Theresa Smith's Blog, page 24
August 19, 2023
Book Review: Feast by Emily O’Grady
Alison is an actress who no longer acts, Patrick a musician past his prime. The eccentric couple live an isolated, debauched existence in an old manor house in Scotland, a few miles outside their village. That is, until Patrick’s teenage daughter, Neve, flees Australia to spend a year abroad with her doting, if unreliable, father, and the stepmother she barely knows.
On the weekend of Neve’s eighteenth birthday, her father insists on a special feast to mark her coming of age. Despite Neve’s objections, her mother Shannon arrives in Scotland to join the celebrations. What none of them know is that Shannon has arrived with a hidden agenda that has the potential to shatter the delicate façade of the loving, if dysfunctional, family.
Feast is the story of three women connected beyond blood, and what happens when their darkest secrets are hauled into the light.
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released 30 May 2023
My Thoughts:Feast was, at the risk of sounding cliche, a feast for the senses. Similar to Sarah Schmidt, Emily O’Grady is what I like to call a sensory writer, in that, she demands her readers utilise all of their senses whilst reading her work. Textures, tastes, and smells abound in her prose, sometimes gloriously so, but more often than not, with an element of gore. It’s immersive literary fiction and I am a huge fan of it.
The characters in Feast are complex and fractured, hidden depths within each of them, and not just the three women who narrate the story. Patrick has much to hide and whilst on the surface seems a compliant pushover with regards to Alison’s demands and whims, there is a passive aggressive undercurrent between them and an unsettling feeling that Patrick does not love Alison quite as much as she thinks he does. And Elixir, the creepy teenager from next door who has attached himself to Neve yet appears to have an unhealthy obsession with Alison; the hidden depths there certainly surprised me.
The story unfolds over a weekend and centres around a feast that is planned for the 18th birthday of Patrick’s daughter, Neve. The party is small, just Neve, Patrick, Alison, Elixir – attending as Neve’s only friend, and Shannon, Neve’s mother who is flying to Scotland from Australia just for the weekend. Shannon’s attendance is an extravagance I had trouble reconciling, her time spent flying there and back exceeding the time spent in Scotland. Alison’s behaviour towards Shannon is bizarre given the fact that Shannon is Patrick’s not quite yet ex-wife; pandering and simpering, almost as though she has a crush on her, and at several points, Alison invades Shannon’s personal space inappropriately. Shannon’s attendance for the weekend is not as straightforward as a mother wanting to spend time with her daughter on the occasion of her 18th birthday though. The truth behind her motivations once revealed were more personal, more about a reckoning, one that Patrick was instinctively fearful of – as he well should have.
Alison is a rather odd woman, naturally cruel and kind of revolting in many ways – there was a crude grossness to her that extended to everything: housekeeping, personal hygiene, slovenly habits. Something exists between her and her neighbour, Elixir’s father, yet we aren’t informed of what until almost the end of the story. It was something I did not see coming and was entirely unsettling in many ways. I had been beginning to feel sorry for her, but the reveal had the effect of an emotional whiplash. At the conclusion of the story, you are left with the feeling that Alison and Patrick are perfect for each other, and that Neve should move on and get away from them while she can, before she becomes tainted by their selfish ways and rather subjective morals.
Feast is a compelling read, addictive and immersive. Emily O’Grady impressed me with her debut The Yellow House and she continues to maintain this with Feast. I’m really looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
August 18, 2023
Book Review: Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
When a daughter is born to the King of Arcadia, she brings only disappointment.
Left exposed on a mountainside, the defenceless infant Atalanta, is left to the mercy of a passing mother bear and raised alongside the cubs under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis.
Swearing that she will prove her worth alongside the famed heroes of Greece, Atalanta leaves her forest to join Jason’s band of Argonauts. But can she carve out her own place in the legends in a world made for men?
Published by Hachette Australia
Released April 2023
My Thoughts:Jennifer Saint has well and truly carved out her place in the hall of feminist retellings of Greek mythology fame of my imagination. I’ve read each of her novels within this sub-genre and she is definitely going from strength to strength with each new release. The publisher is doing a great job on the cover art with these Australian editions too, each a work of art in itself yet matching in theme to each other, a big drawcard for readers who also moonlight as collectors of beautiful books and matchy-matchy sets.
