Theresa Smith's Blog, page 125

New Release Book Review: The Wolf Hour by Sarah Myles

The Wolf Hour…
About the Book:

A gripping thriller set in Africa about a young aid worker in danger and the lengths to which her family will go to save her. Edge-of-your-seat suspense combines with a compelling family drama in this story of power, greed and salvation.

Thirty-year-old Tessa Lowell has a PhD in psychology and is working in Uganda to research the effects of PTSD and war on child soldiers. She joins a delegation travelling across the Congolese border, deep into the African bush, for peace talks with Joseph Kony, notorious leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

At the camp Tessa meets thirteen-year-old Francis, already an experienced soldier and survivor of shocking violence. The talks stall, and the camp is attacked by other rebels who take Tessa. Isolated in an increasingly volatile situation, she tries to form a bond with Francis.

In Melbourne, Tessa’s parents are notified of the kidnapping, but learn there is little that government agencies can do. Desperate, they contact their son Stephen, an astute if manipulative businessman based in Cape Town. He agrees to search for his sister but has other reasons to contact the rebel forces.

As Tessa’s time runs out, her family begins to fracture. Her parents arrive in Uganda to hear awful news about what she has endured. They also learn the devastating truth about the kind of man their son has become. Only they have the power to stop a terrible injustice. But at what cost to their family?

My Thoughts:

The Wolf Hour proved itself an incredibly thought provoking read, although in the end, not solely for the reasons I had expected. I was anticipating a bit of tough read, in terms of digging deep into a topic such as child soldiers – and it was – but I was not expecting to be affected by the family drama aspect as much. The perspective of Tessa’s parents really reached in and squeezed my heart and they quickly became my favourite characters. Overall though, I found myself racing through The Wolf Hour. It had an ‘unputdownable’ quality that made it nearly impossible to resist reading one more chapter of.

There were so many profound moments within this novel, but none more so than this observation from Tessa on the spread of children’s ages in Uganda:

‘The thing that struck her most was how young they all were. The older ones – from the age of about ten onwards – were missing. Their absence, Tessa thought, was like the last scene in the tale of The Pied Piper when the town’s children disappeared through a door in the mountainside.’

It’s truly horrifying, to contemplate this. Sarah diligently explores this issue, and there are certainly some tough moments where we as readers get to fully realise the extent of what being kidnapped and indoctrinated as a child soldier actually means. This novel is written so well, because Tessa is making these observations alongside us:

‘He began to knead the flesh on his forearm, pinching the skin and twisting it in tight bunches. Tessa reached across and rested the weight of her hand on his, something her mother might have done. He stopped, and quickly pulled away from her. She had urged him to tell her his story – and it was shocking. Beyond belief, she thought; beyond understanding. Her face burnt and a surge of anguish tore at her chest. She felt a tremendous responsibility which she was ill-equipped to handle; he had lived with different rules and there was little place for the mild, kind psychology she espoused. The knowledge behind his eyes terrified her.’

While this is harrowing material, it is by no means objectified. The truth is presented with authenticity but tempered with sensitivity. It gives you a lot to think about, not least of how lucky some children in the world are in comparison to others.

For me, I was able to intimately relate to Tessa’s parents. My own children are not adults yet, still teenagers, but that loss of control over your children’s lives really got to me. They were still parents; the fact that Stephen and Tessa were adults didn’t change this. The way they cared for them and worried about, and fretted over the life choices their children were making; what age your children are doesn’t diminish this, particularly if they are in trouble, which in this case, both of them were. I found myself angry at Tessa, for her altruistic ambitions, while still being able to understand her motivation for being in and remaining in such a dangerous place.

‘They were like two people in a boat at sea, and she suddenly felt a new burden that extended to her parents – of how what happened to her could not be contained behind the facade she was working so hard to maintain. She knew she couldn’t tell them not to worry.’

The events that unfold within this novel fracture this family, and I was utterly gripped by the drama. I likened it to being in a body of water, floating along, everything calm until all of a sudden, one person is pulled under and the rest lose their equilibrium. That’s very much what happened with this family, and Tessa’s kidnapping was a catalyst for Stephen’s true lifestyle to come to the fore and further damage this already fragile family balance. There was no quick fix offered, to which I was grateful. This story is very much about keeping it real on all fronts, its impact all the more solid for it.

‘Together her parents made small objections, but there was hurt there too, and irritation. Over the last few days they had been building towards this, towards some kind of reckoning. Tessa was aware of her parents’ support and grateful for it, but she craved consolation not just for herself but for them. To find some kind of resolution.’

There is a rich atmosphere in terms of people and place running through this novel. A heady visualisation that transplants you. I’ve long been drawn to novels about Africa and this one did not disappoint. Highly recommended.

‘“This place,” Tessa said again. “But especially the people here, they’re amazing. Even after everything they’ve been through, there are those who can still forgive so much. It’s like Beatrice says: they bring relief to their tragedy. I see it sometimes in the way they talk about things other than the war. How they get on with life; their laughter, their jokes – about their shoes, or lack of them.” She gave a wry smile, then lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “It’s what drew me here in the beginning – how people cope in the aftermath of civil war.”’

Behind the Pen with Kelly Doust

[image error]I recently read the most gorgeous novel, Dressing the Dearloves, and is often the way, I absolutely had to dig deeper and ask the author for an interview. So today, I have great pleasure in welcoming Kelly Doust to Behind the Pen.

