s mother was pretty low from the get go. Checking on the boys every hour just didn’t wash with me. That one went missing, well, like I said, they kind of invited that one in. But as is the way with Candice Fox, she stripped me of all of my theories one by one and left me guessing.
Alongside the crime solving aspects, Candice digs a bit deeper into Ted. The police have officially stated that he is no longer a person of interest in the case that destroyed his life, but that doesn’t mean it’s all over for Ted. He still bears the stigma of having been arrested and tried; mud sticks, even if the charges didn’t. Candice explores the deeper ramifications of this in terms of Ted’s relationship with his daughter Lillian.
‘People were going to look at her and me and make comments loudly, so that I could hear, or conspiratorially, their eyes filled with hatred. They were going to take pictures of my child and me. Some hysterical old ladies would probably call the police. I could see myself sitting on an empty bench at a public playground and watching the other parents telling their kids to stay away from Lillian, assigning someone to keep an eye on me while they escorted their little ones to the toilet blocks. I could see Lillian’s confusion, sudden terror, as angry men came and blasted me while we waited outside a cinema to see a kid’s movie, wanting to know how Kelly could bear to leave our daughter with me.’
There were plenty of points at which I pondered what my own attitude might be. On the one hand I was outraged on Ted’s behalf, but then on the other, I could see how the media had done such a thorough job at demonising him, the difficultly for the public to cast off their suspicion was apparent. A long time ago, in a different town to where I live now, a little girl went missing and later turned up murdered. She was so little, only six, but she had to walk several kilometres to school. She used to walk alone, and that’s how she got picked up. I blamed her mother. So did the media. She was a single mother who didn’t work, they capitalised on that, her having no good reason for allowing her daughter to walk alone. I had a young daughter myself. Even without a car, why wouldn’t you walk your child to school? If it was too far for you there and back, then it was certainly too far for a six year old. Later, that child’s mother got a job in Woolworths. I couldn’t look at her for fear of my judgement blaring out at her. I avoided her checkout, even if it meant waiting longer. So I can see both sides to Ted’s situation, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. Candice has crafted this entire scenario with Ted going forward in the most thought provoking way.
Gone by Midnight is an excellent addition to this growing series. Candice Fox is a master at her genre, each new release tapping into her setting and offering a chillingly atmospheric mystery. I don’t think I could ever get tired of this series.
January 29, 2019
New Release Book Review: When All is Said by Anne Griffin
About the Book:
Five toasts. Five people. One lifetime.
‘I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.’
At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He’s alone, as usual – though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story.
Over the course of this evening, he will raise five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him. Through these stories – of unspoken joy and regret, a secret tragedy kept hidden, a fierce love that never found its voice – the life of one man will be powerfully and poignantly laid bare.
Heart-breaking and heart-warming all at once, the voice of Maurice Hannigan will stay with you long after all is said.
My Thoughts:
‘I nod, swirl the last drop at the bottom of my glass, before downing it. Ready now to begin the first of five toasts: five toasts, five people, five memories. I push my empty bottle back across the bar to her. And as her hand takes it and turns away, happy to have something to do, I say under my breath, “I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.”’
When All is Said is a perfect study of grief, loneliness, and regret. It’s achingly real, both sad and uplifting; beautifully arranged.
‘Loneliness, that fecker again, wreaking his havoc on us mortals. It’s worse than any disease, gnawing away at our bones as we sleep, plaguing our minds when awake.’
Maurice is 84 years old and he’s come to the bar on this night to drink five toasts to five different people. The first one is to his brother Tony:
‘While my parents had long given up coaxing and pushing me out the door, Tony never stopped telling me I was full of greatness. People didn’t really do that back then, encourage and support. You were threatened into being who you were supposed to be. But it was because of Tony’s words that I made that journey to school every day and suffered through the darkness, when my brain felt exhausted from not knowing the answers. I didn’t want to let him down, you see. Couldn’t let him know that I knew I was totally and utterly thick.’
The second is to his daughter Molly:
‘Forty-nine years ago, I met Molly, only once and only for fifteen minutes . But she has lived in this dilapidated heart of mine ever since.’
The third is to his sister-in-law Noreen:
‘She was a ticket. Her own woman, as they say. She pretty much ruled our lives, but truthfully her burden was light.’