Atalanta is perhaps the most feminist of Jennifer Saint’s novels to date. Dominated by women and guided by the goddess Artemis, this is a story that focuses on the predatory nature of men. Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt, but she is also revered as a virgin goddess. The cluster of women who lived under her guidance in the forest were urged to avoid men and consider them as deceivers and rapists. Despite also being a goddess associated with childbirth, within this story, Artemis would banish any of her women who fell pregnant, considering their behaviour a betrayal of all she had offered them, even if they had in fact been deceived and raped – a decidedly un-feminist reaction from a goddess who was a protector of women.
Artemis urges Atalanta to join Jason and his Argonauts on their journey to obtain the Golden Fleece as her tribute. This plunges Atalanta into a masculine world that is the very polar opposite of what she has ever experienced previously. In a magnificent fall from the grace of Artemis, Atalanta eventually rises to her own destiny and the ending of this had a definite mythical quality to it.
Atalanta was at once a captivating novel and in a rare occurrence for me, I read the entire book in a day. It just seemed to have that unputdownable quality about it. I enjoy how Jennifer Saint retains much of the mythology surrounding these Greek legends yet also adds a contemporary flair. I find these novels difficult to review though, beyond saying that I like them, my lack of knowledge on Greek mythology means I’m not in any place to evaluate Jennifer Saint’s treatment of them. All I know is that I enjoy her writing and find the stories she’s crafting and the strong feminist themes she nurtures within these stories magnificent.
Highly recommended, particularly if you’re up for a bit female rage unleashed.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
August 11, 2023
Book Review: The Heart is a Star by Megan Rogers
Layla Byrnes is exhausted. She’s juggling a demanding job as an anaesthetist, a disintegrating marriage, her young kids, and a needy lover. And most particularly she’s managing her histrionically unstable mother, who repeatedly threatens to kill herself.
But this year, it’s different. When her mother rings just before Christmas, she doesn’t follow the usual script. Instead, she tells Layla that there’s something she needs to tell her about her much-loved father. In response, Layla drops everything to rush to her childhood home on the wild west coast of Tasmania. She’s determined to finally confront her mother – and find out what really happened to her father – and lay some demons to rest.
The Heart is a Star is an engrossing, lyrical and powerfully absorbing novel about the complicated and beautiful messiness of midlife; about the ways in which we navigate an intricate, complicated world; and about how we can uncover our true selves when we are forced to face the myths that make us.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Released May 2023
My Thoughts:I enjoyed this novel so much. I had seen it floating around Instagram for some time before its release, the cover catching my eye initially – stunning, isn’t it? – and added it to my wish list long before it was out. It’s a really beautiful novel, a deep exploration of the way in which our memories can be both true and false – depending on upon the historical lens through which we gaze upon them.
‘The wife, the mother, and the daughter, the doctor, the lover, and the friend; the list goes on. We are tired. All those versions of me have been made to please others; have been constructed in response to the myths of dead men. My father, my grandfather, hundreds of years of powerful dead men. My decisions have come from deception. So many choices idolising lies.’
When Layla drops everything a few days before Christmas to travel from Queensland to Tasmania in response to a call from her mother indicating she plans to end her own life, Layla is existing within her own state of domestic disarray. Suspended from work, embroiled in a brief affair, her marriage in a toxic state – life couldn’t get much worse. But it does – a whole lot more. As she journeys south, amidst flight cancellations and rental car dramas, memories of her life unspool: childhood, teenage years, the early years of her marriage; all painting a picture for the reader of who Layla is within the present day. I actually really liked Layla; despite some dicey decisions she’d made. Her husband, Gabe, was the pits, and that’s putting it mildly. The type of man to demand his wife go back to work full-time after having children yet complain non-stop that said wife was never home to take care of the household, children, and his pathetic ego. I actually hated him, and I never feel that strongly about characters, usually. He didn’t improve as the novel progressed.
A toxic marriage is not the only toxic relationship within Layla’s life. There’s toxic mothering as well, and her relationship with her own sister is on shaky ground. She feels enormous guilt at abandoning her aunt to a nursing home, and once the details of this are revealed, I have to say, she deserved to feel guilt over that move. Her aunt and her mother have their own toxic sibling relationship, and then there is her parents, or at least, her memories of their marriage, which are wholly slanted in her father’s favour. When the ground shifts beneath Layla’s feet, regarding her memories of the type of man her father was, Layla finds herself re-evaluating everything about her life, her decisions, her relationships, her own sense of identity.
