Theresa Smith's Blog, page 138

Thoughts on a Bookish Film: Goodbye Christopher Robin

About the Film:

After leaving London for the English countryside, writer A.A. Milne starts to spin fanciful yarns about his son’s growing collection of stuffed animals. These stories form the basis for “Winnie-the-Pooh” and “The House at Pooh Corner,” published respectively in 1926 and 1928. Milne and his family soon become swept up in the instant success of the books, while the enchanting tales bring hope and comfort to the rest of postwar England.

 

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My Thoughts:

I don’t watch movies often. Not because I don’t like them, it’s more of a time factor. When you read as much as I do, there’s not much time left over for movies or TV. So when the school holidays roll around and I get a couple of weeks off work (one of the reasons I never left school – all those holidays every 10 weeks) I usually try to watch a few movies and the odd TV series, provided it doesn’t have too many episodes, because, reading! I have a habit of buying the movies I want to watch on DVD when I see them at their ‘introductory price’, which is still really more than a DVD should cost these days, but even so, I then stockpile until I’m ready to watch.

 

It’s Easter break right now and I have been so keen to see Goodbye Christopher Robin ever since I heard it was being made. I adore Winnie the Pooh. I bought little reproduction editions, with original art work, of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner when I was pregnant with my eldest child, who is now 16, who incidentally watched this movie with me as well. My husband and I used to read these stories to our children from when they were babies until they were about five or six and began demanding other stories (boo to them!). My husband had never heard or read Winnie the Pooh before and he used to read them well past the time the children had fallen asleep, enjoying the wit much in the way adults have for decades since their publication. We went down the Disney road as well, bit hard to avoid with kids, but the original stories were always the most treasured, by all of us.

 

I never knew that Christopher Robin was A.A.Milne’s son. Nor did I know that these stories were based on his son’s games and playtime. I found this incredibly touching, especially when the stories and illustrations began taking shape, the whole creation aspect involving Billy-Moon (Christopher), Ernest (the illustrator and friend of A.A.Milne) and Blue (A.A.Milne). It was like this lovely atmosphere of play and creativity, and I kept thinking about how special it was that a father had immortalised his son’s childhood in such an incredible way. And then I began to feel differently, as the effects of this on Billy-Moon began to take shape. Such an incredible little actor who played Billy-Moon too, he was just perfect at conveying so much with a single look. I reached this point where I just broke down and cried, all I could think about was how they were selling Billy-Moon’s childhood. Everything was either orchestrated for the media or written into the stories. It was tragic and what was worse, was that no one but Billy-Moon’s nanny, Nou, could see what was happening, because she was the only one bothering to take notice. When Blue finally took notice himself, it was a bit too late, and his response, to never write about Winnie the Pooh again and to immediately enrol Billy-Moon into boarding school kind of missed the mark and set the poor boy up for a difficult adolescence.

 

Thank goodness Billy-Moon had Nou for his early years. She loved him so much and parented him so well. She was just so beautiful. Billy-Moon’s mother, Daphne, was a different story altogether. Self-entitled and self-absorbed, she was a woman that I understood but didn’t like, not one little bit. Shortly after Billy-Moon was born, she expressed her disappointment over him not being a girl, because ‘boys grow up into men and put on a uniform and go to war, and I’m just not going to go through that again.’ Now while I understood this, I failed to comprehend it being a reason to shut yourself off from really bonding with your child. It’s a classic example of her bringing everything back to herself and how it affects her, and her alone. I also found her particularly unsympathetic to Blue’s PTSD. Blue himself I quite liked, especially his evolving relationship with his son. He was deeply affected by the war, not only afflicted by PTSD but plagued with a fear that it would all happen again – he got that one right! Creating the Winnie the Pooh stories was in some ways quite healing for him, I thought.

 

This was a beautifully rendered film and so well cast. The emotion was always close to the surface. It’s left me feeling a little different about my Winnie the Pooh books though. I feel almost now like they are attached to a lost childhood, that their cost was so much greater than I ever could have imagined. It also makes me treasure them all the more, so that none of it was for nothing, a means of honouring that relationship between Blue and Billy-Moon. I loved this film, so much, and I love the way it’s made me think about these wonderful books in a new light. Goodbye Christopher Robin is a fine example of literature intersecting with film. Delightful, hearbreaking, and deeply affecting – if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend that you do. And if you have, what did you think?

 

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New Release Book Review: The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal

The Trick to Time…
About the Book:

Birmingham, 1972.

Mona is a young Irish girl in a big city, with the thrill of a new job and a room of her own in a busy boarding house. On her first night out in town, she meets William, a charming Irish boy with an easy smile and an open face. They embark upon a dizzying love affair, a whirlwind marriage, an unexpected pregnancy – before a sudden tragedy tears them apart.

Decades later, Mona pieces together the memories of the years that separate them. But can she ever learn to love again?

The Trick to Time is an unforgettable tale of grief, longing, and a love that lasts a lifetime.

A heart-wrenching novel by the internationally bestselling author of My Name is Leon.

 

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My Thoughts:

Irish fiction often seems to have a way of getting deep under my skin, right down into my bones where I end up feeling the story in a way that makes it impossible to truly ever let go of. The Trick to Time is such a gem of a novel, so incredibly moving and uniquely insightful.