 

I really loved the style in which you told Dressing the Dearloves, with the different forms of writing providing an alternate context and/or perspective for the characters. What inspired you to tell the story in this multi-media way?

Thanks Tessa. Writing in different voices can be really fun and seems to bring a fresh energy to the story. Minette Walters sometimes used this device in her crime fiction, and I always thought it was a clever way to illustrate the story from various viewpoints. It’s tricky, because you need to not go overboard, but whenever I was feeling stuck in the writing of Dressing the Dearloves I wrote one of these intersecting pieces and it seemed to help the story flow again. Some did get cut in the final edit, though.

 

Do you have a favourite scene from Dressing the Dearloves? One that was more fun, or more emotional, or even more challenging, to write?

I enjoyed writing the scene between Sylvie and her friends in the bar at the beginning – it was exciting to bring the cast of characters together for the first time and create their relationships from scratch, because they were riffing off each other from the get-go. I also really loved writing the scenes between Sylvie and Nick, and teared up when writing a later part of the story where Sylvie has a long-overdue conversation with her dad. Sometimes the writer is surprised, too, by how the story plays out.

 

Dressing the Dearloves has such a wonderful bunch of characters in it. Were they all already a firm picture in your mind before you started writing or did some of them develop a personality of their own as the story progressed?

Not all of them – Lizzie, Victoria, Rose and Gigi were always going to be there and were part of my original plotting, but Sylvie, her parents and her friends evolved around them, and helped me to fall in love with the writing of it when Sylvie and Tabs became a big part of the present-day thread.

There’s lots of different ways to write a novel but with my first one, Precious Things, I actually wrote so much from a place of inspiration, but it made it difficult to wrangle the story when I had all these separate threads. With Dressing the Dearloves I started out with an overarching plotline, but the inspiration didn’t really come until I’d set up that framework and built all the characters’ interactions in layers over it, if that makes sense.

 

Now, let’s talk fashion. How did you come up with all of the amazing outfits and pieces that were described throughout the novel? What sort of research was involved in this creative process?

From years of obsession and too much shopping! Also, an almost scientific approach to what people are wearing. I just adore clothes, and I have to stop myself from letting descriptions of them take over the story.

In 2012 I published a book on vintage fashion called Minxy Vintage: how to customise and wear vintage clothes, and undertook a huge amount of research (and shopping) for that, learning all about the different eras of the twentieth century and how social change affected what people were wearing. So I drew from that, and all my visits to the Victoria & Albert museum in London, and the magazines I’ve been reading since I was twelve.

 

Moving on to my other area of interest from Dressing the Dearloves, to that of the ‘old English estate’. Did you tour any of these newly rebuilt estates for inspiration? Any favourites that stood out?

Lots. My family are members of the National Trust in the UK, and when I lived there (and whenever I visit every few years) we spend a good portion of time exploring old homes and estates. Last year we went to Montacute House in South Somerset, and that was brilliant. They have a needlework gallery and an outpost of the National Portrait Gallery London featuring Tudor artists in the style of Holbein… it’s absolute heaven. The gardens are gorgeous, too.

 

Where do you normally write? Is it in the same place every day or are you an all over the place writer?

All over the place and whenever I can. Usually at the kitchen table or in a café – yes, I’m that person sitting on a cup of tea for too long, tapping away at their laptop in the corner.

 

Are you balancing a different career with your writing? How do you go about making time for your writing within limited hours?

I also work as a book publisher, so I slot in my writing around that, but I work four days so tend to write on my day off and over the weekend. Also very early in the morning or late in the evening if need be… it’s not always easy to fit it in, but I’m a mum as well so very used to juggling.

 

How far has your writing career evolved from when you first began to write to what it is today? Is this in line with your initial expectations?

I don’t know about expectations, but it was always a dream to write full-time. I did that for maybe seven years, but I actually missed the day-to-day interactions with colleagues and was feeling too isolated and stuck inside my own head after a while. I’m always thinking about balance. Writing and working is good, and feels more fulfilling than the dream of being a full-time writer actually was in reality. Overall, my writing career hasn’t turned out the way I expected it to, but I’m content with the way it’s played out so far.

 

To finish up with, let’s keep it all about the fashion. If you could wear one pair of shoes for the rest of your life, what type are they and what colour?

Oh my goodness, just one?!? At the moment I’ve fallen completely in lust with a pair of pink leather Chloe boots with gold studs. But they wouldn’t be terribly practical for my entire life, would they? Probably my white Puma Baskets… I hope that’s not too much of a disappointment

New Release Book Review: The Lost Valley by Jennifer Scoullar

The Lost Valley…
About the Book:

Tasmania, 1929: Ten-year-old-twins, Tom and Harry Abbott, are orphaned by a tragedy that shocks Hobart society. They find sanctuary with their reclusive grandmother, growing up in the remote and rugged Binburra ranges – a place where kind-hearted Tom discovers a love of the wild, Harry nurses a growing resentment towards his brother and where the mountains hold secrets that will transform both their lives.

The chaos of World War II divides the brothers, and their passion for two very different women fuels a deadly rivalry. Can Tom and Harry survive to heal their rift? And what will happen when Binburra finally reveals its astonishing secrets?

From Tasmania’s highlands to the Battle of Britain, and all the way to the golden age of Hollywood, The Lost Valley is a lush family saga about two brothers whose fates are entwined with the land and the women they love.