‘That’s what happens when your reality gets questioned. You take apart everything you thought you knew and look at it again, like peeling a mandarin, holding the pieces up to the light, looking for pips before eating.’
There’s a lot of misery in this novel, in the sense that happiness is fleeting and the very worst of human behaviour at a domestic level is on full display. And yet, I never once felt the weight of that misery. Megan Rogers has a sort of magic about her writing that seemed to infuse even the worst moments with a degree of hope, even if it was just for recovery or resolution. What fascinated me the most out of this story, and this is a topic in general I have a high level of interest in, is memory, and how elastic it is. Two children from the same household having entirely different versions of the same memory. A couple participating in life together, yet each remembering things differently. The exploration of memory within this novel was done so well, so meticulously, and with a deft balance between science and raw emotion.
The Heart is a Star was a compulsively readable novel, memorable and deeply affecting. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy a more literary reading journey.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
August 5, 2023
Book Review: Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies
When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour
But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Deadly consequences…
What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Released June 2023
My Thoughts:I think this novel is totally worth the hype. It was my book club pick for July and our opinions on it varied – much like readers across the internet – but we all agreed it was worth the read. I found it deliciously shocking, there seemed to be no limits to what June would do. I got a lot of enjoyment out of being shocked by her behaviour and looked forward to each time I could sit down and have a good read.
‘It’s not fraud, what we’re doing. We’re just suggesting the right credentials, so that readers take me and my story seriously, so that nobody refuses to pick up my work because of some outdated preconceptions about who can write what. And if anyone makes assumptions, or connects the dots the wrong way, doesn’t that say far more about them than me?’
There’s much that’s been said about Yellowface being slow, repetitive, and the ending not measuring up. I credit all of this, but didn’t really feel that way myself. I can see how others have come to these conclusions though. This novel is a tribute to cancel culture, in all its ridiculous glory. I loved it. The commentary on the publishing industry, the debate over who gets to tell what stories and how authors are ‘marketed’ as the right storytellers. It’s a contentious novel and I appreciate R. F. Kuang’s intent.
August 2, 2023
Book Review: The Watchful Wife by Suzanne Leal
Raised by her severe parents in a punitive and authoritarian church, Ellen’s narrow world is upended when she meets Gordon, a fellow teacher. Responding to his interest with curiosity and, before long, pleasure, Ellen is both transformed and beguiled by the connection, love and laughter he brings into her life.
Three years later, a knock on the door changes everything. Two police officers have come to accuse Gordon of a shocking crime. Abandoned and reviled by those around her, Ellen steadfastly refuses to believe Gordon has done anything wrong. In a world of swirling suspicion, however, she will have to fight to protect him.
But what will that cost her? And what will she discover about him along the way?
A propulsive and provocative novel about love, faith and courage from the bestselling author of The Teacher’s Secret.
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released July 2023
My Thoughts:The Watchful Wife was very different to what I expected. The first half of the novel is entirely backstory, laying down the foundation of Ellen’s character, the rigid and zealous religious upbringing shaping her into the woman, teacher, and wife she is when we first meet her in the prologue. While this section of the novel was interesting, it was also ‘quiet’ – in that, not a lot was happening, we were really just being told Ellen’s life story, in all its minute details. I will confess, it wasn’t what I expected, and I kept wondering where it was going.
When we arrive at the present day, back at the point of the prologue, where Ellen’s husband, also a teacher, is being questioned about a student protection claim made against him by a female student, the novel takes an interesting, and again, unexpected turn. Ellen is cast into a role that she never envisaged herself having to play out. Shame, doubt, both at herself and at her husband, shape her days. She is forced to find an inner strength and question much about what she thought about her husband, her life, and even the very nature of people. Questions that torment her: Why would someone young lie about something so heinous? But how could something so heinous possibly be true of the husband she knows and loves?
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is featured heavily within this novel and upon reflection after finishing, I can see the parallels between The Crucible and this story and what Suzanne Leal was aiming for. It was only once I’d finished and considered the story as a whole that I came to realise its true power as a cautionary tale, not just about the modern risks associated with being a teacher, but also the dangers that lurk for teenagers in this age where digital content can be used as a weapon and ignite behaviours that are not just unseemly, but actually ruinous to others. The consequences of one’s actions can go beyond just a simple pointing of the finger to get yourself out of a sticky situation.