The fourth is to his son Kevin:
‘And each time, I swear to myself that this time will be different, that I’ll make the effort. That I’ll ask about your job and what you’re working on. And I promise myself I’ll listen to you with my whole body and every ounce of concentration in me. I’ll hang on your every word. And then I might even ask another question. But as soon as you walk in the door sure it’s like a bolt closes over my mouth.’
‘Maybe, I’d have been happier if you’d been a gobshite. Chip off the old block. Then maybe I could’ve talked to you. Feck it, son, you really pulled the short straw with me. A cranky-arsed father who can’t read for shite.’
And the fifth toast is to his wife Sadie:
‘No one, no one really knows loss until it’s someone you love. The deep-down kind of love that holds on to your bones and digs itself right in under your fingernails, as hard to budge as the years of compacted earth. And when it’s gone . . . it’s as if it’s been ripped from you. Raw and exposed, you stand dripping blood all over the good feckin’ carpet. Half-human, half-dead, one foot already in the grave. Jesus wept.’
Very early on in the novel, the author hints at what’s to come once Maurice has finished all of his toasts. As the novel progresses, Maurice’s plan becomes all the more apparent. There’s been plenty of discussion about the right to choose to end your own life in the face of having a terminal illness, but what of the person who suffers from loneliness, the sort that is bone deep, relentless, with no end in sight. What of the person who has been a part of a couple for so long, for most of their life, who is suddenly left behind, with everyone else gone too. Maurice’s son and grandchildren lived in America, while he was still in Ireland. They visited semi-regularly, but it was not the same as being just up the road, or even a few hours away. He had no extended family left, just a young man from a care organisation who had taken to dropping in from time to time. He’d had enough. And as much as it pained me, I could completely understand where he was coming from. I watched my grandmother pine away after the death of my grandfather. She died in her sleep for no apparent medical reason, but I always felt that she had simply given up, chosen to let go in the hopes that she might meet my grandfather again in the heaven she believed so strongly in.
‘But after a while I didn’t answer the door any more. Couldn’t face him. Knowing how desperate he was trying to keep me connected to this world, when I wanted nothing more to do with it.’
The beauty in this story comes from the way it is arranged. Each toast has Maurice reflecting back on a part of his life and a person who was pivotal in shaping some part of his character. He’s rather self-depreciating, unflinchingly honest in a way that can only come from deep reflection late in life. He’s had good times and he’s had bad ones, he has regrets as well as triumphs. This is a wonderful novel, filled with Irish humour and punctuated with breathtakingly poignant moments. Our population is aging, we are all expected generally to live longer than the generations before us. Aged care is one of the fastest growing industries for employment in Australia; I’m sure this extends to other parts of the world. Anne Griffin has shifted the lens, altered the picture, and raised the question: what is there to live for when everyone else is gone? I don’t think this novel intends to advocate suicide for the aged; I think it’s more about reminding us that aged people are still people, with a whole life and a wealth of memories behind them. They might be old, but they’re still alive. I can’t think of anything more heartbreaking than being left behind, ignored as the world keeps on moving around you, just biding your time waiting for death. I highly recommend When All is Said, it’s one of those novels that quietly stuns with the force of its message.
‘I still like to visit Frank, when I have the time that is. Sometimes I just make up stuff for him to do, like cashing a cheque. Once I handed him a cheque for € 500 and asked him to cash it and when he handed me the money, I changed my mind and told him he could lodge it. Don’t be feeling sorry for him, he gets paid well enough with my bank charges.’
January 28, 2019
New Release Book Review: Saving You by Charlotte Nash
About the Book:
Three escaped pensioners. One single mother. A road trip to rescue her son. The new emotionally compelling page-turner by Australia’s Charlotte Nash
In their tiny pale green cottage under the trees, Mallory Cook and her five-year-old son, Harry, are a little family unit who weather the storms of life together. Money is tight after Harry’s father, Duncan, abandoned them to expand his business in New York. So when Duncan fails to return Harry after a visit, Mallory boards a plane to bring her son home any way she can.
During the journey, a chance encounter with three retirees on the run from their care home leads Mallory on an unlikely group road trip across the United States. Zadie, Ernie and Jock each have their own reasons for making the journey and along the way the four of them will learn the lengths they will travel to save each other – and themselves.
My Thoughts:
‘She couldn’t find a silver lining in this. This life was all hard, unforgiving edges. Every hardship dug in, bruising until it hurt to think at all.’