My Thoughts:

The Lost Valley is a sweeping family saga in the tradition of Di Morrissey, lined with drama and beating with a conservationists heart. Taking us back to Tasmania in the 1930s and spanning through to beyond the second world war, we get an intimate look at life in Tasmania during the depression era and prosperous post war years following the hardship.

As well as telling the story of twins, Tom and Harry, we meet Emma, a bright young woman on the cusp of a prosperous future, only to have circumstances beyond her control snatch it away and steer her onto a path she would never have otherwise contemplated. The inclusion of Emma’s story was a bonus for me. She was smart, determined, so dedicated to her mother; but above all, full of intent with regards to her independence. Her story highlights the more tragic side of Australian society in the 1920s and 1930s, a place where the options for women’s employment were still so limited, their roles still defined by a misogynistic view that was not in keeping with the rampant poverty prevalent. Emma’s story wasn’t a pretty one, but it was fundamentally realistic.

Tom and Harry were a complicated pair, both bearing such a tragic legacy, each wanting to prove himself and his worth. It was sad, to see their sibling relationship so fractured, and in all honesty, despite her very best of intentions and overall motivations, their nana really fostered much of this contention through her affinity with Tom, and her subsequent inflammatory favouritism. In many ways this is a cautionary tale, about the dangers of putting one child over another. You can’t give all to one and very little to another without serious consequences. In this case, the tensions between the brothers build and build, until it all rises to the fore in an explosive situation with roots buried deep in the past. It was very tragic indeed.

There were many instances of shallow behaviour demonstrated between the brothers, Harry more than Tom, but it didn’t always sit well with me. In many ways, this is a very compressed novel, with events unfolding rapidly with great chunks of time passing quickly. This did lead to some moments, particularly with Tom and his rushed wedding for example, where I just felt as though things had moved too fast with events jolting out of character. There was little breathing space, to just be in the moment with the story unfolding, and some of the behaviours that Tom and Harry indulged in that bothered me might have been less so if the events had been slowed. Much of this is me though, and my expectations around a family saga. I did expect the novel to be much longer, and in essence, it could have been, another third again, to allow that slower pacing and more authentic unravelling of the drama and increased enrichment of the character development.

The shining part of this novel was the conservation angle, the animal welfare and preservation of endangered species. Any story that has a mismanaged zoo or circus from the past tugs at me. I am often overcome after reading historical novels with these themes on the utter wastage that we have indulged in. Species critically endangered, extinct, under threat; that these animals were allowed to die in captivity due to poor management is such a terrible legacy we hold as humans. Jennifer’s focus on the zoo in Hobart as one such example was utterly heartbreaking. On the flip side of course is Tom’s focus on protecting the thylacines. I loved this part of the story and the magic of the lost valley really entranced me. It was all so atmospheric and deeply meaningful.

‘The tiger yawned wide in an intimidating display of threat. Tom stood transfixed. Here was more than stories and tracks and cries in the night. Here was a living, breathing thylacine, an animal that had walked the earth for millions of years longer than humans had. An animal the world believed to be extinct.’

The Lost Valley was an absorbing read that I raced through. I may have wished for it to be longer, but only because I enjoyed it so much and craved for more. I highly recommend The Lost Valley to those who love Australian history, family dramas and stories with a strong environmental theme. It would make a pretty good book club selection too, as there is much to ponder and a whole host of discussion points to ricochet off.

My Reading Life: Unique Blogger Award

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It was such a lovely surprise to see a notification on my Facebook this morning from fellow blogger, Sheree from Keeping Up With The Penguins. Sheree has nominated me for a Unique Blogger Award! A big thanks to Sheree for the kindness and if you aren’t familiar with her blog, you should definitely check it out. Sheree reviews a lot of classics, putting her own dissectional spin on pulling them apart and examining all of their insides. I love it and her review on Dracula is still to this day one of the best evaluations on the novel I have ever read. I’ll include the link here as it’s a lot of fun and even if you haven’t read Dracula, you might like to read her review and then find you no longer need to read the novel because she’s summed everything up so perfectly! Thanks for the nomination Sheree, it really made my day!

Now, as part of celebrating this award, I am required to answer three questions, as set by Sheree.

1. What are your favourite type of book blogger posts to read and why?

Definitely the reviews! I love reading, but I also love talking about books, so seeing what other bloggers think about the books we’ve been reading in common is almost like a hobby for me. Well, I guess it actually is a hobby, no almost about it. I especially like reviews that give a personal take and contain some reflection, more than just a summary with a few comments. I want to know what a blogger liked or didn’t like and why, which characters they adored and which ones ticked them off. The juicy details in other words!

2. Who is one of your favourite main characters ever written and why?

Such an easy question!! Goodness, this one is even harder than that elusive, ‘what is your favourite book?’ My favourite main character…

The best answer I can give is my most recent favourite character. Verity Fassbinder from Angela Slatter’s Verity Fassbinder trilogy. She is awesome, in every way. Smart, tough, brave, sarcastic, funny, deeply loyal…and she’s Australian.

3. Do I like poetry? Do I like reading poetry on blogs?

Not really and no. I just can’t seem to come at poetry. I’ve tried, and there are definitely poets that I admire and poems that I appreciate. I don’t deliberately seek it out on blogs but if a blogger I followed posted some I’d surely read it. Keats is the one poet that has moved me to tears. But even with him I’ve not been compelled to devour his works, merely hang around the edges.

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Now it’s my turn and in the spirit of sharing good feels and solidarity in the blogging community, I get to nominate someone!