The Watchful Wife would make an ideal read for a bookclubs. While the ending relied on some convenient coincidences, I still rate it highly and recommend it widely.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
July 31, 2023
Book Review: The Things That Matter Most by Gabbie Stroud
The staff of St Margaret’s Primary School are hanging by a thread. There’s serious litigation pending, the school is due for registration, and a powerful parent named Janet Bellevue has a lot to say about everything. As teachers they’re trying to remain professional, as people they’re unravelling fast.
There’s Tyson, first year out of uni and nervous as hell, Derek the Assistant Principal who’s dropped the ball on administration, Bev from the office who’s confronting a serious diagnosis, and Sally-Ann who’s desperate for a child of her own.
Thank goodness for kids like Lionel Merrick. Lionel is the student who steals your heart and makes the whole teaching gig worthwhile: he’s cheerful, likeable, helpful – and devoted to his little sister Lacey. But Lionel has a secret of his own. As his future slides from vulnerable to dangerous, will someone from St Margaret’s realise before it’s too late?
As secrets threaten to be exposed and working demands increase, each staff member struggles to recall the things that matter most.
A moving and compelling novel about teachers and their students by the acclaimed author of the bestselling books Teacher and Dear Parents.
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released August 2023
My Thoughts:‘Caring is hard work. But for me, teaching is both. Teaching and caring are one and the same thing. People don’t realise that. They’re squeezing out the time we need for caring. It’s all documenting and accounting and data. It makes the job something else, takes away from the caring. But then,’ Derek raised his hands, a sign of exasperation, ‘when the caring doesn’t happen as it should, everyone’s up in arms.’
I’ve worked in education since 2010, specifically in schools for ten of those years. As a result, I have a lot of friends who are teachers. I’ve taught, in the role of facilitator of career education. I love working in the education sector, although at the beginning of 2021 I took a break and have subsequently moved from the public system to the private and my role is now not based in schools and is staff related rather than student. There’s no way I’d ever be a teacher, the reasons why so perfectly encapsulated within this brilliant, yet utterly heartbreaking novel.
This review could easily become an essay on why I think the education system is broken, failing both students and staff, over and over. So, I’ll rein it in and simply say, this book says it all. We alternate between three teachers and the school secretary, with inserts of class writing by grade six student Lionel. Altogether, this gives the reader a view on how utterly strapped staff working in schools are, the absolute rubbish they have to put up with from bureaucracy and parents without boundaries, and the many, many ways, society has evolved into this beast that is both self-absorbed whilst micromanaging the stuff that is none of their business via social media.
I was both enraged and heartbroken over this novel, the shock twist sadly less of a shock than it should have been, upon reflection. Bravo to Gabby Stroud, who has already written groundbreaking non-fiction on this topic. This is a brilliant novel that I recommend to every single person. Five stars.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
July 30, 2023
The Month That Was…
Life:
Well, with the end of July right around the corner, the year is officially practically over. There are even people out there starting to murmur about Christmas… (please stop).
This month has just flown by for me. I feel like the days have been too short and there has always been just too much to do. I’ve had some health issues that have led to several appointments and what seems like a never-ending run of medical tests and in turn, that has seen my reading time shrink and an all-round feeling of time slipping away. (I’m okay, by the way, everything is in hand, but tests are still ongoing to ensure nothing has been overlooked). I find it frustrating how everything is now outsourced. You used to go the doctor and get everything done in the one place, now you have to go to a different lab for every different test and then go back to your doctor over and over and the whole thing is not very manageable when you work fulltime. First world problems, I know, and yes, I am very grateful for good, affordable medical care, I just long for the days of the one stop medical shop, so to speak.
On that note, time for a joke:
Zeus has been showing signs of rather bookish behaviour of late:
He’s either expressing a desire to learn to read or reminding me that my review books tbr is out of control and I need to get reading. He also enjoyed some time in his happiest of places, the beach. For a non-active dog, he becomes quite the little prancer once his paws hit the sand…just don’t try and take him near the water!
What I’ve been watching:
Quite a mixed bag this month. Let’s start with TV. I’m currently on a free trial for Apple TV so I’ve been watching and enjoying Dickinson, a genre-bending series inspired by the life of Emily Dickinson. Season one and two were excellent, season three a little less so, but I’m still enjoying it and would recommend it. The Clearing is based on the JP Pomare book, In the Clearing, which was in turn based on true events surrounding the Australian cult that was known as ‘The Family’. It’s a gripping series, one that relies heavily on the use of an unreliable narrator and at times it was a bit confusing and slow, but again, worth watching. It is one you need to pay attention to though, as there are a lot of subtle tells throughout and flashbacks. Warnie I watched with my son. What can I say, he was a trainwreck in his personal life and a legend on the cricket pitch. The show conveyed both, and it was done rather well, using a combination of dramatisation and real-life news and commentary cut ins. M and I have only just started watching Platonic. I’m on the fence so far. It’s not as funny as I expected, and the friendship is less platonic than I’d like. We’ll see how it pans out.