I’ve read Charlotte Nash before and always enjoyed her novels, but Saving You is next level, like nothing she’s ever written before. I wanted to crawl into this novel and stay there. As I got closer to the end, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss; I just didn’t want to let this story go. There’s such a heartfelt honesty running through the pages of this novel and the themes were so on point. Love, regret, betrayal, loss, and ultimately, hope.
‘A knowledge that this man was honest, said what he meant, and was brave enough not to shy away from danger or from tears.’
What happens to Mallory in this novel is an all too realistic scenario. Thrown over by her husband, her vulnerability in the face of his male privilege was a startling reminder at just how easy it is for a woman to lose everything and not be able to do all that much about it. The irony of the law being on your side, yet not being able to access it on account of limited financial means. I felt desperately sorry for Mallory, who was not only grappling with a situation she hadn’t seen coming, but also trying to come to terms with a broken heart and shattered dreams. And she was such a beautiful person too, her dedication to her job as a carer for the aged went beyond the realms of just doing her job. She was filled with empathy for those under her care, driven by a need to make their lives as fulfilling and as dignified as possible – even when at the absolute rock bottom of her own life.
‘Zadie loosened her grip and caught Mallory’s eye. In that look, Mallory glimpsed the whole woman Zadie was: the one who had left home young, who had loved her husband but been lonely in her marriage, who didn’t want to now be fading into old memories. Who didn’t like being in hospital any more than anyone else.’
In many ways Saving You is a coming of age story about a young woman who had to grow up too fast. All of a sudden, with her life turned upside down and inside out, Mallory needs to rely on her own wits, push herself in a way she never has before, and trust in her instincts. The relationships she makes while on her journey across America are unforgettable and leave a permanent imprint upon her. Saving You is about as authentic as you will get, unflinching in its honesty, raw and beautiful. It would make a brilliant film. I just can’t recommend this novel highly enough.
‘…life was addictive in its promise of goodness and wonder, in its hope that even in the dark cracks of sorrow, something better could come again.’
January 27, 2019
New Release Book Review: The Mother-In-Law by Sally Hepworth
About the Book:
‘Someone once told me that you have two families in your life – the one you are born into and the one you choose. Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don’t choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all.’
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A twisty, compelling new novel about one woman’s complicated relationship with her mother-in-law that ends in death…
From the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, Diana, she was kept at arm’s length. Diana was exquisitely polite, and properly friendly, but Lucy knew that she was not what Diana envisioned. But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice who helped female refugees assimilate to their new country. Diana was happily married to Tom, and lived in wedded bliss for decades. Lucy wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.
That was five years ago.
Now, Diana has been found dead, a suicide note near her body. Diana claims that she no longer wanted to live because of a battle with cancer.
But the autopsy finds no cancer.
The autopsy does find traces of poison and suffocation.
Who could possibly want Diana dead?
Why was her will changed at the eleventh hour to disinherit both of her adult children and their spouses?
With Lucy’s secrets getting deeper and her relationship with her mother-in-law growing more complex as the pages turn, this new novel from Sally Hepworth is sure to add to her growing legion of fans.
My Thoughts:
What a twisting, compelling, insightful and addictive novel The Mother-In-Law turned out to be! Full of pockets of grey, nothing is as it seems and no one is truly good or bad. By telling the story from the perspectives of both the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, Sally very much shows us that there is always two sides to every story.
‘If you ask me, everyone is a little too interested in their children’s happiness. Ask anyone what they wish for their kids and they’ll all say they want them to be happy. Happy! Not empathetic contributing members of society. Not humble, wise and tolerant. Not strong in the face of adversity or grateful in the face of misfortune. I, on the other hand, have always wanted hardship for my kids. Real, honest hardship. Challenges big enough to make them empathetic and wise. Take the pregnant refugee girls I deal with every day. They’ve been through unimaginable hardships, and here they are working hard, contributing and grateful. What more could you want for your kids?’
With clever wit and a plausible plot, Sally walks us through a myriad of family dynamics that were entirely relatable. There is a high level of suspense sustained throughout, not only with regards to how Diana died, but also about the secrets various family members were harbouring and the past grievances that were yet to be revealed. The chapters are delivered in short bursts, solidifying this novel as a real ‘page-turner’. Highly recommended!
‘It occurs to me that only a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law can have an all-out war without anyone so much as raising their voice. The funny thing is, if any of the menfolk were here, they wouldn’t have a clue that anything other than a pleasant conversation was going on. If Ollie were here, he’d probably comment on “what a nice afternoon that was with Mum.” In that way, menfolk are really quite simple, bless them.’
