Theresa Smith's Blog, page 93

The Week That Was…

Holidays…farewell my dear friends. All good things must come to an end. Back to work next Tuesday after a long weekend for the Queen’s birthday – thank you very much Lizzie! It’s all good though, only 9 weeks until the holidays…the BIG holidays. Say no more.

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Joke of the week:

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The sacrifices we makes as parents. I took my 13 year old son to see this (at his request – he was a big fan of Chapter One):

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I haven’t been that stressed since 1994 when I watched the original ten minutes after reading the book. I like how they retained the original themes of friendship, solidarity, and facing off with your fears. And the cameo by Stephen King was a nice a touch! But yeah, far out, it was scary!

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Book of the Week:

It’s a tie this week. I have this one:

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And this one:

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TV of the week:

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I finally finished this. So good and very clever!

I also watched this:

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A one season short series based on the novel by Colleen Hoover of the same name. I really enjoyed the novel when I read it several years ago and it was good to revisit the story through this TV series. I loved the art in the show. Divine!

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Beautiful photo of the week:

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Turtles all the way!

Some of these kind of look like pieces of pumpkin though…

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Holiday Cooking:

Not something that usually characterises my holidays, but we were given a haul of homegrown over-ripe tomatoes and instead of making my usual pasta sauce, I made tomato relish instead. Tasting it hot, it seemed rather sweet and a bit too chilli for my liking. The next day, cold and paired with other food, it was actually quite delicious. Lucky! I have a lot of it to get through.

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What I’m reading right now:

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Until next week…

Challenge Check In – September

And there goes another month. We’ll be into the new decade before we can all say “so this is Christmas”…

What do the numbers for September look like?

#aww2019: 5 books

Book Bingo with Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse: 1 book – only two left to read for this challenge! Next year’s card has been designed and is ready for business as soon as the clock turns to the new year.

The Classics Eight: 2 books – again! And while I will acknowledge the beginning half of the year was looking a bit grim with a good likelihood of this challenge turning to ashes, I am pleased to report, I have now read five classics this year. On my way with this one!

Book Review: Cross My Heart by Pamela Cook

Cross My Heart…
About the Book:

When a promise kept means a life is broke…

Tessa De Santis’s child-free marriage in inner-city Sydney is ordered and comfortable, and she likes it that way.

When tragedy strikes and her childhood friend Skye Whittaker dies, Tess is bound to honour a promise to become foster-mother to Skye’s ten-year-old daughter, Grace, throwing her life upside down.

Leaving her husband and work-driven life behind, Tess travels to an isolated property where the realities of her friend’s life – and death – hit hard. The idyllic landscape and an unexpected form of therapy ease her fears, and her relationship with Grace begins to blossom.

But a secret from her earlier life with Skye refuses to remain hidden, and Tess is forced into a decision that will either right the wrongs of the past, or completely destroy her future.

Cross My Heart is a haunting story of guilt, redemption and friendship set in the beautiful central west of New South Wales.

My Thoughts:

Not being a reader of rural fiction, I hadn’t previously read any of Pamela Cook’s novels. If Cross My Heart is anything to go by, then this might just be an oversight on my part. In this moving story, Pamela reminds us of the fragility of children and the elasticity of friendship.

I found this novel profoundly moving and despite the sadness that this story is built upon, surprisingly heartwarming and life affirming. Dealing with trauma is difficult, but when you’re navigating your way through it with a child you barely know, then a whole different set of rules is required. What I loved most about this novel was the very human element, the realistic way in which the characters responded to events and situations. It was instinctive, and as such, leant great credibility to the story itself.

I am particularly fond of novels that feature horses and their ability to assist with helping people, so I was very engaged with this aspect of the story and impressed with the knowledge of these practices that was infused into the narrative. I felt the trauma revealed within the latter part of the story was handled with sensitivity and despite the distressing nature of it, Pamela’s treatment of this topic meant that I was not distressed while reading it. I really appreciate this because I find at times that there is a tendency for authors to employ the ‘shock value’ technique when dealing with difficult issues. Personally, I favour novels that choose the more sensitive path, which in my opinion, can often have greater impact, as is the case here.