I’m nominating Amanda from Mrs B’s Book Reviews. Amanda’s blog was the very first book blog I started reading regularly, way back before I was even blogging myself. I instantly recognised an affinity between us, from the types of books we both liked through to our responses to these books. Fast forward a little down the track and Amanda became my first friend made through blogging. Nowadays, we regularly bounce back and forth with messages and I value her friendship and advice immensely. Her blog is a wonderful place to hang out, with richly written reviews and an ever present positive vibe. She’s kind, generous, and has an enviable attention to detail. Mrs B’s Book Reviews is my Unique Blogger Award nominee!

My nomination questions for Amanda are:

1. What are your favourite type of book blogger posts to read and why? (Might as well stick with this, it’s a very good question!)

2. What is the funniest book you’ve ever read?

3. What was the first book you ever reviewed?

Bingo! The Missing Man by Peter Rees

It’s bingo Saturday once again – that rolled around fast! The square I’ve filled for this entry is:

A non-fiction book

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I don’t read anywhere near the amount of non-fiction as I do fiction, but I’m trying more and more to slot titles in with regularity.

Peter Rees has done an extraordinary job with putting together The Missing Man. On the one hand, this book is a biography on Len Waters, but on the other, it’s a commentary on racism throughout our Australian history. Through his navigation of the life of Len Waters, Peter Rees demonstrates the many ways in which our bureaucracy has let down Indigenous Australians. This is a book where the history very much speaks for itself.

Read my full review here

This year I’m playing book bingo with Mrs B’s Book Reviews. On the first and third Saturday of each month, we’ll post our latest entry. We’re not telling each other in advance what we’re currently reading or what square we’ll be filling next; any coincidences are exactly that – and just add to the fun!

Follow our card below if you’d like to join in, and please let us know if you do so we can check out what you’re reading.

Now I’m off to check out what square Mrs B has marked off for this round. See you over there!

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New Release Book Review: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

The Psychology of Time Travel…
About the Book:

A time travel murder mystery from a brilliantly original new voice. Perfect for readers of Naomi Alderman’s The Power and Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven.

1967.

Four female scientists invent a time travel machine. They are on the cusp of fame: the pioneers who opened the world to new possibilities. But then one of them suffers a breakdown and puts the whole project in peril…

2017.

Ruby knows her beloved Granny Bee was a pioneer, but they never talk about the past. Though time travel is now big business, Bee has never been part of it. Then they receive a message from the future – a newspaper clipping reporting the mysterious death of an elderly lady…

2018.

When Odette discovered the body she went into shock. Blood everywhere, bullet wounds, that strong reek of sulphur. But when the inquest fails to find any answers, she is frustrated. Who is this dead woman that haunts her dreams? And why is everyone determined to cover up her murder?

My Thoughts:

A murder mystery that crosses the barriers of time, both in its execution and its investigation. What an intriguing premise, and combined with the quaint cover with its cute stitching alluding to all things the opposite of quaint, I knew this was a debut I did not want to miss. From the opening pages, The Psychology of Time Travel has a crisp narrative, a lack of ambiguity, and a terrific pace that has you slipping back and forth through time with ease. I’m not given to reading much science fiction, it’s usually only when combined with another genre, such as historical, that I tend to find myself reading it. It’s rarely deliberate. But for the last few years I have been obsessed with the television series 12 Monkeys, which is all about time travel, so that topic in itself has pierced my science fiction bubble. I won’t get carried away and say that I’m a convert, but if it’s about time travel, I’m open to it.

When this novel opens, we meet four brilliant women who have invented time travel. They’re just in the final stages of perfecting it. These women are close, they live together, work together, share every aspect of their lives as they work as one in the pursuit of their goal. When the breakthrough comes, Barbara overdoes it, burning the candle at both ends as well as becoming a bit addicted to taking short trips through time. She has a breakdown on national television, and to preserve the integrity of time travel, the other three women distance themselves from Barbara. Margaret, the most domineering of the women, rises to the fore, and over time, she heads the time travel corporation, Conclave. In short, Margaret is a megalomaniac. She’s not a very nice woman. Nor is she well liked. Barbara struggles with her mental health for her entire life, but while she knows time travel is a trigger for her, she still misses it, and a note from the future sets her desire to reconnect back in motion, although it doesn’t take long for her to realise that time travel is now far removed from what she invented all those years ago. It’s big business now, an empire unto itself, and if truth be told, it’s a little scary as well.

‘Barbara’s perception of time travel had been formed before the Conclave was born or thought of. In those early days, Margaret had been one member of a team where everyone’s input was essential, so her personal qualities didn’t dominate. This meant that the eventual character the Conclave took on came as a shock to Barbara when she tried, at the age of eighty-two, to return. She had the strength to walk away, but she was also glad she’d had the chance to see behind the wizard’s curtain…

In another life she had invented time travel – but that was no longer a glory she needed to revisit.’

The idea of time travel just being an ordinary part of life is such a head spin. There are people who work for Conclave as time travellers, for all sorts of purposes from investigating crime to providing health care from the future through to propagation of new plant species. The list is endless. Is it for good? Debatable, as in the end, it’s primarily a business. Barbara approaches Margaret with a plan for lowering fuel consumption but as Margaret points out, the fuel is a core element of their business. It might be safer to use less, but it’s not good business sense in terms of profit margins for the fuel industry. Like so many things that start out good with science, someone always has to get too big for their boots and move into taking over the world territory. In this case, that would be Margaret. But it’s not without its cost to her in the end. There’s a limit, even when spread over the infinity of time, on how many people you can get offside before bearing the weight of their wrath.