January 25, 2019
Penguin Random House Authors Craig Challen and Richard Harris Honoured as Australians of the Year
Penguin Random House congratulates Richard Harris and Craig Challen who have been honoured as the 2019 Australians of the Year in recognition of their enormous contribution to the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, which saved the lives of 12 young Thai soccer players and their 25-year-old soccer coach last July.
Into the Dark: The Dramatic Story of the Thai Cave Rescue, to be published in late 2019 by Penguin Random House, is the first-person account from Dr Harris, Dr Challen and Coach Ekkapol Chantawong of the breathtaking rescue that captured the world. Its publication is the first time we will hear directly, and comprehensively, from those most intimately involved. For seventeen days, the world watched and held its breath as the Wild Boar soccer team and their coach were trapped deep in a cave in Thailand. Marooned there under water following a freak storm, they were rescued, one-by-one, against almost impossible odds by a team led by Harris and Challen.
Into the Dark details this remarkable story as it played out day by day, in alternating first-person narratives from Harris and Challen, along with the account from Coach Chantawong and the boys trapped inside the cave. Into the Dark will be published in all formats in ANZ in late 2019.
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Book Club for February
In my bid to be super organised with book club this year, I bring you February’s titles in the last week of January. My aim is to do this each month.
Discussion will commence in the Page by Page Facebook group towards the end of February. If you’re not on Facebook, please feel free to revisit this post and share your reading thoughts in the comments section below.
Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox
Published by Penguin Random House Australia
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Crimson Lake is where bad people come to disappear – and where eight-year-old boys vanish into thin air . . .
On the fifth floor of the White Caps Hotel, four young friends are left alone while their parents dine downstairs. But when Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son is missing. The boys swear they stayed in their room, and CCTV confirms Richie has not left the building. Despite a thorough search, no trace of the child is found.
Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators: disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. This case just the sort of twisted puzzle that gets Amanda’s blood pumping.
For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation and most importantly his family. But now Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake.
Ted must dredge up the area’s worst characters to find a missing boy. And the kind of danger he uncovers could well put his own child in deadly peril . . .
Half Moon Lake by Kirsten Alexander
Published by Penguin Random House Australia
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‘They said he was their boy. And so he was . . .’
In 1913, on a summer’s day at Half Moon Lake, Louisiana, four-year-old Sonny Davenport walks into the woods and never returns.
The boy’s mysterious disappearance from the family’s lake house makes front-page news in their home town of Opelousas. John Henry and Mary Davenport are wealthy and influential, and will do anything to find their son. For two years, the Davenports search across the South, offer increasingly large rewards and struggle not to give in to despair.
Then, at the moment when all hope seems lost, the boy is found in the company of a tramp.
But is he truly Sonny Davenport? The circumstances of his discovery raise more questions than answers. And when Grace Mill, an unwed farm worker, travels from Alabama to lay claim to the child, newspapers, townsfolk, even the Davenports’ own friends, take sides.
As the tramp’s kidnapping trial begins, and two desperate mothers fight for ownership of the boy, the people of Opelousas discover that truth is more complicated than they’d ever dreamed . . .
Half Moon Lake is Kirsten Alexander’s compelling debut novel, about the parent-child bond, identity, and what it means to be part of a family.
The Girl From Eureka by Cheryl Adnams
Published by Escape – released 12th February
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On the sun-drenched goldfields of Eureka, a wild colonial girl and an honour-bound soldier will break all the rules to claim a love worth more than gold …
Ballarat, Australia 1854
Gold miner Indy Wallace wants nothing more than to dig up enough gold to give her mother an easier life. Wild and reckless, and in trouble more often than not, Indy finds herself falling for handsome, chivalrous, British Army Lieutenant Will Marsh. But in the eyes of immigrant miners, soldiers are the enemy.
Will has been posted to Ballarat with a large contingent of Her Majesty’s Army to protect the Crown gold and keep the peace. But once he meets rebellious Indy, he doubts he’ll ever be at peace again. As Will and Indy’s attraction grows, their loyalties are tested when the unrest between miners and the military reaches breaking point.
On opposite sides of the escalating conflict, can their love survive their battle of ideals? And will any of them survive the battle of the Eureka Stockade?