Cross My Heart is a novel that I will happily recommend to all readers. I have certainly added Pamela Cook to my list of authors to follow and read from here on in. This one kept me up late and reading while on the go – one of ‘those’ novels, you know, the one we can’t put down.

Thanks is extended to the author for providing me with a copy of Cross My Heart for review.

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Cross My Heart

Released September 2019

Behind the Pen with Holden Sheppard

It’s always a great pleasure for me to feature debut authors and today, I welcome Holden Sheppard to Behind the Pen, talking about his new novel, writing in general, and living your best life.

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How would you describe Invisible Boys if you could only use 5 words?

Raw muscular unfettered grunge exorcism.

What is the story behind the story when it comes to Invisible Boys?

The inspiration is drawn from my own life. I grew up as a gay boy in Geraldton, an isolated country town in the Midwest of Australia. I didn’t want to be gay and so as a teenager, I kept those thoughts and feelings completely secret: to the outside world, I was a straight guy – my sexuality was invisible. In private, I wrestled and was absolutely tortured by the idea that I might be gay, so I fought it, denied it, tried to undo it, tried to fix myself with religion, and when none of that worked, ended up wanting to kill myself. Eventually, when I was about nineteen, I accepted that I had no control over my sexuality and life got a lot better after that.

Invisible Boys is a completely fictionalised exploration of this time in my life: it centres on three very different sixteen-year-old boys – Zeke (the geek), Charlie (the punk) and Hammer (the jock) as they each tackle different elements of their sexuality and their masculinity. It’s told from all three of their perspectives, and woven into this narrative are anonymous letters from one of the boys who isn’t coping and who is about to take their own lives. It’s heavy but also light: there’s lots of angst, plenty of rebellion, a fair bit of sex and loads of larrikin humour and banter. In the very succinct words of my mate Michael Trant, a fellow author, this book is “a story about coming of age, coming out, and cumming together.” I love that description.

As a manuscript, Invisible Boys has already won three awards. Has this in any way influenced your feelings about the novel, its release, and your hopes for it?

Yes, totally. It will not sound believable now, but I never expected to win writing awards, ever. For most of my career, it was genuinely not even an ambition of mine: my goal was always to be a commercially successful writer because my plan was to write action-packed YA adventure and fantasy novels. My visions of writing success were to be a Matthew Reilly type who sells truckloads of books but critical acclaim was never even on my radar because I just didn’t think my writing was particularly literary. Only a couple of years ago did I start to see the value in applying for everything I was eligible, just on the off chance, because you’ve gotta be in it to win it, right? So I got in it, and I won it. Luck is a huge part of this game. So I would recommend writers enter everything they can, because you just never know – you might surprise yourself with what your book – and you – are capable of.

In terms of how the awards influenced my feelings about Invisible Boys, when I found out about the first one (the 2017 Ray Koppe Award) I felt pure jubilation. I literally jumped around the room to Lady Gaga’s “Marry the Night” for five minutes of sheer triumphant bliss. It was the very first external validation I had for this novel, and it came after a long period of failure. When I won the 2018 Hungerford Award, I felt similar jubilation but this was tinged with major imposter syndrome, because the Hungerford was a more prestigious award and I just felt like I didn’t deserve it and that it was tremendous pressure to live up to. The 2019 Kathleen Mitchell Award finally squashed that imposter syndrome, because that award, unlike the other two, wasn’t for unpublished manuscripts: it was for novels that were published already and/or contracted to be published within 2019. So that gave me this thrill that, actually, my novel did stand up against other published novels – that the other awards weren’t a fluke.

I feel very grateful and very seen for this book having won so many accolades. It’s helped the book – and me – get a lot more attention in terms of media and event bookings, and I’m stoked about that. My hopes for it are still that it sells truckloads of copies (because I’m fairly povo, and really badly need money to live off) but sales are as beyond my control as the awards, really. Moreover, I hope it finds the readers who need it most. There will be people out there – especially gay teenagers in the country, but all kinds of people – who I hope this book can help in some way. It would be very rewarding to know I’d helped someone like me.