 

Mona is sixty, lives in a nice apartment with a view, is financially secure, has a successful small business creating unique collectable dolls, and enjoys the company of a group of friends and acquaintances on a regular basis. She also has a gift: she knows the trick to time and teaches it to others. How she developed such an ability and why she teaches it to others is a story that will break your heart.

“Mona takes a breath.

‘It was only the kindness of a stranger that gave me the time to say goodbye. And that kindness gave me forty-five minutes with my child and I turned that forty-five minutes into a lifetime, into all the days and hours and weeks and years that we would never have together.’

The French windows rattle against the frame and Mona stands up to lock them.

‘There is a trick to time, Sarah. You can make it expand or you can make it contract. You can make the most of what you have.’”

 

The Trick to Time is a novel about love, hope, loss and grief. It shows how eternal love is, how grief may dim over time but never truly be extinguished. It shows how to live again when all ahead seems lost. Kit de Waal’s words are seemingly infused with magic, her prose filled with the beauty of truth and an insight that will leave you breathless and aching for more. This is a novel where the less you know about the story ahead of reading, the better. You will appreciate it all the more.

 

Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Trick to Time for review.

About the Author:

Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother, who was a childminder and foster carer and a Caribbean father. She worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels. She used to advise Social Services on the care of foster children, and has written training manuals on adoption, foster care and judgecraft for members of the judiciary. Her writing has received numerous awards including the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2014 and 2015 and the SI Leeds Literary Reader’s Choice Prize 2014 and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. MY NAME IS LEON, her first novel was published in 2016. She has two children.

http://www.kitdewaal.com

 

Book Review: The Three of Us by Kim Lock

The Three of Us…
About the Book:

A life lived in the shadows. A love that should never have been hidden.

In the small town of Gawler, South Australia, the tang of cut grass and eucalyptus mingles on the warm air. The neat houses perched under the big gum trees on Church Street have been home to many over the years. Years of sprinklers stuttering over clipped lawns, children playing behind low brick walls. Family barbecues. Gossipy neighbours. Arguments. Accidents. Births, deaths, marriages. This ordinary street has seen it all.

Until the arrival of newlyweds Thomas and Elsie Mullet. And when one day Elsie spies a face in the window of the silent house next door, nothing will ever be ordinary again…

In Kim Lock’s third novel of what really goes on behind closed doors, she weaves the tale of three people with one big secret; a story of fifty years of friendship, betrayal, loss and laughter in a heartwarming depiction of love against the odds.

 

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My Thoughts:

The Three of Us might just be one of the most surprising novels I’ve ever read. But I can’t tell you about it. Because that will ruin the surprise and this is definitely a case of the less you know the better. And I don’t mean this in the usual spoiler way. It’s just that you start out reading this novel and then very early on, you get the first surprise, and your mind builds up this picture and you begin to feel smug, because you know where this is going, except you’re wrong. And when you find out just how very wrong you are, your mind bends and flexes under the challenge this story presents, and you realise just how much you usually rely on pre-conceived notions when forming opinions. I read this novel in one sitting on a Friday night, no small feat given it’s 400 odd pages long, but it’s that good, I didn’t even consider leaving the rest until the next day.

 

Now, there are some things I can tell you:

1. Marriage is complex, we all know that, but maybe we don’t know as much as we think we do. Kim Lock portrays the complexities of marriage with a depth of understanding and compassion throughout The Three of Us, and she shows us, with an honesty that is humbling, just how fluid this institution can be if we open our minds and our hearts and leave our judgement on the doormat.

2. Thomas Mullet is an extraordinary man. To experience love in the way he loved Elsie would be a very special thing indeed. By no means a saint, he just got under my skin and I think he’s incredibly wonderful, so open-minded and with a heart truly made of gold. I did feel for him at times, because he had an awareness about Elsie’s love for him falling short of his own for her and yet, despite this, he still worshipped her for more than fifty years. He was also very ahead of his time in terms of domestic expectations. I loved that moment when he came to the conclusion that housework would most definitely be boring day in and day out. He understood the limitations a married woman faced, and that would have been rare in the 1960s.

3. I am continuously horrified by Australia’s history of taking babies away from their unwed mothers. This isn’t dimming with each account I read. The horror is just intensifying. The ripple effect of this is still being felt today by those affected. How many lives would have panned out differently if our welfare system had been set up with a more compassionate support base? The shame inflicted upon these women stained them and I feel so angry each time I think about it.

4. Families come in all shapes and sizes. Kim has done a wonderful job of portraying the family at the heart of this novel and the issues they faced with sensitivity and honesty. I really felt that she had a deep understanding of diversity and the realities of living within a non-standard nuclear family.

5. Love can save a person. Aida was on the edge of a precipice and love pulled her back, more than once. Again, well done to Kim for demonstrating just how much of a difference love can make.

 

So that’s all you’re getting. I’ve probably skated too close a few times already, so I can’t risk anymore near spills. The social history woven into this story is terrific, the small town atmosphere is authentic, and the characters are all 100% genuine. You really should read this novel, especially if you are in a bookclub. This is one read that comes guaranteed with endless pathways of discussion. It’s so good, and I’m fairly certain you won’t have read anything at all like it before.