To a more sinister side of time travel, this novel examines the human cost, on the actual time travellers themselves. Imagine living your life across time, constantly having to adjust to different eras, people you know and love alive in one era but dead in the next, never even thought of in another. The burden of doing something to cause a paradox, unwittingly wiping a person you love from existence, or causing some other ripple of change; at the very least, for the resilient, it would be taxing. For others, the strain would be permanent. Prompted by Barbara’s initial breakdown, Margaret puts measures into place to ensure there is never a repeat. It’s not that she cares a fig about the time travellers mental well being; no, for Margaret, it’s all about ensuring no further public demonstrations of poor mental health caused by travelling through time. Because that would be bad for business. A series of checks are put into place, officially, along with some pretty nasty unofficial desensitisation ‘games’ aimed at getting new recruits to view death without being affected by it. It’s pretty grim, and quite awful at times, what new recruits are expected to do. It’s almost akin to taking the humanity out of the human. I enjoyed this analysis of the psychological effects on the minds of time travellers, it was thought provoking and highlighted just how murky things can get when people, as opposed to machines, are the main resource in play.

‘“Rituals,” Odette said in disbelief. “What are they for?”

“It’s for your benefit,” Fay said. “It accustoms you more quickly to being one of us. You’re not like them now. It’s better if you accept that as soon as possible.”

“But what’s in this ritual for you personally?”

Fay looked at Mr Montgomery, sobbing into his daughter’s tow hair.

“Sometimes,” Faye mused, “I like watching people have emotions I don’t feel anymore.”’

I really enjoyed the layout of this novel, the way the story unfolds. It does slip back and forth through time, pretty rapidly, but everything is so concisely connected. For a rather complicated story, it’s told in an incredibly uncomplicated fashion. As the events move forward, the tension mounts and the pacing increases. The Psychology of Time Travel is a gripping read, enthralling and entertaining, and ever so slightly plausible in a freaky kind of way. It’s an impressive debut and one that I recommend highly.

New Release Book Review: What Will Be Worn by Melissa Fagan

What Will Be Worn: A McWhirters Story…
About the Book:

Sometimes it seems the most invaluable stories can be found in the unlikeliest of corners.

For all who know Brisbane, McWhirters, a once celebrated department store in Fortitude Valley, is an icon. For Melissa Fagan, it is also the starting point for this remarkable exploration of her mother and grandmother’s lives, and a poignant reminder of the ways in which retail stores and fashion have connected women’s lives across decades.

Behind the dusty shop counters of an Art Deco treasure, Fagan discovers both what has been lost and continues to shine. Ultimately this tender exploration of self and family, so exquisitely written, speaks of the ways in which life so often surprises us and of how the legacies of others can truly enrich our own relationships and lives.

My Thoughts:

There is so much more to this book than meets the eye. In part, it is a narration of social history, focusing on one family and the legacy they built in the form of McWhirters, a once iconic department store in Brisbane. I loved this aspect of the book, social history being a big interest of mine. From humble beginnings, the McWhirter family, originally hailing from Scotland, can be traced via this meticulous account. However, this book is by no means a chronological history of the family and the department store, rather, it’s an exploration of self, within the context of one’s family history. Yes, there are facts and figures – which I found endlessly fascinating – but there are breaches in truth, creative leanings that give this memoir a certain whimsical quality that served to fill the gaps of history.

Melissa has a wonderfully lyrical way of writing, casting the reader back through time while always connecting the past with the present. It’s in this that the book presents its other self, as raw account of a family that has been fractured multiple times throughout the generations. The honesty was at times discomforting, and I can only admire Melissa in her bravery at putting much of this out there because not only does she tell the story of her family down through the generations, in all its unforgiving glory, she continually pulls it back to her own exploration of who she is, how she has been shaped, and where she wants to go from here. Personally, I prefer the layer of distance fiction affords, but I appreciated the intent of this memoir, and it was incredibly absorbing at times, even if it was more of an exploration of McWhirters the family and all of their drama than a social history on McWhirters the store.

I listened to a memory expert on the radio recently, and the whole discussion was around how unreliable our memories are. How in fact, many of our memories are false. False memories are incredibly easy to acquire and impossible to distinguish from actual memories. Melissa returns to this notion over and over, the unreliability of the memories of family members she spoke with, how her mother would remember something one way while her aunt would remember the same thing entirely different. The unreliability of her own memories. The challenge with a memoir is to perhaps not disguise this, but to own it, and work with it, which Melissa has done with success. Beautifully written, What Will Be Worn is a valuable contribution to Queensland’s documented history.

New Release Book Review: How to Be Perfect by Holly Wainwright

How to Be Perfect…
About the Book:

The bestselling author of The Mummy Bloggers is back with another page-turning, rip-roaring story about mums, phones and the cult of self-improvement.

In the rolling green hills of Australia’s hippest hinterland, a new guru is blogging about her breakfast.

ELLE CAMPBELL is back, holed up in an exclusive retreat where women pay thousands to mimic her extreme lifestyle, or die trying. But who’s bankrolling Elle’s new empire? And why are her two tiny sons suddenly absent from her glossy public image?

ABI BLACK just wants to marry her true love under a tree in the garden on New Year’s Eve. But her ex-husband is building a financial cult in the shed, Elle is looming and her teenage daughter’s YouTube channel is gaining followers for all the wrong reasons. The wedding might have to wait.