When did you start writing and what was the catalyst?

I started writing when I was seven years old. I used to read Enid Blyton books at that time – I loved the boarding school stories like St Clare’s and Mallory Towers, but I was like, “They’re always only about girls – I want a story about a boy going to boarding school.” And on a road trip back from Perth to Gero one night, I was bored and staring out the car window at the moon, being a bit of a dreamy kid I guess, and I just had this absolute lightning bolt moment: I could write that story. I could write stories of my own! So I did.

The next day, back in Geraldton, I got an exercise book and a pen from the local supermarket, sat down at the melamine desk in our activity room in our house in Spalding, and started writing. My first (unfinished) book was about a twelve-year-old boy called Jake who went to a boarding school near a cliff. I wrote about fifty-odd pages of that story, and I still have it in the original notebook. It’s cringey – people keep almost falling off cliffs and it seems that cliff-related falling was the main plot device I had in my arsenal back then – but I have bulk affection for that story, too.

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Are you balancing a different career with your writing?

Yep – I have to, in order to stave off starvation! I work as a project coordinator for a university, previously part-time and now on a casual basis, which helps me fit my writing career in. I only work a couple of days a week, which is about all I can handle, otherwise the balance tips out of equilibrium and thrust me into abject chaos. I have a great job with a truly supportive and outstanding boss and excellent workmates – it’s a sweet gig.

I don’t think time spent in a day job is wasted from a creative standpoint. When I reflect on my past jobs – storeman, fruit and veg boy, nightfiller, labourer, excavator operator, bank teller, sales consultant, call centre operator, university academic – they’ve all brought me into contact with people or situations or stories that have inspired me creatively. They’ve all also taught me skills that have helped me when it comes to running my writing career, so day jobs can be used to our advantage, I reckon.

Can you tell us about your role as an ambassador for Lifeline WA?

In 2018 I participated in a project at the Centre for Stories called Bright Lights, No City. This was a storytelling project for young LGBTQIA+ people from country WA, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it – a truly transformative project. The end result of that was that I developed a ten-minute oral story about my experience growing up gay in the country, including the mental health aspect. In March 2019, I was invited to tell that story on stage at a big fundraiser event for Lifeline WA run by Vince Garreffa. There were about 400 people at this event! The CEO of Lifeline was in the audience that day, and after I got off stage, she spoke to me and said she was moved by my story: she gave me her card and asked me about working together. I said yes before she even finished the sentence.

Lifeline WA is a well-known suicide prevention organisation, the best part of which is their 24/7 crisis support phone line which is 13 11 14. Anyone can call that number and instantly have someone to talk to when they are in crisis – it’s literally a life-saving service. I was compelled to help support them as an ambassador not just because of my experience with suicidal ideation when I was younger, but also because I reached out to a similar service when I was 19 and that is a big part of what saved my life. I want to spread the word about the work organisations like Lifeline WA do, and the extraordinary help they can give to people who are in a dark place. What I want to say to people is that reaching out for support when I was in crisis saved my life, and it could save yours, too. I particularly want to get this message across to boys and men, because the male suicide rate is triple that for females, and it breaks my heart. I want to be a part of reducing that horrifying statistic.

In terms of the role itself, it’s mostly a mix of speaking gigs – telling my story to donors and supporters to help raise funds for Lifeline WA – and media appearances in print and radio – to raise awareness.

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?

Well, I’m no longer writing boarding school stories with kids falling off cliffs left, right and centre, so there’s definitely been a shift, haha! If I think about my initial expectations as a kid or even as a teenager, they were way off. I genuinely thought I’d be a multi-published author by the age of 20, and I thought I’d only be writing fantasy. Neither of those expectations have been fulfilled. I’m 31 now and I only have one novel published, and I’m now writing contemporary YA. But I feel I’m right where I’m supposed to be, to be honest.