 

Thanks is extended to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy of The Three of Us for review.

About the Author:

[image error]Kim Lock was born in 1981. She is the author of two previous novels Like I can Love and Peace, Love and Khaki Socks. Her non-fiction has appeared in the Guardian, Daily Life, and the Sydney Morning Herald online. She lives in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, with her partner and their children, a dog and a couple of cats.

 

Behind the Pen with Lia Weston

I’m delighted to welcome Lia Weston to Behind the Pen today. I recently reviewed (and loved!) her latest novel, You Wish, so it’s terrific to have an opportunity to share a little more about that novel with you all.

 

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Where did the initial inspiration for You Wish come from?

Most people have daydreamed about being in their favourite film or band, or even living a different life. I loved the idea of a company which could create photographs of any situation you wanted. You know—I want to win an Oscar, I want to be in Sherlock, I want to be friends with these famous people. I assumed that such a company existed but when I went to research one, I found that it didn’t.

The thing with human nature, however, is that if you have such a company, people will want to take the concept further. Instead of requesting to be in a movie, they’d inevitably start asking to have real-life photos edited or new ones made from scratch. Happy snaps from a holiday they never went on, the creation of a relationship that only exists in their mind, et cetera. So the concept of this theoretical company quickly shifted from ‘Can you put me in Die Hard?’ to ‘Can you edit my wedding album so I’m married to my ex-girlfriend?’

Moreover, I wondered what it would be like to be the person actually doing this edit/delete work, especially if you created the business. What do you do if people want an album of photos of a person they’ve been legally barred from contacting? What do you do if parents who’ve lost a child want to see what their life could have been like? What would fulfilling these requests do to you? It was too interesting not to follow up. My main character, Thomas Lash, also has the ability to instinctively know what people really want—rather than what they say they want—which further complicates the story.

I never think about it at the time, but in hindsight, all three of my novels are about illusions and delusions. Some people find inspiration in incredible events or deeply moving relationships. I tend to write about things that make me cross.

 

I love the brother-sister dynamic between Tom and Gen. Was this always intended or one of those relationships that evolve on throughout the writing process?

Gen snuck in under the radar. She didn’t feature hugely in the original plan for the book, but every time I wrote about her, she just kept chatting away and I couldn’t help myself. Tom’s natural inclination is towards complete freedom and solitude, so I loved having her subtly remind him that he can’t actually be a hermit. He needs her as much as she needs him, even if he doesn’t realise it. It’s very odd; teenage girls keep finding their way into my work, probably because they’re just so much fun to write.

 

If you were a prospective client of IF, what type of photo book would you be seeking?

I have very few photos of me with my brother, so if Tom could make me one of those, that’d be great. For a purely frivolous pick, I’d be quite happy to be popped into Bram Stoker’s Dracula, just to wear something by Eiko Ishioka. (That final green gown of Mina’s, thank you very much.)

 

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

I’m an all-over-the-place writer out of necessity. I have a lovely old desk at home with secret drawers and a comfy chair, but I move to other rooms if I need to spread out (or take refuge in the garden where the wi-fi doesn’t work if I’m forcing myself not to procrastinate). When I’m under a deadline, however, I will write wherever I have to—car wash, blood donation centre, queuing at the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s not glamourous, but it gets the job done.

 

Is there any one particular season on the year that you find more creatively inspirational than the others?

I’m a sucker for spring. I love the aesthetics of winter—gloomy days, windswept hills, everything my inner Goth desires—but my hands get very cold very quickly. (As I type this, it’s 22 degrees but my hands could chill a beer.) Cold hands means typing is difficult, let alone holding a pen, so while I crave the deep dark winter, I’m always very happy when the sun returns so I can get some warmth back in my fingers. Artificial heating just doesn’t seem to have the same effect.

 

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Do I need to say ‘reading’? I probably don’t. In addition to that, I love cooking, though I’m currently under a self-imposed ban on buying any more cookbooks because I have far, far too many that I haven’t actually read, let alone made any of the recipes from. Baking in particular makes me happy. There’s little better than a house that smells like warm dough. Kickboxing makes me happy as well; clearly I have a whole bunch of repressed rage that needs to be smashed out on a regular basis. Perhaps it’ll help if I buy some more cookbooks…

 

You Wish…

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Sometimes imagination is not enough.

Thomas Lash grants secret wishes . . . on-screen, that is.

White wedding gone horribly wrong and need to swap the groom? Never went to university but must have a graduation photo? Need to create a fake family for that job interview? Problem solved with expert Photoshopping and Tom’s peculiar ability to know exactly what you desire. Tom never says no, even when giving grieving parents the chance to see what the lives of their lost children may have looked like.

But where do you draw the line . . . and what happens when the fantasy Tom sees on-screen starts to bleed into his real life?

Published by Pan Macmillan Australia

 

New Release Book Review: Little Gods by Jenny Ackland

Little Gods…
About the Book:

As a child, trapped in the savage act of growing up, Olive had sensed she was at the middle of something, so close to the nucleus she could almost touch it with her tongue. But like looking at her own nose for too long, everything became blurry and she had to pull away. She’d reached for happiness as a child not yet knowing that the memories she was concocting would become deceptive. That memories get you where they want you not the other way around.

