Theresa Smith's Blog, page 75

The Week That Was…

Cold snap again! About time…

I bought a jumper last time it got cold but it was warm again by the time it arrived!

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What I’ve been watching:

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This was perfection. Absolutely raw emotion and heartache, brilliantly cast, and so much like the book I can barely pick up on any differences. I binged watched it over two evenings but I kind of want to watch it again now. I think I wanted to cry each and every time Maryanne walked into a scene – the vulnerability. And don’t even get me started on Connell and seeing his struggle with anxiety and his later depression. This was awesome TV.

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Jokes of the week:

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Book of the week:

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What I’m reading right now:

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Until next week…

Author Talks: Leah Swann on Inventive explorations of motherhood in fiction

The eagle-featured mother in Angela Carter’s Bluebeard story “The Bloody Chamber” was an electrifying discovery as a student and lives on in me to this day. Back then, I’d read about oppressive mothers, unreliable mothers, fearsome mothers and loving mothers but never a fierce, swashbuckling mother like this one.

Early in the story we learn this woman had ‘outfaced a junkful of Chinese pirates’, nursed a village through the plague and shot a man-eating tiger. We later see she’s in touch with her wild nature and ‘maternal telepathy’ – the phrase deftly sidestepping the more hackneyed ‘feminine intuition.’

Traditionally the poor bride who’s discovered her dead predecessors is saved from decapitation by her brothers. In Carter’s version it’s the mother who comes in at the gate on horseback, hair flying, horse rearing, rucked skirts revealing black lisle stockings, reins in one hand and revolver in the other, and behind her the ‘’breakers of the savage, indifferent sea, like the witnesses of a furious justice.”

This is no simple role reversal.

Carter’s mother combines the conventionally ‘feminine’ tenderness of nursing the sick with the ‘masculine’ bravery of fighting pirates. She’s passionate, having ‘gladly, scandalously, defiantly beggared herself for love.’ There’s a bit of this woman in other famous literary creations – like Alcott’s Jo March and in the fiery spirit of Bronte’s Jane Eyre – but seeing her so organically embedded in the old fairytale form invites a rush of freedom and possibility.

This is partly I think because many women still absorb social scripts teaching us to be polite, to give the benefit of the doubt, to defer, to be compliant and easy going and not to make a fuss, even after decades of feminism. While we’re more conscious of these scripts we have a way to go, and literary representation continues to play a role. And in this character Carter touches on something deep about motherhood in a radiant, affirming light: the raging power of a woman whose child is in danger.

Carter claimed she wasn’t ‘retelling’ so much as extracting ‘the latent content from the traditional stories’ to begin new stories. She used fairy tales with ‘conscious radical intent,’ as Helen Simpson wrote in The Guardian. Carter wrote in a letter to a friend that fiction as a “different form of human experience than reality (that is, not a logbook of events) can help transform reality itself.”

When you type ‘mother saves child from’ into a search engine, you get stories of women in incredible feats of daring to save their children from crocodiles to coyotes. Anecdotally, many mothers report feeling this deep, writhing power, this urgent instinct to protect. In fiction, it’s there in Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife, where the woman on her own with four children in the outback stays up all night to kill the snake she knows is hiding. It’s there in the remade film Cape Fear, where Jessica Lange’s character Leigh offers herself in her daughter’s place, pleading with De Niro’s chilling Max Cady, “whatever you’ve got planned, do it with me, not with her.”

It’s one thing to protect your children from an immediate physical threat. But what if the danger is emotional and psychological? (This often becomes physical – a review of domestic violence-related murders in NSW found that in 99 per cent of cases, the abuser had used psychologically coercive controlling behaviour towards his victim.)

In the case of a plausible and charming abuser who’s also a husband and father, the mother becomes trapped in an odious position. She may deny or suppress the threat, to make light of it, or try to make everything work out because that seems the right thing to do. This is where ‘maternal telepathy’ runs into direct conflict with societal expectations – including her own – and creates an intolerable psychic atmosphere.