Once I learned to write more honestly with Invisible Boys, my writing evolved from being plot and action driven to being character and emotion driven, and this is, I think, what people are responding to. I personally think my writing is loads better now than it ever used to be in my youth: it has real stakes and real heart now. I make myself vulnerable in my art and I think that’s made all the difference.

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

Yes! This happened with my novella “Poster Boy” which was published in Griffith Review last year. “Poster Boy” is the most autobiographically I’ve ever written – still fiction, but a lot closer to reality than Invisible Boys. The main character Tommo is based on me, and his fiancé Frédéric is based on my husband, Raphael. When Raphael first read it, he came to me with this shocked face, part impressed and part horrified, saying, “It’s really good. But … you Dave Coulier’d me!” (Referring to singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette who wrote her highly confessional and no-holds-barred song You Oughta Know, allegedly about Dave Coulier.) He was totally okay with it, but kind of stunned that I’d been that open about him and about myself, because Tommo comes across as a total dickhead – which, if I’m to be frank, I was a bit of a dickhead – still am – but was especially so when I was younger.

Tommo’s parents in the novella are pure fiction, as are the rest of the characters. But when I first visited my parents after they read “Poster Boy”, my dad opened the door and introduced himself as “Rod” and my mum as “Cathy” (the names of the parents in the novella) and I was like, “Shit! They think the parents are based on them!” Thankfully, I can report that my parents are accepting of my sexuality, not homophobic like Tommo’s parents are in the novella.

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What attributes do you think you need to remain sane as a writer? Are there any particular things you routinely do for yourself to maintain your own headspace?

This question assumes that I actually am remaining sane, and I reckon the jury’s kinda out on that at the moment.

Book Review: Paris Savages by Katherine Johnson

Paris Savages…
About The Book:

‘This story has its genesis in fact, when three Fraser Island people were taken to Germany in 1882–83. The sole survivor was Bonangera (Boni/Bonny) whose life-size plaster cast remains at the Musée des Confluences, Lyon, France. The silencing that Badtjala people continue to endure in the localised historiography of place is ongoing.’ – Dr Fiona Foley, Badtjala artist and academic

Fraser Island, 1882. The population of the Badtjala people is in sharp decline following a run of brutal massacres. When German scientist Louis Müller offers to sail three Badtjala people – Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera – to Europe to perform to huge crowds, the proud and headstrong Bonny agrees, hoping to bring his people’s plight to the Queen of England.

Accompanied by Müllers bright, grieving daughter, Hilda, the group begins their journey to belle-époque Europe to perform in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris, and eventually London. While crowds in Europe are enthusiastic to see the unique dances, singing, fights and pole climbing from the oldest culture in the world, the attention is relentless, and the fascination of scientists intrusive. When disaster strikes, Bonny must find a way to return home.

A story of love, bravery, culture, and the fight against injustice, Paris Savages brings a little-known part of history to blazing life, from award-winning novelist Katherine Johnson.

My Thoughts:

‘My views on the matter are quite strong, you may have gathered. The matter is simple. The spectacs have grown in size and nature and are now something quite ugly, telling us more about ourselves than the visiting tribes. If you keep showing him, as you have,’ he said, ‘his worth as a natural example of his type will diminish. It would be a great loss.’

This novel has rather devastated me in the way that only brilliant fiction can. There is a beautiful spirituality present throughout the entire novel that is in sharp contrast to the distressing history that it conveys. I have heard in passing about humans from different cultures appearing in ethnographic exhibitions, but I have never been immersed into a story that explores it so fully. It is a history that is so offensive, yet these ethnic shows, ‘human zoos’, were big business in Europe and America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I can barely fathom a society that considered showing fellow humans beings in such a manner – an entirely dehumanising practice that really redefines for me, exactly who was the more ‘savage race’. The shows themselves were tragic enough, but the scientific research was distressing and sickening. There seemed to have been a complete detachment on the part of scientists. These people were specimens to experiment on, not human beings to consider. This novel is meant to make the reader uncomfortable. Hidden histories once exposed are like that.