 

The setting is the Mallee, wide flat scrubland in north-western Victoria, country where men are bred quiet, women stoic and the gothic is never far away. Olive Lovelock has just turned twelve. She is smart, fanciful and brave and on the cusp of something darker than the small world she has known her entire life.

 

She knows that adults aren’t very good at keeping secrets and makes it her mission to uncover as many as she can. When she learns that she once had a baby sister who died – a child unacknowledged by her close but challenging family – Olive becomes convinced it was murder. Her obsession with the mystery and relentless quest to find out what happened have seismic repercussions for the rest of her family and their community. As everything starts to change, it is Olive herself who has the most to lose as the secrets she unearths multiply and take on complicated lives of their own.

 

Little Gods is a novel about the mess of family, about vengeance and innocence lost. It explores resilience and girlhood and questions how families live with all of their complexities and contradictions. Resonating with echoes of great Australian novels like Seven Little Australians, Cloudstreet, and Jasper Jones, Little Gods is told with similar idiosyncrasy, insight and style. Funny and heartbreaking, this is a rare and original novel about a remarkable girl who learns the hard way that the truth doesn’t always set you free.

 

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My Thoughts:

There is definitely shades of ‘the great Australian novel’ within this latest offering by Jenny Ackland, and while I’m usually reluctant to draw comparisons between stories, I felt a certain Stand By Me vibe about Little Gods, that whole ‘the summer before everything changed’ sort of feeling. I really think this is a story that will play out well on the big screen, it has all the qualities essential for a timeless Aussie movie. Fingers crossed for Jenny!

 

In Olive, Jenny has created one tough little cookie. Smart, fearless, and highly imaginative, Olive is the sort of girl who makes other girls nervous, and consequently, she spends all of her time with boys, and even they have to rein her in sometimes. It was nice to at last get an Australian coming of age story with a girl front and centre; any others that spring to mind have all been about boys. But Olive’s boldness proves to be her undoing and I keenly felt that Jenny applied an expert hand to Olive in the way only a woman could.

 

Little Gods is very much a character driven story. It meanders along with Olive as the main narrator – in fact, there are only a few instances where this changes within pivotal scenes – and much of the story is concerned with the daily comings and goings of a twelve year old girl. There were times when this proved to be incredibly insightful, particularly when you were able to read between the lines of Olive’s observations and also whenever she was eavesdropping on the adults or in conversation with her aunt Thistle or uncle Cleg, two adults who had no sense of child-sensoring – for different reasons though. But there were other times when I tired of Olive. It’s a reasonably long novel and some of the time, not very much seemed to be happening. Child perspectives within novels for adults can be tricky to maintain, particularly within a story that is not especially plot driven, and consequently, my attention wandered quite often while reading Little Gods.

 

While we see the story through Olive’s eyes, everything revolves around her family. The Lovelock family reminded me a little of my own, all involved with each other, cousins growing up side by side, secrets swept under the doormat and mental illness managed in-house; your typical Australian family from the 1980s. The nostalgia is rich throughout Little Gods and that carried me through. Who doesn’t like to look back on the ‘good old days’, although we usually have selective memory when it comes to looking back, because I can tell you now, those old days weren’t all good all the time, far from it. But when I tell my children about my own childhood, it’s the good days that rise to the fore, and I really feel that Jenny tapped into this tendency, that selective memory we as adults tend to practice when it comes to talking about our childhoods, especially when we’re trying to get our children up off the couch and out into the fresh air.

 

Life was different back then though, there was a freedom to my childhood that is absent from my own children’s. I was a farm kid too, so my days were spent away from the house getting into all sorts of things I probably shouldn’t have with no adults aware of my whereabouts ever. Much like Olive. The secret Olive unearths was a preventable accident born out of a lack of supervision on the part of the adults in Olive’s life. Yet this was common. I had friends with missing fingers and toes from preventable accidents and yes, missing siblings too, who had been run over or drowned. This was not unusual. Now, we watch our children constantly and rush them to the emergency room for every fall they have. Is this better? I don’t know. What I do know, is that I’m not convinced my children are as self-sufficient as my cousins and I were. Some days I doubt they could cross the street without a near miss!

 

Little Gods is a slice of life from days gone by and I loved the authenticity of it. It’s about family, the good and the bad, loyalty and protection within, even when we don’t like the people we’re related to. It’s about understanding that the truth can hurt and won’t necessarily set you free.

 

Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of Little Gods for review.

About the Author:

Jenny Ackland is a writer and teacher from Melbourne. She has worked in offices, sold textbooks in a university bookshop, taught English overseas and worked as a proof-reader and freelance editor. Her short fiction has been published in literary magazines and listed in prizes and awards. Her debut novel The Secret Son – a “Ned Kelly-Gallipoli mash-up” about truth and history – was published in 2015. Little Gods is her second novel.

 

New Release Book Review: Mother’s Day by Fiona McArthur

Mother’s Day…
About the Book:

Burra District Hospital’s maternity unit is under threat and will close for births unless a new obstetrician can be found. Midwife Noni Frost needs a miracle.