This was something I chose to explore in Sheerwater, where children go missing in the first scene. Their mother Ava is a physically competent and courageous character – but even she is paralysed with fear. Her consciousness fractures until the moment she reconnects to her courage:

“She’d been in shock but now the motherstream was stirring, receding like a vast tsunami drawback, the trough sucking down before the giant wave surges forward to fling aside buildings and whales and mountains.”

We recognise this aspect of motherhood both in the stories we tell our friends and through myths like that of Demeter and Persephone. She manifests potently in the Indian goddess Kali. That the Great Mother is among the earliest religious expressions shows the power of this force. As another mother in Sheerwater, Grace, remarks:

‘Some stuff is primal. It runs deeper than the rules. It’s what we have the rules for.’

In fiction we can plumb the stygian depths of the mother archetype and find new language for contemporary readers, or as Carter says, simultaneously describe and invent reality. Through writing and reading stories we come to a deeper understanding of the two-way nature of this foundational relationship. As poet Alison Croggon puts it in the poem Bearing:

‘…and lined and unlined hands are still

in movement and are in division one:

and who has given birth? and who is born?’

Sheerwater

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Ava and her two young sons, Max and Teddy, are driving to their new home in Sheerwater, hopeful of making a fresh start in a new town, although Ava can’t help but keep looking over her shoulder. They’re almost at their destination when they witness a shocking accident – a light plane crashing in the field next to the road. Ava stops to help, but when she gets back to the car, she realises that somehow, among the smoke, fire and confusion, her sons have gone missing …

From a substantial new Australian writing talent, Sheerwater is tense, emotional, unforgettable. Perfect for readers of Mark Brandi’s Wimmera and Stephanie Bishop’s The Other Side of the World, this is a beautifully written, propulsive, gut-wrenching and unputdownable novel – an aching, powerful story of the heroic acts we are capable of in the name of love.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Released March 2020

About the Author:

Leah Swann is the award-winning author of the short story collection Bearings, shortlisted for the Dobbie Award, and the middle-grade fantasy series Irina: The Trilogy. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in numerous literary magazines, and she works as a journalist and speech-writer. Sheerwater is her debut novel. Leah lives in Melbourne with her family.

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Author Talks: Kirsty Manning on Discovering hidden jewels through research

A little over three years ago I was in the final stages of researching and writing my last novel set in Shanghai in World War Two—The Jade Lily—when I stumbled across an extraordinary newspaper article that completely knocked me off track.

It was a review of an exhibition of 500 priceless pieces of Elizabethan and Tudor jewelry – The Cheapside Hoard – that was on display at the time at the Museum of London, and I paused to read it. Who doesn’t love a diamond?

Naturally, I put aside the manuscript I was supposed to be writing and started to research everything I could on this shiny new topic. I trawled the internet, ordered books on goldsmithing, gemstones 1600s London, Shakespeare and Samuel Pepys and Edwardian London. I went to antique jewellery exhibitions and eventually booked myself a flight to London to take some walking tours with historians, visit the museums and see some of these precious pieces for myself.

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As my imagination took flight … the same questions haunted me: how could someone neglect to retrieve 500 precious pieces of jewellery and gemstones? Why was such a collection buried in a cellar? Who did all these jewels belong to? Why did nobody claim this treasure in the subsequent years? Who were the workmen who actually discovered the jewels in an old London cellar at Cheapside in 1912?

No-one knows the answers to these questions.

Some of our greatest historians, curators and academics have spent years looking. These are the facts we do know: the jewels were buried sometime in the 1600s, they were dug out of a Cheapside Cellar in 1912 and a antiquarian dealer called George Fabian Lawrence tried to acquire as many pieces as possible for the Museum of London.