So, High School Musical was a theatre outing, my son’s college musical production for 2023. He wasn’t in it but a dear friend of mine teaches at the college and we always make a point of attending the musical together. It was a fine performance from all the students, there was so much talent on display. I’m not the biggest fan of High School Musical as an actual musical – does anyone else think it’s the most boring musical ever? – but that aside, it was a good show and a good night out.
Onto movies, of which there were four this month. It came to my attention that M had never seen Interview with a Vampire. Deeply shocking, I know. It is one of my favourite films ever, so that needed to be addressed. Watching this, after having attempted to watch the new TV series of Interview with a Vampire assured me that I was right to abandon that series after only one episode. Compared to the film, which Anne Rice wrote, the TV series is the pits and not at all what I envisage she would have wanted her novel to be interpreted as. Love Again was delightful, a really lovely rom com that was genuinely funny and genuinely touching. Also, Celine Dion playing herself in the movie was an unexpected highlight. And for those of you (including me) who had never seen Sam Heughan acting in anything other than Outlander, guess what, he’s really good in other things too! And last, but not least, Oppenheimer, the three-hour epic new release from Christopher Nolan. Look, it’s long, it’s not light, the weight of history is hanging heavy throughout, but it’s worth seeing and quite impactful on the big screen. The horror of what they unleashed had me in tears during one scene. Take snacks.
What I’ve been reading:
A lot less reading than watching this month, but sometimes you just need to go with it. The Escapades of Tribulation Johnson, After She Wrote Him, and Birnam Wood were all review books. I enjoyed them all and rated each highly. Karen Brooks never disappoints with her epic historical fictions and Sulari Gentill is proving to be the same with her meta-crime fiction releases. Eleanor Catton is an exceptional writer and I look forward to reading her other two novels, both of which are on my Kobo tbr virtual shelf. Birnam Wood is the top pick for July from me, a tough call because all of the books I read were good – another month of quality over quantity. Yellowface was my bookclub pick for the month. I enjoyed it, there were many laugh out loud moments and just as many OMG declarations. It was a book I looked forward to picking up whenever I could. Mixed feelings about it throughout the bookclub, but that just made for interesting book chat, which is what it’s all about in the end. Which brings me to Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I read this as a classic, with the era in which it was written at the forefront of my mind. I have long been fascinated by this aspect of Lewis, ever since reading Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan. His switch from atheism to Christianity was something I wanted to dig into further and this book, which is actually his radio talks from World War two published into a three-part book, was insightful. It’s dated, yes, in terms of the conservative views he expressed and some of his opinions were heavy handed, but as I noted before, it’s a classic, and it really should be approached that way. What fascinated me about it, was his journey into Christianity and his firm beliefs born out of his experiences across two world wars.
I’m looking forward to reading more than five books next month…watch this space.
And speaking of spaces, I am really enjoying the current trend on Instagram of combining books with plants for decor. I’m starting a bit of that up here at home, but on a much smaller scale than what can be found on Instagram. Mine so far involves one bookshelf and about half a dozen plants in bottles. Anyway, #lifegoals…
Until next month, good reading!
July 21, 2023
Book Review: Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Birnam Wood is on the move…
Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice, on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.
But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker – or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?
A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released 28 February 2023
My Thoughts:This is the first novel by Eleanor Catton I have read and my expectations going in were fairly open ended. At first, this felt like an eco-warrior/grass roots politics style of story, which I was enjoying from the outset. It shifted gears about a third of the way through into a tense thriller with a dash of corporate corruption. By the end, it had morphed into a horror story that I did not see coming. This is very much a story of actions equalling consequences.
The writing is incredible: engaging, sharp and smart, witty and sinister. Told from a variety of perspectives, it continually surprised me with its narrative turns and the boundaries it pushed with its characters. This novel was, for me, nothing short of sensational.