Saving You by Charlotte Nash
Published by Hachette Australia
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Three escaped pensioners. One single mother. A road trip to rescue her son. The new emotionally compelling page-turner by Australia’s Charlotte Nash
In their tiny pale green cottage under the trees, Mallory Cook and her five-year-old son, Harry, are a little family unit who weather the storms of life together. Money is tight after Harry’s father, Duncan, abandoned them to expand his business in New York. So when Duncan fails to return Harry after a visit, Mallory boards a plane to bring her son home any way she can.
During the journey, a chance encounter with three retirees on the run from their care home leads Mallory on an unlikely group road trip across the United States. Zadie, Ernie and Jock each have their own reasons for making the journey and along the way the four of them will learn the lengths they will travel to save each other – and themselves.
January 24, 2019
New Release Book Review: The Girl From Eureka by Cheryl Adnams
About the Book:
On the sun-drenched goldfields of Eureka, a wild colonial girl and an honour-bound soldier will break all the rules to claim a love worth more than gold …
Ballarat, Australia 1854
Gold miner Indy Wallace wants nothing more than to dig up enough gold to give her mother an easier life. Wild and reckless, and in trouble more often than not, Indy finds herself falling for handsome, chivalrous, British Army Lieutenant Will Marsh. But in the eyes of immigrant miners, soldiers are the enemy.
Will has been posted to Ballarat with a large contingent of Her Majesty’s Army to protect the Crown gold and keep the peace. But once he meets rebellious Indy, he doubts he’ll ever be at peace again. As Will and Indy’s attraction grows, their loyalties are tested when the unrest between miners and the military reaches breaking point.
On opposite sides of the escalating conflict, can their love survive their battle of ideals? And will any of them survive the battle of the Eureka Stockade?
My Thoughts:
‘Ballarat was already a place struggling with an imbalance of justice.’
Having read her contemporary novels in the past, I knew I was in for a good story in this latest offering by Cheryl Adnams, but I have to say, I really feel as though she has found her true calling here in historical romance. The Girl From Eureka was a terrific read, action abounding right from the very first page, the town of Ballarat as it was in the mid 19th century recreated with vigour and atmosphere. This novel put me in mind of a Poldark inspired adventure, but right here on Australian soil: the miners clashing with the crown, unrest and rebellion, a soldier with a conscience, a feisty heroine attempting to break through the traditional female barriers, and a love story against all odds.
‘Three years. Three years she’d lived in this commune of contradictions. So much wealth and so much poverty existing side by side. It had been an adventure for sure. But, like any adventure, it had provided its fair share of challenges too. And, despite so many people living so close together, it could be a lonely place.’
I spent the first ten years of my childhood growing up in south-east rural Victoria, and like many school children within this region, I visited Ballarat on several occasions for school excursions and I learnt my Eureka Stockade history as well. I haven’t come across any fictional accounts of this tumultuous history prior to reading this novel; I’m not sure whether this is because they don’t exist or that they just haven’t come to my notice. Either way, I love nothing more than reading fresh historical fiction, and The Girl From Eureka certainly offered me that.
‘They were headed to the goldfields, along with the rest of the city it seemed. I remember the mass exodus from Melbourne. It was like Moses leading the Jews across the Red Sea. People just up and left their jobs at the post office, the ship docks. Teachers abandoned schools, farmers gave up their properties and cattlemen and shearers left stations to travel to these rural fields to stake a claim.’
Cheryl has researched with finite care and her findings have been woven into the narrative with the skill of a strong storyteller. She paints a vivid landscape and treats the history she is writing about with respect. I loved how she offered a dual perspective of the Eureka Stockade within this story: both the miner and the soldier. There are some interesting points within her author notes that are worth reading, particularly where she highlights the unease felt by many soldiers about the events of the Eureka Stockade, so much so, that high numbers deserted the army post battle.
‘Are we not seeing here democracy and independence on fledgling legs being requested …’ Will rolled his eyes at George’s look, ‘demanded then— by immigrant miners who just want to see some results from the taxes they pay. A right to vote in this country they live in, a right to have a seat in the legislative council regardless of whether they own land or not and the right to purchase that land should they wish to and have the means? Land they could sew and reap, land on which they could raise livestock. Would this country not be a better place if more industry could be found other than at the end of a pick and bucket of dirt?’
‘Careful, Will,’ George teased. ‘Your words smack of dissent.’
‘Is it dissent, George?’ Will asked thoughtfully. ‘Or decency?’
The tensions within Ballarat play out and mount in tandem with the love story between Will and Indy, but the romance never overshadows the history. Given that Will and Indy are technically from opposing sides, this political tension often wedges itself between them. They were both honourable characters, firm in their beliefs and true to their purpose. Their intellectual sparring made for some entertaining reading and the attraction they felt towards each other was heated. Despite this, each had a personal journey they needed to traverse before being able to join together.