The Lost Jewels is my imagined tale woven between these facts. I love bringing to life forgotten pockets of history—in particular, women’s voices that have long been overlooked or dismissed. For me, a novel begins between the gaps of history. This gives me opportunity to explore the dark, difficult and joyful parts of human nature.

I realised the story of The Cheapside Hoard was not just about the jewels, (although they are certainly beautiful). It is a broader story about London and the expanding world.

In the 1600’s, Cheapside (right near St Paul’s Cathedral) was the hub for gold, silver and precious gems that had threaded their way around the world to London. However, this century was also filled with fire, plague, revolution and an expanding empire. Seventeenth-century London was a city equal parts thriving and in turmoil. There were a million reasons why someone might not return for their precious jewels.

The Lost Jewels features London almost as a character. I’m in awe of this heaving metropolis that has been invaded since Roman times, brought to its knees by the plague, razed by the Great Fire, aerial bombardments during the Blitz and shaken by recent terrorist attacks. Always, London and her population gather together and rise: the result is a more diverse, more resilient and more interesting city. These are key lessons to be learnt from history: how a population recovers from trauma and moves forward to reinvent themselves.

Of course, I had no idea when I was researching The Lost Jewels and looking at images of diamond rings and Byzantine white sapphire pendants, that in 2020 Australian would be battling the worst bushfires ever seen along with a crazy virus pandemic that would see most of the world retreat indoors.

The future seems uncertain, and most of us have been reduced to thinking about how we will get through the next few months. Will our loved ones survive? How can I home-school three children for months on end? Will I still have a job after this pandemic passes? Will I–or someone I love—lose their home? And it seems many Australians in this time of crisis have been asking ourselves: do we have enough toilet paper?

History shows us humans and beautifully resilient, and ridiculously flawed. We mock those who hoard toilet paper, but serial philanderer and public servant Samuel Pepys famously buried a large wedge of Parmesan cheese and some red wine in his back yard to protect it when the Great Fire of 1666 raged across London. He is a man after my own heart.

As we retreat indoors and spend time with our loved ones, it’s a time to contemplate what is really precious to us. Also it is a time to celebrate art and beauty—also a time to read and reach for topics that bring a little hope and sparkly magic to our lives.

People can dismiss jewels; diamond rings, necklaces, gold buttons as frivolous and superficial. But the story of a jewel is a story about care and craftsmanship. Lastly, the story of a jewel is always about power, love and loyalty.

Perfect starting point for a novel, right?

The Lost Jewels

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Inspired by a true story, The Lost Jewels unfolds an incredible mystery of thievery, sacrifice and hope through the generations of one family.

In the summer of 1912, a workman’s pickaxe strikes through the floor of an old tenement house in Cheapside, London, uncovering a cache of unimaginably valuable treasure that quickly disappears again.

Present day. When respected jewellery historian, Kate Kirby, receives a call about the Cheapside jewels, she knows she’s on the brink of the experience of a lifetime.

As Kate peels back layers of concealment and deception, she is forced to explore long-buried secrets concerning Essie, her great-grandmother, and her life in Edwardian London. Soon, Kate’s past and present threaten to collide and the truths about her family lie waiting to be revealed.

Published by Allen & Unwin

Released March 2020

About the Author:

Kirsty Manning grew up in northern New South Wales. A country girl with wanderlust, her travels and studies have taken her through most of Europe, the east and west coasts of the United States and pockets of Asia.

Kirsty’s first novel was the enchanting The Midsummer Garden published in 2017. Her second book, the bestselling The Jade Lily was published in 2018. Her novels are also published in the US and in Europe.

Kirsty is a partner in the award-winning Melbourne wine bar Bellota, and the Prince Wine Store in Sydney and Melbourne. She lives in Melbourne, Victoria.

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Behind the Pen with Tanya Heaslip

Today I warmly welcome Tanya Heaslip to Behind the Pen, sharing insight with us on her latest memoir, An Alice Girl.