Lessons learned in the course of reading this one: never a trust a billionaire, it’s not easy to evade a drone, and your phone can be hacked into in all sorts of ways and used to monitor your every move without you ever knowing it. Birnam Wood is out of Macbeth. To end, I’ll leave you with this Macbeth quote, which feels thematically appropriate.
‘Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?’
Banquo (Act 1 Scene 3) – Macbeth – Shakespeare
Highly recommended with a solid five-star rating.
July 14, 2023
Quick Shots Book Review: After She Wrote Him by Sulari Gentill
It’s an author’s job to create a new world in the pages of a book. But when lines start to blur and reality begins to fade, getting lost in a story can be dangerous—especially if you can’t find your way back…
Madeleine d’Leon doesn’t know where Edward came from. He is simply a character in her next book. But as she writes, he becomes all she can think about. His charm, his dark hair, his pen scratching out his latest literary novel…
Edward McGinnity can’t get Madeleine out of his mind—softly smiling, infectiously enthusiastic, and perfectly damaged. She will be the ideal heroine for his next book.
But who is the author and who is the creation? And as the lines start to blur, who is affected when a killer finally takes flesh?
After She Wrote Him is a piece of meta-fiction with a wildly inventive twist on the murder mystery genre that takes readers on a journey filled with passion, obsession, and the emptiness left behind when the real world starts to fall away.
After She Wrote Him was previously published as Crossing The Lines.
Released June 2023
My Thoughts:This absorbing meta/crime/mystery/literary new release has been keeping me company all week for lunchtime reads at work.
Not so much a whodunit, but rather, a who wrote it…
This is meta fiction with a capital M on the meta. Twisted in so many ways, two writers each writing the other’s story. Who is the author and who is the character? Or are they each both writer AND character?
Brace yourself for one massively convoluted, yet utterly brilliant (and I’m not going to lie, breathtaking) story. Sulari Gentill, bravo you storytelling genius!
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
July 7, 2023
Book Review: The Escapades of Tribulation Johnson by Karen Brooks
From the author of The Good Wife of Bath comes this brilliant recreation of the vibrant, optimistic but politically treacherous world of London’s Restoration theatre, where we are introduced to the remarkable playwright Aphra Behn, now a feminist icon but then an anomaly, who gravitated to the stage – a place where artifice and disguise are second nature and accommodates those who do not fit in.
It’s 1679 and into the tumult, politics and colour of Restoration London and its lively theatre scene comes the fierce and opinionated Tribulation Johnson. Cast out from her family as ungodly and unworthy, Tribulation is determined to forge her own remarkable path.
Arriving in London, Tribulation is astonished to discover that the widowed cousin she’s been sent to live with is none other than the most infamous woman in London: the former spy and traitor’s mistress, the playwright and polemical poetess, Aphra Behn. Tribulation cannot believe her good fortune as she is thrust into city life and the heady, mercurial milieu of the theatre. Under Aphra’s guidance, Tribulation is encouraged to write, think and speak for herself. But women aren’t supposed to have a voice, or ideas, let alone wield a pen and write for a living, and there are harsh consequences for those who don’t obey society’s rules.
Together, Aphra and Tribulation must not only face vilification and mockery but terrible danger as plots to overturn the monarchy gather pace. When someone from Aphra’s complicated past reappears, the women’s loyalties – to King, country, and ultimately each other – are bitterly tested. Can their relationship survive the burning fires of religious hatred, suspicion and deceit?
When everyone plays a part, and all the world’s a stage, who you trust?
Published by HQ Fiction AU
Released 5 July 2023
My Thoughts:Karen Brooks can always be relied upon for an absolute cracker of a read. Her latest release, The Escapades of Tribulation Johnson, is epic: in scope, size, entertainment value, fabulous characters, sensational scenes, and history, history, history! The history – it always makes me swoon how much research Karen does and how effortlessly she seems to weave this into her fantastic tales.
This one is for the writers and the theatre lovers, along with those interested in the history of women in the arts. Karen’s love of the theatre shines through with the very many in depth theatre scenes, but it was the writing side of things that set my heart a flutter. Intrigue, spies, corruption, and turmoil abound. There is just so much going on in this story – it’s a marvel how Karen brings so many pieces of history together with such finesse.
Set some time aside though to really sink into this one. It’s a big book, and by big, I mean huge and involved; it’s not well suited to dipping in and out of. It’s more of an immersive read.
Bravo Karen Brooks! Another feather in your very talented writing cap.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