FRANCES GRAHAM has a colicky newborn, an absent husband and a WhatsApp mothers’ group that’s giving her anxiety. But she’s certain that if she can just be more like those fitmums on Instagram, things can only get better. And surely, if she can scrape enough money together to make it to Elle’s retreat, everything in her life will be just . . . perfect.

Through a world of fake gurus, green smoothies and bad influencers, How to Be Perfect follows Elle, Abi and Frankie into the cult of self-improvement that’s taking over your phone . . . and your breakfast.

My Thoughts:

So good. So, SO good! I really enjoyed The Mummy Bloggers, but How to Be Perfect is the next level up. If you thought it didn’t get much worse than Elle’s shenanigans in The Mummy Bloggers, wait until you find out what she’s up to now!

“‘It’s this shit right here – I had to subscribe to this, with actual money. And people do. They hand over hard-earned cash, and for what? For her to show me naked pictures, share ridiculous recipes no one can follow without taking out a bank loan, and spout a lot of psycho-babble about being your best self. I mean…’ Abi put her head on the table. ‘It makes me…want to hit someone.’”

Elle has reinvented herself as an ‘Elle-ness Guru’, has a new empire, a new man and…yep, a new little family to blog about. Holly Wainwright has successfully created one the most contemptible women in contemporary fiction. But along with all of the unbelievable antics and moments of ‘she really wouldn’t sink that low’, is a valuable lesson in self-respect that packs a punch.

Along with Elle, Abi and the rest of the blended family return, all living ‘happily’ together on the farm. With a million things going on, and at least half of them going wrong, Abi is as intense as ever, but I loved her even more this time around. Parenting is a big focus for Abi, juggling it alongside her commitment to Grace, which is increasingly taking a back burner. I enjoyed how Holly offered many perspectives throughout; it kept the story ticking over at a nice pace with plenty of intrigue and ‘they just did what?!’ moments to keep you reading ‘just one more chapter’. Abi’s wisdom never fails to hit the right mark for me, but this pearler, really nailed it:

“So much of parenting, Abi thought, was the particular pain of resisting the urge to slap your children. It starts when they’re little, and they are insisting that shoes do, in fact, go on their hands, not their feet, and there are two minutes until you need to leave the house, and it’s raining. And it evolves through the teenage years to a place like this – where your teenage daughter has been psychoanalysing you with her teenage boyfriend, and she presents you with a list of your shortcomings.”

A new character that features in this story is Elle fan, Francis, feeling at a low point in her life as a new mum, newly exhausted, and newly disillusioned. She has fallen victim to Elle’s fake lifestyle and is convinced that ‘Elle-ness’ will lead to wellness and fix all of the many problems she perceives exists within her life. Frances is a wonderfully authentic character, who I was filled with frustration and empathy for, in equal measure. While I do remember clearly those unhinged days with a new baby, Frances’ WhatsApp mothers’ group had me counting my blessings that my baby days are long over. This was helicopter parenting taken to a whole new level! These women were just inventing stuff to be anxious over, no wonder Frances couldn’t cope! Throw in the needless comparison with the lies told on social media by Elle, and those like her, it’s little wonder these women constantly feel as though they just can’t get it together enough.

“All those hours of thinking about that birth. About what could possibly be wrong with her, with Frances, that she couldn’t have done that, too – just got herself in the zone and pushed out her baby like a real woman. And all those women out there who felt the same way…”

All in all, I found this novel highly entertaining. I am pretty much the most uninterested in wellness person you could ever meet, so poking fun at this industry really suited me to a tee! The only time I ever go into the wellness aisle of the supermarket is to buy my processed sugared breakfast cereal which just happens to sit across from it. I am suspicious of tea that isn’t black and enhanced by milk. Fad foods are not my thing and unless a smoothie has recognisable fruit in it, and preferably ice cream, it’s unlikely I will drink it. Each to their own, but for the most part, I think the wellness industry is a con and the example of Elle, while to a certain degree is extremist (and ever so possibly offensive to those who embrace the current trend of wellness consumerism), is also probably fairly spot on. Damaging to your bank balance and damaging to your soul when you don’t get the life your guru seems to have so effortlessly. Well done Holly Wainwright for hitting the proverbial nail squarely on the head. An absolutely excellent book club choice in my opinion and an absolute riot.

New Release Book Review: Restoration – Verity Fassbinder Book 3 by Angela Slatter

Restoration…
About the Book:

Walking between the worlds has always been dangerous – but this time V’s facing the loss of all she holds dear.

Verity Fassbinder thought no boss could be worse than her perfectionist ex-boyfriend – until she grudgingly agreed to work for a psychotic fallen angel. And dealing with a career change not entirely of her own choosing is doing nothing to improve V’s already fractious temper. The angel is a jealous – and violent – employer, so she’s quit working for the Weyrd Council and sent her family away, for their own safety. Instead of indulging in domestic bliss, she’s got to play BFFs with the angel’s little spy, Joyce the kitsune assassin . . . and Joyce comes with her own murderous problems.

The angel has tasked V with finding two lost treasures, which would be hard enough even without a vengeful Dusana Nadasy on her heels. And Inspector McIntyre won’t stop calling: the bodies of Normal women who disappeared decades before are turning up, apparently subjected to Weyrd magics. Angelic demands or not, this isn’t something she can walk away from.

And the angel is getting impatient for results . . .

My Thoughts:

This third instalment in the Verity Fassbinder series opens with a note from the author:

“Greetings, dear reader, and welcome to the last of the Verity books in the first trilogy!”