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How are you feeling about releasing a book in this current climate?

I’m feeling excited about the opportunities now available to promote “An Alice Girl” in a different way and grateful that we have so many online options. I think many people are also looking for different content right now, and ways to “escape the current climate”, so I’m hoping my book will provide hours of happy escape to readers!

In two/three sentences, tell us what the book is about?

It is a memoir about growing up on a cattle station in outback Central Australia in the 1960s and 70s. It is told from my perspective as the eldest child, learning school by Correspondence and School of the Air, working hard with my siblings mustering cattle on horseback, and playing our own games like “cattle duffers” on horseback. It’s about the simple joys of isolation during a different time; of silent starlit skies at night, huge blue skies and endless sunshine during the day, red rocky ranges and hundreds of miles of emptiness that we loved.

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What makes your story so unique?

There is no one who has written a memoir from the perspective of a girl on a cattle station in Central Australia during the 60s and 70s (the closest is Kim Mahood’s Craft for a dry lake, published in 2002, but that memoir covers her whole life, in different locations, and is a very different style).

Also, during this current climate of fear and ‘unwelcome isolation’ for many, my story offers the chance for readers to dip into a world where isolation was the norm; where it was embraced and we joyously used to enhance creativity, courage and resilience.

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Why do you write?

I write because I’m compelled, I have no choice, I love it! I don’t move without a pen, and a day without writing something, even in my journal, is unimaginable. For me, writing is as important as breathing, eating and sleeping! It keeps my heart and soul going.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

It’s a bit random, depending on what I’m writing and how many legal projects I’m also juggling at the same time, but I like to think of my topic in a big picture way, set out a timeframe, themes and general word counts, and then write to that each day if possible. In a perfect world I’d write every morning, in very disciplined fashion, but I often have to squeeze it around legal work, and so more often than not I just write when I can, and that requires me to be very focused.

What tips do you have for aspiring writers?

Write. Write. Write. Read. Read. Read. In every genre you’re interested in – and in other genres as well to get an idea of different styles and approaches. Write for pleasure and make it fun. And then write some more!

What books have inspired you?

Oh, so many. As a child it, was all the Secret Seven and Famous Five adventures, and as an adult, it was Harry Potter! Those books inspired me to think and write creatively in dream big. From a writing perspective, Julia Cameron’s “The Artist Way” and Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” were brilliant.

What’s something surprising that many don’t know about you?

I love hitting the stage and belting out “All that Jazz” from Chicago!

Last good book, movie or play you’ve read or seen?

“100 Years of Dirt” by Rick Morton. Brilliant. Thought-provoking. Gutsy.

What do you consider beautiful and why?

The early morning sun breaking over the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia, spilling orange and gold across the dark purple hills. It is breathtaking and it fills my soul. It reminds me that despite all our human angst and endless, desperate endeavours, nature is unchanging, and in that lies perspective, strength and comfort.

What haven’t you done yet that you wish you could?

Live in a gorgeous apartment in the Old Town Square of Prague for six months and write.

Complete this sentence: If I had no fear, I’d…. As above!

Complete this sentence: “An Alice Girl” is… for fans of stories of the outback, adventure, horses and family – it’s a memoir of all of that and more!

About the Book:
An Alice Girl

From the bestselling author of Alice to Prague, for fans of Toni Tapp Coutts’ A Sunburnt Childhood and Mary Groves’ An Outback Life, comes Tanya Heaslip’s extraordinary story of growing up with her sister and brothers in the late 1960s and early 70s on an outback cattle property just north of Alice Springs.

An Alice Girl is Tanya Heaslip’s extraordinary story of growing up in the late 1960s and early 70s on a vast and isolated outback cattle property just north of Alice Springs.

Tanya’s parents, Janice and Grant ‘the Boss’, were pioneers. They developed the cattle station where water was scarce, where all power was dependent on generators and where a trip to town for supplies usually meant a full day’s journey. Grant was determined to teach his children how to survive in this severe and isolated environment and his lessons were often harsh.