A single mum, Noni lives with her young son, Harley, and her Aunt Win, a free spirit and the beating heart of Burra Guest House. Noni’s world is disrupted when Iain McCloud and his pregnant teenage daughter Jacinta move into the guesthouse to await the birth of her baby.

There’s instant chemistry between Iain and Noni, although he has no plans to stay on in town. But when Jacinta shares explosive family secrets with Noni and an unexpected crisis occurs, everyone’s lives come crashing down around them.

Set among the white gum trees and flowing waters of the NSW northern rivers, this is a heartfelt and dramatic story about new babies, new friends and new loves, which shows that when strong women come together in a time of crisis, they can overcome even the greatest odds.

 

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My Thoughts:

What an enjoyable read this was! Mother’s Day ticks all the boxes: great setting, engaging characters, involving plot, a nice romance, great family feels, both tears and laughter. An excellent gift this Mother’s Day for the mother figure in your life, but make sure you grab a copy for yourself as well!

 

Noni is a sparky character, full of love and dedication to her job as a midwife in a small country town. I loved Noni’s enthusiasm and I loved her philosophy. There’s such an empowering undertone to the situations raised within this novel. My own experience with midwives was positive, three times over, and while I’ll acknowledge that my birth experiences were as non-complicated as you can get, I still felt like I got off to a good start with my babies in part because of the fantastic midwives who helped me along with it. This novel made me think back on this and also think about friends who have had babies recently, some not so easy or straightforward. I just really like people who empower mothers instead of dictate to them, so Fiona McArthur is up there on my list of favourite people now. I absolutely love this passage which sums up so much about this novel in a nice little nutshell:

“She paused, aware that what she said next was the most important message she could give someone like him who could influence a woman’s life as she gave birth. ‘Can you see now how a woman can absorb so much faith in her own ability to raise her children from her labour? The decisions she’s allowed to make, the respect she’s afforded, and achievement of the birth regardless of how that baby arrives – these experiences are so important as lessons to help in the tough times to come. Raising children is harder than labour. It’s not just about today, you know. You shouldn’t rush to put limitations on a mother unless she asks for help.’”

Here, here!

 

This novel is not all about birthing babies – although I’ll be upfront in saying that it’s a huge part of the story. It’s also about family, who we get and who we choose, and what we consider most valuable in life. I enjoyed watching the relationship between Jacinta and Iain emerge, a father and daughter finding their feet with each other as well as themselves within their new roles. Likewise, Win, Noni’s aunt, who was at a crossroads without even really knowing it. This was a nice bunch of people to hang out with and the way their lives became entwined made for an entertaining and heartfelt story.

 

Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of Mother’s Day for review.

About the Author:

[image error]Drawing from her life as a rural midwife, Fiona McArthur shares her love of working with women, families and health professionals in her books. In her compassionate, pacey fiction, her love of the Australian landscape meshes beautifully with warm, funny, multigenerational characters as she highlights challenges for rural and remote families, and the strength shared between women. Happy endings are a must. Fiona is the author of non-fiction book Aussie Midwives, and lives on a farm with her husband in northern New South Wales. She was awarded the NSW Excellence in Midwifery Award in 2015.

www.FionaMcArthurAuthor.com

 

Behind the Pen with Fiona McCallum

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Fiona McCallum to Behind the Pen today.

 

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Ten novels in 7 years, congratulations Fiona! 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?

Thanks very much! In terms of output, I’m actually well behind where I wanted to be. When I set out at thirty my aim was to publish a book a year for forty years – so I should be at around seventeen by now! Waiting a decade to get a contract put a hiccup in that plan, as did having to fit in writing around other work to pay the bills. But my dream, first and foremost, was to have a career as a full-time novelist, so I’m thrilled with where I’m at now in that sense. At university, particularly, I was told this wasn’t possible. Oh how I love proving people wrong! I really am proof dreams can come true.

 

[image error]Making Peace follows on from Finding Hannah. Was it always your intention on writing a series for Hannah Ainsley or did this evolve from reader response?

When I finished writing Finding Hannah, Hannah had become too special to me to let her go so soon and I desperately wanted her to have another book. I wanted her to have the opportunity to thrive, not just survive and to also give back to her friends who had given her so much love and support. Thankfully the idea for Making Peace came up quickly. This is now the last we’ll hear from Hannah – though I never say never… I was sad to end my time with her, but happy too because she’s in such a good place now. Getting to know my characters so well means they really do become friends and I always experience a short period of grief when finishing a book. Thankfully I have plenty of other characters waiting in the wings.

 

Do you have any particular qualifications that relate to the themes of loss and healing covered in this novel or are you drawing more from life experiences?

No, I’m not a medical practitioner. I draw on my life experiences and observations and my empathetic and sensitive nature for my writing. It’s really important to me to write with honesty, so none of my characters experience an emotion that I haven’t been through myself. For Hannah, her loss was sudden. For me my most significant losses have been more drawn out – beginning with losing my dad at nineteen after battling a brain tumour for eight years. We were really close and almost twenty-eight years on I still think about him and miss him every single day. I’ve since realised I wasn’t allowed to grieve. In my family you just got on and didn’t talk about your feelings or your problems. I think if I‘d known how confronting and debilitating writing Finding Hannah would be, I might not have done it. But the wonderful feedback from readers saying I’ve helped them understand their own experience or that of a grieving loved one has made it worthwhile and meant the world to me.