Note the last part of that sentence: ‘in the first trilogy’. I am holding onto that little life line, nice and tight, and considering it as my message from beyond that Restoration will not be the last we hear of Verity Fassbinder – even if it does take a little while for her to surface again.

Now, I wasn’t too sure where Angela was going to take us in Restoration. We knew Verity was being forced to give up her Weryd work on account of having a ‘special mission of the crazed Angelic sort’ at the forefront of her dealings, and then there was her beautiful little family, still so new, banished before she could even process it. But as is the way with Verity, Weryd stuff keeps on happening and she just keeps on getting drawn into it – despite her protestations that she’s not on Weryd detail any longer.

There are all sorts of people, Weyrd and normal, popping up from the past in Restoration, as well as a few new diabolical beings clawing their way up and into other people’s business. So, while Verity is officially on task 101 Angel mission, the Weryd work just keeps getting tangled into her days, until of course, we see exactly just how interwoven everything in the Weryd-verse really is. Once again, Angela has blown my mind with her plotting and world building, connecting dots from long ago and drawing a picture I couldn’t have even come close to imagining. The action is non-stop, the characterisation on point and the wit just keeps on rolling.

Verity herself is coming up against many new things in Restoration, almost like she’s been forced to arrive at a crossroads with the combination of this new mission along with everything else that has come her way in recent times. There’s contemplating parenthood in her downtime:

“This was the blood that ran through Ziggi’s veins.

My veins.

My little girl’s veins.

The blood of my however-many-greats-grandmother or aunty, Frau Berhta, so brimful of attitude that a god had given in to her demands. I thought about apples and trees and felt sort of proud but sort of terrified. None of this boded well for Maisie’s teenage years.”

And making new friends with old enemies:

“’Why are you being so agreeable, Constable?’

‘Because you’re going in there alone and I’m hoping your last moments will be pleasant?’

And at last I realised that Lacy Oldman was trying to be friends with me. Well, it was four o’clock in the morning…

‘So, you know that bad things happen to my friends, right?’ I started. ‘I mean, there’s a whole range of stuff: exile, beatings, stabbings, drowning, down to occasional burns and bumps that are hardly worth mentioning. Oh, and car accidents! Let’s talk car accidents.’”

And as is her way, Verity is all about the persuasion when she needs someone to step up and do their part in order to get the job done:

‘“I do not care how long it takes me but I will make you regret the day you were born, created, hatched, whatever the fuck happens with angels. And before you say something whiny like, ‘Oh it’s too late, Verity Fassbinder, my life has been a vale of regret since I let my brother carry out his plan all those centuries ago’, remember this: I have Olivia Fassbinder on my side. And if you think I’m bad? She’s angel-enhanced worse.”

He gave me a long look. “What do you want me to do?”’

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better conclusion to this ‘first’ trilogy (I’m never letting this go). Plenty of feels, and even some moments when I almost shed a tear – okay, I did! But seriously, those moments! It was bittersweet to finish this novel, so satisfied was I with the way it all wrapped up but of course sad that I did not have another one to immediately reach for. I will leave you now with Verity’s final thoughts, a fitting way to end the series and this review:

“All our days are numbered, but you can waste your life pondering what that mysterious number is. Or you can just live it as hard as you can, make good memories, good friends, love your family by blood and choice, and those who stand by you.”

Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of Restoration for review.

About the Author:

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Angela Slatter is the award-winning author of eight short story collections, including A Feast of Sorrows: Stories, Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales. She has won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award and five Aurealis Awards. Her short stories have appeared widely, including in annual British, Australian and North American Best Of anthologies, and her work has been translated into Spanish, Russian, Polish, Romanian, and Japanese. Vigil was her first solo novel, and the sequel Corpselight was released in July 2017. Angela lives in Brisbane, Australia.

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Restoration

Published by Hachette Australia

Released on 14th August 2018

Available in Paperback and eBook

New Release Book Review: Dressing the Dearloves by Kelly Doust

Dressing the Dearloves…
About the Book:

One crumbling grand manor house, a family in decline, five generations of women, and an attic full of beautiful clothes with secrets and lies hidden in their folds. Kelly Doust, author of Precious Things, spins another warm, glamorous and romantic mystery of secrets, love, fashion, families – and how we have to trust in ourselves, even in our darkest of days. One for lovers of Kate Morton, Belinda Alexandra, Fiona McIntosh and Lucy Foley.

Failed fashion designer Sylvie Dearlove is coming home to England – broke, ashamed and in disgrace – only to be told her parents are finally selling their once-grand, now crumbling country house, Bledesford, the ancestral home of the Dearlove family for countless generations.

Sylvie has spent her whole life trying to escape being a Dearlove, and the pressure of belonging to a family of such headstrong, charismatic and successful women. Beset by self-doubt, she starts helping her parents prepare Bledesford for sale, when she finds in a forgotten attic a thrilling cache of old steamer trunks and tea chests full of elaborate dresses and accessories acquired from across the globe by five generations of fashionable Dearlove women. Sifting through the past, she also stumbles across a secret which has been hidden – in plain sight – for decades, a secret that will change the way she thinks about herself, her family, and her future.

Romantic, warm, and glamorous, moving from Edwardian England to the London Blitz to present day London, Dressing the Dearloves is a story of corrosiveness of family secrets, the insecurities that can sabotage our best efforts, and the seductive power of dressing up.