Tanya and her siblings led a childhood unimaginable to many Australians. Whether working the mobs of cattle with the stockmen, playing cattle-duffing on horseback or singing and doing lessons at their School of the Air desks, the children were always aware of the demands of the land.

But while her sister and brothers loved riding and working stock, Tanya’s heart longed to be back at the homestead with her books and stories.

About the Author:

Tanya Heaslip was born on a cattle station in outback Australia at the height of the Cold War. She grew up to study and then practice Law. In 1989 she travelled to Europe for the first time and in 1994 she moved to the Czech Republic where she taught English for two and a half years. Tanya’s first memoir, Alice to Prague, was published to acclaim in 2019.

Tanya now lives in the Northern Territory with her husband.

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An Alice Girl

Published by Allen & Unwin

Released 19th May 2020

Book Review: Jane in Love by Rachel Givney

Jane in Love…
About the Book:

At age twenty-eight, Jane Austen should be seeking a suitable husband, but all she wants to do is write. She is forced to take extreme measures in her quest to find true love – which lands her in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Magically, she finds herself in modern-day England, where horseless steel carriages line the streets and people wear very little clothing. She forms a new best friend in fading film star Sofia Wentworth, and a genuine love interest in Sofia’s brother Fred, who has the audacity to be handsome, clever and kind-hearted.

She is also delighted to discover that she is now a famous writer, a published author of six novels and beloved around the globe. But as Jane’s romance with Fred blossoms, her presence in the literary world starts to waver. She must find a way to stop herself disappearing from history before it’s too late.

A modern-day reimagining of the life of one of the world’s most celebrated writers, this wonderfully witty romantic comedy offers a new side to Jane’s story, which sees her having to choose between true love in the present and her career as a writer in the past.

My Thoughts:

This turned out to be far more delightful than I could have ever anticipated. What a truly unique and rather insightful novel! Jane Austen accidentally time travels to 2020, where she ends up being in the difficult position of having to choose between love and her true calling in life: to be a writer. Now, most of you know that I am not a fan of romance so when I say to you that I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this novel, then you can rest assured that it’s more than a romantic comedy. Yes, there are both of those things woven through the narrative in the most entertaining manner, but there’s so much more as well. I’ve read a couple of books now, both fiction and non-fiction, that have given an indication of Jane’s personality and I feel as though Rachel Givney has captured the essence of what Jane might have been like with a measure of authenticity. She also captured the genuine feel of 1803 in a manner that was distinct from 2020. Both character and scene were so well written within this novel, and with such a unique story binding these elements together, this one really was a winner for me.

‘Further conversation revealed, to her horror, that he admired Cecilia, Jane’s favourite book. Jane was worried, for now she enjoyed this man’s company, respected his opinions and shared his mockery of Bath. With his one great defect being the smallness of his coat buttons, Jane had no choice but to like Mr Withers.’

I do enjoy a bit of well written time travel fiction and I did think that this one was done quite well. Not just the actual teleportation and logistics, but more the way in which Jane was plunged from 1803 to 2020 and how she reacted to this. The way Jane noticed how things smelled – the inside of a train smelling of cut metal, for example – was a telling symbol to demonstrate just how much has changed between the eras. Likewise, people’s teeth; she was astonished by the whiteness, freshness of breath and the fact that people weren’t missing their incisors or canines. Water streaming from a tap, so crystal clear, as opposed to discoloured and blobbing out of an outdoor hand pump. These observations were worked into the narrative in a way that made me, as a reader, appreciate our modern-day comforts that we take for granted all the more. Quite often when we read historical fiction, it can be authentic in its representation whilst not actually disclosing the small things: like missing teeth, bathing in dirty water, and rotting food. When it does disclose these things, it’s within the context of the era, so we don’t dwell on it. Jane’s utter amazement of modern life and its conveniences were delivered in direct contrast to what was missing from her own era, making it all the more apparent. Waffling on a bit about all this, but I thought it was really well done.