 

Have you ever had to deal with a situation where someone feels they recognise traits of themselves in one of your characters?

No. It’s really interesting, but in my experience, people don’t tend to see themselves as other people see them. Because I’m from a small town and area people who live there or know me tend to think they know who I’m writing about. I once had someone list off characters and match names of local people. But they were wrong – and I told them so. My characters tend to be composites – traits taken from several people. There actually aren’t that many different personality types – I’m sure we all know a control freak, someone who’s a bully, someone who’s kind through and through, someone who’s weak and afraid to go beyond their comfort zone and someone prepared to take risks and be courageous etc. My characters actually often have a lot of me in them – though they’re never completely me.

 

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

I’m highly organised, structured and routine oriented. And a morning person. I get up, get dressed and have breakfast. I then return to bed to write by hand – usually from eight until around noon, five or six days a week. I write in a lovely blank notebook with a mechanical pencil. Yes, I too find it odd that I’m highly structured yet won’t write in a notebook with lines! Ah, the idiosyncrasies of the creative person! After lunch I type up my morning’s work and deal with emails and any other business that’s come in.

 

Where do you draw your inspiration from? How do you fill up that creativity well?

Thankfully I’ve been given plenty of interesting happenings and lived some definite contrasts in my life on which to draw. I feel blessed to have been through some serious lows and traumatic experiences and come out the other side very strong and independent, and a lot wiser. I believe being able to write and tell stories so many people connect with is a gift and having a pretty constant stream of ideas, which can become a little overwhelming at times, tells me I’m doing what I’m meant to with my life. As you can probably tell, I also have a lot to say!

 

Can you tell us something about yourself that not many people would know?

Hmm, well, I write with my left hand, but am quite ambidextrous. I can do most things with both hands and play golf and tennis right-handed.

 

Do you read your book reviews? Do you appreciate reader feedback and take it on board, even if it is negative? How do you deal with negative feedback after spending so much time writing your book?

I do scan my book reviews, but only in order to extract some good comments for promotion on my website and Facebook to hopefully build interest in my books and help increase my readership. I love to get kind comments and feedback from happy readers and do my best to ignore any negativity. I don’t let good or bad reviews or reader comments impact on my writing – one of the wonderful things of being an author is I get to tell the story I want to, how and when I want to. I’d better stop there, because I have really strong views on this and am at risk of getting on my soapbox and writing an essay!

 

What authors and types of books do you love the most?

When starting out as a writer, to understand my market, I read mainly women’s fiction – a lot of Maeve Binchy, Debbie Macomber and Barbara Delinsky. My reading taste has now become quite eclectic. I’ve always loved a good mystery or crime novel. I’m currently in a psych thriller, true crime and biography phase.

 

If you could sit down for an afternoon with an iconic person from history, who would you choose to spend that time with?

Albert Einstein.

Thank you Fiona! And congratulations once again on your 10th book. Such an achievement!

Aww, thanks very much. Thank YOU for your interest, and the interesting questions!

Making Peace

From Australia’s master storyteller comes an uplifting story of new and old friendships, letting go of the past and looking to the future…

Does one simple act of kindness have the power to completely turn someone’s life around?

It’s been a year since Hannah Ainsley lost her husband and parents – her whole family – in a car crash on Christmas morning. Despite her overwhelming loss, she’s worked hard to pull the pieces of her life together with the help of a group of dear, loyal friends. But while Hannah is beginning to become excited about the future again, she’s concerned that her best friend and talented artist Sam is facing a crisis of her own. It’s now Hannah’s turn to be Sam’s rock – can she save Sam’s dreams from unravelling?

When Hannah returns to work after her holidays, she can’t settle. She’s loved her job for a decade, and it’s been her lifeline during her grief. But something’s changed. She’s changed. And for all this time she’s avoided knowing the details of the accident or investigation – what would be the point, she’d thought, when nothing will bring her loved ones back? But after a chance meeting, it’s all there in front of her – and, like ripples in a pond, it extends beyond her own experiences. Could knowing be the key to her recovery? Could her involvement be the key to someone else’s?

 

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Bingo! The Shape of Water by Daniel Kraus in collaboration with Guillermo del Toro

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

 

A Book that became a Movie

 

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This is a book that has a slightly different journey to movie in that it was written alongside the creation of the movie, rather than simply having a movie based upon it.

Developed from the ground up as a bold two-tiered release-one story interpreted by two artists in the independent mediums of literature and film-The Shape of Water is unlike anything you’ve ever read or seen. The Shape of Water weaves fantasy, fable and romance. The book features a handful of illustrations by visual artist James Jean to create a tale that is equally gripping on the page as it is on the big screen.

It’s quite a creative innovation, and while I am yet to see the movie, I did really enjoy the book. You can read my review and view the movie trailer here.

At the heart of this story is the need for connection. We all need to have someone to connect with, and as Elisa demonstrates, sometimes this connection can come from the most unlikely of sources. To love and be loved in return; that is The Shape of Water.