‘She was a woman without choice. In that moment she understood what Will had been trying to tell her. The Army was his home, just as this band of rebel miners was hers.’
The Girl From Eureka offers a realistic account of the events leading up to the Eureka Stockade, including the battle itself. It’s a story that’s brimming with tension and action, rich in atmosphere and charged with emotion. Highly recommended.
‘A makeshift flagpole had been erected. While the Union Jack was flying, it was soon lowered and another flag was raised in its place. Indy had to admit it was impressive . The five white stars of the Southern Cross constellation, connected by white stripes on a field of deep blue— it was a symbol for the people of a new Australia. A defiant departure from the tyrannical rule of Her Majesty under the Union Jack. ‘The Australia Flag’. It was clear the miners had been planning this revelation for some time.’
January 23, 2019
New Release Book Review: Photos of You by Tammy Robinson
About the Book:
A compassionate, uplifting story about love for fans of ME BEFORE YOU.
‘People are here for me, to celebrate the anniversary of the day I was given life. On the very same day I’d just been told my life was all but over.’
When Ava Green turns twenty-eight, she is told it will be her last birthday. The cancer she fought three years ago is back, and this time it’s going to beat her. But Ava is not going to let cancer define her last, precious months – she wants the wedding of her dreams. She doesn’t have a groom, she doesn’t have much money, and she definitely doesn’t have much time . . . but none of that matters. She’s going to go it alone.
As her friends and family rally to help deliver her dying wish for a party to end all parties, the media get involved and her story spreads around the country. But when photographer James Gable arrives, Ava’s plans are disrupted. Suddenly all the emotions she’d packed away are on her doorstep. Now she has to decide – is she is brave enough to let love in and strong enough to say goodbye?
My Thoughts:
‘We are all dying. Every day, a little bit more.’
You would think that a novel about a young woman dying of cancer would be a rather depressing read. I will admit to bracing myself as I settled into the first chapter, giving myself permission in the back of my mind to ditch it if it began to be all too much. I wasn’t really up for another The Fault in Our Stars, or even worse, Beaches. Surprisingly, in amongst all of the sadness – and I’ll be honest here, there is A LOT of sadness – there was a life affirming aspect that kept me turning the pages all through the day and long into the night.
‘I watch my favourite movie, Love Actually, six times in one day even though it is not Christmas, because I worry that I won’t be around at Christmas to see it when it comes on TV. There are one hundred and forty-two days, nine hours, fifty-six minutes and twenty-three seconds until Christmas. I find a website that gives me a countdown and make it my new screensaver. Morbid, for sure. But it gives me something to aim for.’
Told in the first person from the perspective of Ava, twenty-eight and dying of secondary cancer, there is a frankness to the narrative that was both fresh and humorous, so honest and entirely without dramatic overplay. A double edged sword though, as there were many moments that stole my breath and left me weeping, the frankness leaving everything open. As a mother, this was a difficult novel to read at times. Ava was not all that far into her adult life; there was still so much left for her out there. I’ll be honest here (again) and say that I don’t really know if I fully supported the idea of a Ava forming a relationship with someone new when she was so close to death. I certainly loved that her final weeks were filled with love and some of her dreams were realised, but the novel concludes with James articulating his grief, and I was deeply affected by the notion that he may not ever let Ava go. That he would hang onto her and spend the remainder of his days wandering from one photography job to the next, never again settling. The mother in me put one of my sons into his position and it really didn’t sit well with me. A bit of a moral dilemma there to chew over in a book club discussion.
‘…it’s not a tragedy, because that implies some sense of random bad luck. That I stood on a crack in the pavement when I should have jumped over it. Spilt salt or broke a mirror. No. I didn’t bring this on myself. It has been brewing inside me since I was a cluster of cells floating in my mother’s uterus. It was always there, lurking within, just waiting to take over.’
Photos of You really is a worthwhile read. There are some excellent messages in there about living life to its fullest, making even the small and insignificant moments count, and most important of all, being self aware when it comes to your health. Being your own biggest advocate when you aren’t taken seriously by doctors. This aspect impressed me and I appreciate the author’s intent. I really enjoyed a lot of this novel, more than enough to balance out the sadness. Highly recommended.
‘Don’t wait until you’re dying to start living.’