‘It bore consideration that the year 2020 also produced a similar degree of advancement upon 1803. But how exactly did human progress manifest? One thing stood for certain: twenty-first century humans had eradicated manual labour and replaced it with magic. A steel box washed the clothes. Another washed the crockery. Magic lit the candles and moved the steel carriages.’

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‘She shook her head yet again at these people and their inventions. They had conjured so many devices to save time and to make life easier, yet everyone walked around faster and looking more anguished.’

1803 is before Jane wrote and published her books. She had been writing, but an early version of Pride and Prejudice had been rejected by a publisher and she had been forbidden by her mother to continue with her writing because it was deemed as almost immoral, and most certainly a deterrent to finding a husband, which was of course, the only thing that mattered to Mrs Austen – and ‘society’. When Jane arrives in 2020, she quickly discovers that she is an author of renown, a fact that astounds her and excites her in equal measure.

‘A momentary silence filled the house as Jane stopped breathing. She stared at the six books which now lay on the table. She read each title in turn. They shared a common author.’

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‘She allowed herself to consider that there might be some minuscule chance lunacy had not taken her, but rather, with a sound mind, she had indeed cast a spell which had moved her through time to the year 2020, where her reputation as an author was such that museums were now built in her honour. It was pure fiction, surely.’

The problem arises when Jane’s books begin to disappear, one by one, the longer she remains in the present day. It takes some time for Jane and her new friend Sofia to realise what is causing this to happen, but as each book disappears, Jane’s legacy shrinks from history, causing changes that point in the direction of Jane Austen, author and literary icon, becoming non existent. Jane cannot have everything: love in the modern day as well as a career as a writer. She must choose, and in this we see the struggle of creative women throughout history exemplified. This whole story is just so clever, and like I already mentioned but will reiterate for emphasis, wholly insightful.

‘Jane. You won’t be famous in your lifetime. You will receive some small recognition, but you will never know the reception which celebrates you now. You will never know what you become.’

Jane nodded and gazed at the ground. ‘But I will write?’

Sofia sighed and fixed her face in a sad smile. ‘You will write.’

Recommended of course for fans of Jane Austen but I also think this would be an excellent way to inspire readers who have never read Jane Austen to do so. Jane in Love is a love letter to Austen herself, an ode to her genius and a reminder of how fortunate the world is in being able to read and treasure her novels.

Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a review copy of Jane in Love.

About the Author:

Rachel Givney is a writer and filmmaker originally from Sydney, Australia (currently based in Melbourne). She has worked on Offspring, The Warriors, McLeod’s Daughters, Rescue: Special Ops and All Saints. Her films have been official selections at the Sydney Film Festival, Flickerfest and many more.

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Jane in Love

Published by Penguin Random House Australia

Released 4th February 2020

The Week That Was…

Busy! The week was busy. Goodness, I had forgotten how tiring juggling everything was when you actually have to leave the house for a block of hours each day. Still, it was good to be back in the workplace. I’m sure my body will adjust.

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It was announced today that Queensland schools will fully reopen to all students on Monday May 25th. My youngest is a strange mixture of thrilled and astonished that he’s thrilled about going back to school. He’s never been a fan of school until when he wasn’t allowed to go. Humans!

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I’m seriously considering signing up for a thirty day free trial of Stan just so I can watch Normal People. I loved this book and the FOMO has kicked in now that everyone is posting about and even talking about it at work!

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Joke of the week:

This one describes me to perfection. I’ll hardly watch any movies because they take longer than a TV episode and yet I hardly ever stop at just one with TV!

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Book of the Week:

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Delightful and surprisingly insightful.