 

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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Book Review: Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik

Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves…
About the Book:

A novel with a crime at its heart, based on the extraordinary life of the author’s own grandmother.

During the Second World War, Rene Hargreaves leaves her children with her aunt and boards a train without buying a return ticket, so sure is she that she never wants to see her husband again. Instead she starts a new life as a Land Girl on Starlight Farm. She finds its owner Elsie Boston and her country ways strange at first, yet as their relationship develops they become inextricably dependent on each other, long after the war has ended. When their shared life is suddenly threatened by a visitor who comes to stay, and something that happens not long after, they must begin to fight a war of their own against not just their community, but the nation’s press, and the full force of the law.

 

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My Thoughts:

I first came across this novel, Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves when it featured as part of a blog tour earlier this year on a blog I like to follow, What Cathy Read Next. Cathy combined an author interview with her review of the novel and it sounded like the sort of historical read I usually enjoy. The novel has since been longlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, “a prize that celebrates quality, and innovation of writing in the English language, and is open to books published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth.”

 

I’m always drawn to historical fiction that is inspired by fact, be it events or real people, and Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves falls into that category. I’ll begin at the end with this extract from the author’s historical note:

“This novel began while I was trying to find out about the life of my mother’s mother, Rene Hargreaves—a black sheep if ever there was one.

Like most ordinary people, Rene’s life would have been nearly invisible in the official sense—but for her encounters with the criminal justice system and the rigours of wartime documentation. What I found suggested a partial chronology for Rene and, to a lesser extent, Elsie; the police records also revealed some tantalising details about their life together.

It should be clear that Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is a fiction and not a speculation and it should be read as such.”

 

I thought it was interesting to note how the author referred to Rene Hargreaves as “her mother’s mother” as opposed to her grandmother, a telling turn of phrase to indicate that Rene Hargreaves wasn’t a grandmother in any way. And indeed, she did abandon her children when they were at very young ages and never saw them again. Contrary to the book description here, Rene left her youngest child, a baby, with a woman who had been her brother’s nanny, and the older two children were put onto a train and sent to her sister-in-law, a woman she didn’t even like and who had nothing but contempt for Rene. We are given the background on why Rene felt she needed to leave her husband, but leaving your husband and giving your children away are two entirely different things, and I will admit that this clouded my liking of Rene. I was mollified to some degree to note that within the story, this weighed heavily on Rene for the rest of her life, but even she acknowledges that she didn’t need to abandon them to have left her husband. She could have gotten them back, particularly given the fact that her husband had died and would not have challenged her for custody. So I can clearly understand why the author would have referred to Rene in that manner, for not only was she not a mother to her own daughter, she certainly was never a grandmother to her grandchildren.

 

The final statement in this historical note is also of interest to me, that reinforcement that Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is a fiction, not a speculation. To me, this just goes to show how little was known about these women, other than the information that entered the public domain. They really did live a rather secluded life, which in itself is not a big deal, the majority of us don’t have pages of info coming up on us with an internet search, but more than this is the implication that their families did not know very much about them. It’s that kind of seclusion that begs interest. I can see how this would have inspired a bit of digging, if I had a phantom grandmother, I might have done the same.

 

The novel itself is what I like to term, a quiet unfolding. It’s more of a character study than a plot driven tale. It plods along to a certain extent, but I must admit this appealed to me. I could pick it up and just sink into the day to day lives of these two women, a gentle ebb and flow of history unfolding before me. And it’s very atmospheric, quite rich in the detail of the land and life, during and after WWII. When the novel opens, we meet Elsie (Miss Boston), owner of Starlight Farm, quite nervous about the imminent arrival of her assigned land girl, Rene (Miss Hargreaves). It doesn’t take long for these women to fall into a rhythm with each other. I was particularly saddened by the circumstances that led to Elsie’s loss of her own farm. That kind of underhanded taking advantage of women really angers me, all the more because it would have happened just that way. Two women, working hard and making a go of the farm, having it stolen out from under them by a lazy, sneaking man, who wasn’t even doing his own bit for the war anyway. I was quite incensed. This set them on a wandering path and it was some years until they finally settled into a place of their own again, this time in Cornwall.

 

The majority of the novel is concerned with the life that the ladies were living. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a character study, of both as individuals but also of them as a unit. What were they to each other? Friends? Lovers? It not explicit. There is certainly plenty of innuendo along the way, particularly at the end when Rene is under examination for breaking the law. What I enjoyed about this novel was its lack of explicit definition. Elsie and Rene were important to each other. They loved each, leaned on each other, and lived their lives linked as any ordinary couple would. They didn’t however define themselves, nor did they constantly explain their relationship to others. It simply was. I pondered quite often on this, and I think it’s very much indicative of the era, as much as the ladies themselves. When something is rare, or to a certain extent unknown, experiencing it yourself doesn’t automatically make it something you can define, or even something that you would want to. I feel that for Elsie and Rene, their relationship was constantly evolving for themselves, what other people thought was incidental, and if at any point in time, one of them had been asked if they were lesbians, I’m quite certain the suggestion would have been met with astonishment. It was a love borne out of companionship rather than sexual desire, that was very much apparent, and for this, I found it all the more authentic and meaningful.