My Thoughts:

I so enjoyed Dressing the Dearloves as it contains many of my favourite themes woven into its story: fashion, an old crumbling English estate, a few family secrets, a story that dips into the past, and a later than usual coming of age. Kelly Doust has such a warm writing style, witty and absorbing, as though you are a fly on the wall in these characters lives. Dressing the Dearloves is a comfortable novel, for want of a better description, a little slice of literature you want to crawl into. It’s sparkling and fun and has all the feels at all the right moments.

Sylvie Dearlove has returned home to lick her wounds and do her best to hide her fashion business failings from her family. She’s ashamed, not doing too well with her health, and she’s nursing a guilty conscience about quite a few things. When she arrives back at her family’s historic estate after a six year absence, it’s to find it extremely run down with her parents doing barely there patch up jobs in order to put it on the market. Now, I’ll pause here and insert a screenshot I took of the for sale advert for the estate included in the novel:

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What a house! It seems incredible that a family would have ever thought they needed so much space. And when you consider the historical aspect, that some of these houses were built as far back as the 1600s, then the value of saving them is significant. Some have architectural and/or garden designs from historically noteworthy figures. And then there’s what these houses contain, in terms of artefacts and antiquities. I love this sort of thing, although I do have a hard time wrapping my head around the money that some families must have had down through time and the means by which they sourced it in order to have afforded all of this. For families who have these houses today, the maintenance is beyond most financial means, the taxes are crippling, selling an estate rarely wipes the debt because there are so many taxes associated with it; and in the end, old English estates are no longer tied up with old English wealth, so the owners can realistically be living in grand poverty, contained to a few rooms while vermin invade the rest. Historically, it’s certainly a loss for the English countryside. There is a push on listing estates with the National Trust so that owners can turn them back into working estates with a tourism/event/cottage market/tea house focus. It’s a brilliant idea but means a lot of hard work and only suits families who really want to hang on to their heritage, and who also have an estate that is historically noteworthy in some quantifiable manner.

“Sylvie looked down, far out over the Colm Valley, and shook her head. What a legacy this place was. Not perfect, but something worth saving. Funny, she used to feel the opposite; now she was utterly petrified they were going to lose it.”

For the Dearloves, there is a certain social history aspect attached to their estate because the family have been well known down through time as ‘society folk’. When Sylvie’s mother Wendy asks her to get stuck into cleaning out the attic, Sylvie unearths a wealth of fashion history. Now, this gave me goosebumps, because these were extremely wealthy women back in the day, trendsetters for the English upper class scene, so these are not ordinary clothes and they span decades, with original couture and famous pieces that can be traced back to monumental moments captured in paintings and society photographs. For Sylvie, going through these clothes becomes a real turning point for her. She lives and breathes fashion, but desperately needs a new career focus. It’s all just a matter of joining up the dots and having a little faith, trust and pixie dust…in the form of some focused friends who know just when to push Sylvie’s motivation buttons.

“She finally began to understand where her passion for clothes and dressmaking had been born – it was stored in her very blood. Somehow it gave Sylvie the confidence to know she was on the right path after all.”

The three lynchpins of this novel are the estate, the vintage clothes collection, and the family itself. The Dearloves are very much a family of matriarchs, with great-grandmother Lizzie at the helm, despite being on her deathbed. While I’m loathe to normally dislike an ailing woman in her 90s, with Lizzie, it was unavoidable. Through well timed slips back to the 1920s and 1940s, along with the present day, we are able to form a fairly complete picture of Lizzie, and honestly, it wasn’t pretty. So twisted by her own spite and jealousy, bitter about never being everyone’s favourite, and obsessed with class to the point of surpassing snobbery, she was as toxic as they come. But the story itself, of these women and what had unfolded within their lives, was incredible, and so sad too. This family was so bad at communication, saying things when they shouldn’t and withholding the things they needed to impart. I really enjoyed seeing Sylvie unravel all of this with her parents and her grandmother Gigi, airing everything out in order for them all to begin afresh. And one of the most beautiful things to have come out of this emotional declutter was Sylvie’s realisation that her grandmother Gigi is a wonderfully wise woman and she almost missed knowing it, being too wrapped up in Lizzie’s grandiose and outdated snobbery. There’s a couple of poignant secrets that comes to light and another that remains hidden, and all in all, I adored this family’s story.

“Sylvie lingered for a moment on the landing to look at the portrait of Rose. All that success she’d been chasing in her life, Sylvie thought ruefully, all the effort she’d expended, to project the perfect image, to create the perfect life, striving to live up to the legacy of those perfect, impressive Dearloves – Rose, her father, even Gigi – and it had all been for nothing. Such a pointless way to live. They weren’t perfect, they were flawed, messy people in complicated situations, just doing the best that they could. Sylvie looked up at Rose’s portrait, and where before when she looked at it all she could see was cool composure and mocking regard, now she thought the expression on her great-great-grandmother’s face was of sympathy and understanding.”

Dressing the Dearloves is a novel that is arranged in a very engaging layout. Present day chapters alternate with those from the past, but interspersed between these are old news clippings from society pages, current news stories on Sylvie’s failed career, articles on country life from bygone days featuring the Dearlove family, letters and diaries, excerpts out of memoirs – a whole host of information presented in different formats designed to give an alternate perspective, yet complete picture, of this story. It was incredibly well done. I highly recommend Dressing the Dearloves to those who love their novels draped in fashion, steeped in the atmosphere of old estates, with a smattering of family secrets to uncover. Brilliant, warm, witty, and beautiful!