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What I’ve been watching:

[image error]This was excellent! There was such a sense of foreboding throughout, an utterly chilling atmosphere. The acting was superb. Highly recommended! I am desperate to read the book now, despite its length.

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What I’m reading right now:

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Until next week…

Shelf Share: Watched in Isolation

Following on from yesterday’s post about what I read during my seven weeks of isolation, I thought I’d take a quick look at what I watched. Because I’ve definitely watched more TV than normal!

Television shows:

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Medici – Season one

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Medici – Season two

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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – Season two

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Outlander – season five (watched weekly as each episode became available)

Overall pattern: exclusively historical fiction! No surprises there.

Movies:

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Overall pattern: more of a mix of genres when it comes to the movies.

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Everything I watched, both movies and TV shows, was enjoyable, with the exception of Pet Sematary which was terrifying but still worth watching – with the lights on. So, all in all, anything on this list is a solid gold recommendation!

Shelf Share: Read in Isolation

Seven weeks ago I created a shelf on my Goodreads and called it ‘Read in Isolation’. I wanted to keep track of the books I had read whilst spending 98% of my time isolated within my own house as an ‘at risk’ person for developing complications if I were to contract Covid 19. I’ve returned to working within my actual workplace this week so for all intents and purposes, my ‘isolation’ is over.

Book Review: The River Home by Hannah Richell

The River Home…
About the Book:

The river can take you home. But the river can also drag you under…

Margot Sorrell didn’t want to go home. She had spent all her adult life trying not to look behind. But a text from her sister Lucy brought her back to Somerset. ‘I need you.’

As Margot, Lucy and their eldest sister, Eve, reunite in the house they grew up in beside the river, the secrets they keep from each other, and from themselves, refuse to stay hidden. A wedding brings them together but long-simmering resentments threaten to tear the family apart. No one could imagine the way this gathering would change them all forever. And through the sorrow they are forced to confront, there is a chance that healing will also come. But only if the truth is told.

The new novel from bestselling author Hannah Richell. A wise and emotionally powerful story of a broken family and the courage it takes to heal.

My Thoughts:

This novel is exquisite. I’m not sure why this has surprised me so much about it; Hannah Richell is an author whose work is known to me and highly appreciated. And yet, the depth in which this story has reached within me is unexpected. It is beautifully written: atmospheric and heartfelt with an honesty that is pierced with raw pain. The issues at the forefront of this novel are weighty but they are explored with attuned sensitivity whilst also retaining the gravity they deserve. This is a novel that invokes a range of emotions, indeed, I felt myself swinging from anger to despair and heartbreak to hope right the way through.

‘It’s something she learned years ago – the hard way – and that she knows she will never forget: even the sweetest fruit will fall and rot into the earth, eventually. No matter how deep you bury the pain, the bones of it will rise up to haunt you, like the sickly scent of those apples, like the echoes of a summer’s night, like the river flowing relentlessly on its course.’

The symbolism of the river within this novel cannot be underestimated. For Margot, it is the source of her trauma, but the complexity of this is threefold. Hannah Richell demonstrates how layered trauma can be; Margot’s story has so much more to it than meets the eye. Her suffering affected me greatly. As her trauma came to light, the incredulity of no one noticing what Margot was going through at the time incensed me. But upon deeper reflection I was struck by something profound: as the reader, I had been given all the clues that Margot’s family had, and yet, I was still shocked by what was revealed. I hadn’t seen what was happening right before my eyes either, and all of a sudden, my rage at Margot’s mother evaporated. We see what suits us, yes, but we also see what a person wants us to see. As humans, we all too often accept what is presented to us, satisfying ourselves with the answers to our paltry, “you’re okay, aren’t you?” Dismissing behaviour changes as stages a person might be going through, attributing it to what we know without seeking the answer to what we don’t. This was intelligent writing, skilful on a whole other level. I am still in awe.