 

The unwanted visitor that comes to stay was an interesting character. I couldn’t quite put my finger on his behaviour. I kept thinking there was some element of dementia, certainly substance abuse, but there were other oddities that threw me. He would have tested a saint, honestly. Some of his behaviour was so bizarre it bordered on disturbing. I really began to fear for Elsie and his strange fixation on winding her up. I liked how this all played out in the end, and I felt once again, that ring of authenticity that made it all seem that much more plausible.

 

Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is quite possibly not a novel that all will enjoy. Many might find its gentle pace under stimulating, the focus on characters rather than plot too wandering. To me, it’s an excellent example of historical fiction. A clear snapshot of life in rural Britain, during and post WWII. It perfectly encapsulated the rural mindset, the mistrust of women who have no men in their lives. Dangerous beings, women who opt to think and work for themselves. Clearly not to be trusted and definitely up to something. The subtle way Rachel Malik threads this throughout the narrative is testimony to her skill within this genre. I have no idea if Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves will make the shortlist for The Walter Scott, but its placement on the longlist is well deserved. Possibly not a good book club recommendation, I did put this forward to my own book club and reactions have been mixed. But if you like literary historical fiction, then this is a novel you may well appreciate.

Book Review: The Afghan Wife by Cindy Davies

The Afghan Wife…
About the Book:

During the volatile times that followed the Iranian revolution in 1979, Zahra, her husband and son are forced to leave their homeland of Afghanistan with her revolutionary activist cousin, Firzun.

Zahra’s life becomes embroiled with Firzun’s, as her cousin joins the violent opposition to the new regime in Iran. Complexities increase as she again meets Karim, a man she’s loved since she was a teenager.

As the political turmoil unfolds, Zahra must choose between love and family loyalty.

 

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My Thoughts:

It’s not until reading a novel such as The Afghan Wife, do I realise just how ‘western’ my reading choices usually are. I’m not sure if this is by accident or design, but it’s definitely something to ponder over. The Afghan Wife is an exceptionally good novel, complex in its story and themes, yet incredibly engaging and easy to follow – an absolute bonus when reading a story bound up with politics and war.

 

Set in 1979, to me this novel qualifies as historical fiction, but there are themes of love, war, and politics that make this a read that will have wide appeal. It’s very fast paced, with a sense of urgency that notched up my engagement and had me turning the pages long into the night. I didn’t feel as though I could just mark the page and sleep on it. Too much was happening, too much was at stake, and too much still needed to be resolved.

 

I found many parts of this story difficult to deal with, in the sense of the truth it was portraying. The suppression of women under fundamentalist Muslim regimes is almost impossible to accept, as a Western non-Muslim woman. It distresses me to know that women are treated with such contempt; almost reviled on account of their gender alone. To be an abused Muslim woman within a fundamentalist household is a whole different kettle of fish. These women are cut off in a completely different way to other women, restricted by more than just one man; leaving is not an option, even ending up a widow does not equate to freedom. Zahra’s story highlighted much of this. Even with a male cousin who was aware of her abuse and despised her husband for it, she was still left for so long to endure it. There was just no allowances made for her to be supported. I hope this has changed, but given the political climate in the middle East over the last couple of decades, I sincerely doubt it.

 

Another aspect of this story that was distressing was the awareness of how entrenched terrorism really is. To be more explicit, you have a regime that is built on terror, and the response to this is terrorist cells retaliating against the regime with acts of terror, resulting in the regime retaliating with acts of terror, and then splinter groups forming to retaliate with acts of terror…you see what I mean, this is a cycle of terrorism that has no end. It’s insane.

 

For Zahra, the powerlessness of her situation was confronting. She had no control over her own destiny. She went from being under the control of her husband to her cousin, both of them pursuing their ideals through terrorism with no regard for the danger this posed to Zahra and her young son. Her safety and well being was incidental. The fear she lived with daily would have been crippling. I can’t even comprehend what living like that would do to a person; your physical health would have to suffer as well as your mental health. I believe there is sequel in the works for this story. I’m not a fan of sequels and would have liked the novel to be a little longer so that Zahra’s story could have been fully resolved. The ending was too abrupt when considered within the context of how invested I became in the character and her well being.

 

And yet, through all of this, there was a beauty depicted, a sense of community attached to being Muslim, a knowledge that your culture has survived for centuries and has a rich and lasting history. I could see past the acts of terror and fully understand the resistance against fundamentalism. It’s very important to distinguish between Muslims and fundamentalist Muslims. The two are not the same at all and in today’s world, this all the more important. The Afghan Wife is a terrific novel for demonstrating the two within the one context. It’s a powerfully informative text based on solid research and anecdotal experience by the author.

 

Thanks is extended to the author for providing me with a copy of The Afghan Wife for review. The Afghan Wife is published by Odyssey Books.

About the Author:

[image error]Cindy lived in a small town on the Black Sea coast of Turkey for two years where she taught English. This was the beginning of a life-long interest in Middle Eastern culture and language. Born in the UK she emigrated to Australia in 1975 with her family. She’s been an English language teacher, free-lance travel writer and tour guide, in both Turkey and Sydney, Australia. Her first novel The Afghan Wife is a love story set against the background of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. She’s currently working on a sequel.

http://cindydavies.com.au/