‘The silent river waits to embrace her. With a deep breath, she dives out towards its centre. The cold water claims her. The shock is electric. It envelops her traitorous body. As she pushes for the surface, she feels her wild, beating heart, her breath rising hot and urgent in her throat, her undeniable, incredible aliveness. She floats on the surface of the river and experiences a certain peace. She feels herself connected to the flow of life all around. Here I am, she thinks. Here I am.’

This is a story about a fractured family. There is still love, but there is anger and pain too. Blame as well. And so much misunderstanding. The characters were all fabulously crafted, authentically flawed, each with something about them that we were inclined to dislike, be it questionable morals, a tendency towards selfishness, self-sabotage, or ignorance to the effect of one’s own actions. I had a problem with each character at some point in time throughout the novel, but these flaws were balanced, as they are within humans, and so too did I accept them within these characters and move on. Hannah Richell appears to have an intimate understanding of human nature and the ability to articulate it through her characters, gifting us with these pop-up human beings on paper, people we become invested in and deeply attached to.

‘For too many years, this river has been a place of pain. Yet is also a place of joy. Perhaps, this place – this silent river – is all of these things. Or perhaps it is none. Perhaps it just is. Margot understands now that what she has been frightened of facing is not her mother’s studio, nor the river, nor Windfalls but the hurt place inside of her – the dark wound she has carried for so long. This is what Lucy has been asking her to confront. Joy. Pain. Life. Death. Each casts the other in sharp relief.’

The River Home is fiction at its best. There is nothing light and fluffy here, it is at times incredibly hard to get through without crying. But it’s so worth it. After I finished reading, at 1am, I just sat there for about ten minutes, feeling the weight of the story and contemplating the path each of the characters had walked. This novel is haunting; brutally beautiful and the very best that fiction can be.

Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a review copy of The River Home.

About the Author:

Hannah Richell was born in Kent and spent her childhood years in Buckinghamshire and Canada. After graduating from the University of Nottingham she worked in the book publishing and film industries in both London and Sydney. She is a dual citizen of Great Britain and Australia and currently lives the South West of England with her family. Hannah is the author of international bestsellers Secrets of the Tides and The Shadow Year. The Peacock Summer is her third novel. Her books have been translated into fourteen languages.

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The River Home

Published by Hachette Australia

Released 25th February 2020

The Night Circus Effect

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
About the Book:

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A novel of magic and love that has enchanted readers far and wide with the spectacular power of its imagination.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads:

Opens at Nightfall

Closes at Dawn

As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow,sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears.

Le Cirque des Rêves

The Circus of Dreams.

Now the circus is open.

Now you may enter.

My Thoughts:

Astonishingly clever, imaginative, puzzling, and alluring. Everything within this novel was unexpected, one of those stories where every single thing happens for a reason; where no stone is left unturned, no threads left dangling in the wind. It is a magical love story like no other. A story of friendship, loyalty, sharp wits and high stakes. Skilfully written with a brilliant cast of characters, The Night Circus is hauntingly beautiful and completely unforgettable.

Highly recommended for fans of historical fiction and magical realism.

Buddy Read Reflections:

The Night Circus is the latest title to be read as a buddy read with members of my Page by Page Book Club over at Facebook. Before we had even finished, we were loving this novel so much that we all voted to read the author’s latest release, The Starless Sky, for our next buddy read, to begin on May 16th. If you’d like to join us, head over to the Page by Page Facebook group to be added. You’ll find out all of the details about the buddy read once you’re there.

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We had a great time looking over and discussing the many, many covers that exist around the world for this book. There are some truly brilliant cover artists out there. I’ve only got three pictured here: the one that graces my ebook, my little Vintage Magic paperback edition, and the newly released Penguin hardback.

As is my way with books read for a buddy read, I have a collection of favourite quotes to share. If you’ve never read The Night Circus, I hope they lure you in. If you have read it, then I hope these take you back to the magic of The Night Circus, and possibly make you want to read it all over again.