‘During our time here Papa has added to the ethnographic notes that our patron, Mr Sheridan, requested. Papa’s own tests included measurements of people’s bodies and strength, although Mama and I never liked such invasions. As Mama said, we do not need rulers and lengths of tape to see that our friends are as human as we are. ‘The act of measurement reduces us, Louis,’ she said, not unkindly, taking his hand into her own. Mama, like Mr Sheridan, preferred studies of what people do and what they know. But Papa argued that scientists overseas would demand objective facts.’

Paris Savages is uniquely narrated. We have Hilda, who is compassionate and personally attached to Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera. Then we gain additional insight into Hilda’s perspective via her diary, offering the reader an interesting dual gaze from the one perspective. It was cleverly done. A third perspective is offered by a ghost narrator, whose job it is to tell us the story from Bonny’s perspective. I really loved this narrative tool, it was beautifully done, harnessing Bonny’s spirituality and conveying his intelligent analysis of the situation he and his fellow Badtjala travellers had found themselves in. We are also privy to what is going on back home in Fraser Island through the gaze of this perspective. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a very immersive novel and this is largely owing to the style of narration.

‘Do not think the ghost storyteller is blind to Hilda’s distress. She feels it deeply, but that is another story, and it is Bonny’s story she promised to tell now as best she can. Hilda, the ghost storyteller has seen, has started a journal. The ghost storyteller is pleased. She goes on, whispering the story into the wind in the hope it will be heard by all who stop to listen.’

I felt very much a part of the story in terms of journeying through it all with Hilda. Right from the beginning, when they all board the ship off the coast of Fraser Island, I was filled with a sense of unease that was mirrored within Hilda. As her unease moves into concern, morphing into distress at what is happening to her friends, so too did I feel all of these emotions and feelings of entrenched dread and horror at what was unfolding. I found this to be such an affecting novel, yet not so much that I couldn’t read it because it was too distressing, more that I wanted to know everything about the history; I wanted to fully appreciate the horror of what has been done to indigenous people in the pursuit of science and spectacle, with callous regard for them as human beings. Exploring this history through fiction was ideal for me, because I honestly could not have gone there with it in a non-fiction form. As far as colonial history goes, this is a sample of some of our worst. I am so grateful to Katherine Johnson for giving us Paris Savages. It is an exceptional novel that is so well informed, intelligently articulated, and portrayed with truth and empathy. Highly recommended reading.

‘Hilda felt sick. What had she and her father done bringing Bonny, Dorondera and Jurano here? She had thought they were helping. She had hoped the crowds would look upon her friends with the admiration the three had been denied in their own country and that they would be treated well.’

Thanks is extended to Ventura Press for providing me with a copy of Paris Savages via NetGalley for review.

About the Author:

Katherine Johnson is the author of three previous novels: Pescador’s Wake (Fourth Estate, 2009), The Better Son (Ventura Press, 2016) and Matryoshka (Ventura Press, 2018). Her manuscripts have won Varuna Awards and Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prizes. The Better Son was longlisted for both the Indie Book Awards and the Tasmania Book Prize. Katherine holds both arts and science degrees, has worked as a science journalist, and published feature articles for magazines including Good Weekend. Katherine lives in Tasmania with her husband and two children. She recently completed a PhD, which forms the basis of her latest novel, Paris Savages.

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Paris Savages

Published by Ventura Press

Released 1st October 2019

Length: 352 pages

ISBN13: 9781925384703

#BookBingo – Round 20

This round gives me my second completed horizontal line – bingo!

Romance:

The Cinema at Starlight Creek by Alli Sinclair

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I don’t read genre romance books at all, but I do read a lot of books that contain romance, particularly historical fiction. I’ve picked The Cinema at Starlight Creek for this category because it contained romance within both timelines of its story, yet the romance was not cliché or contrived, nor was it the only point of the story.

The main issue Alli tackles in The Cinema at Starlight Creek is that of inequality and discrimination within the film and television industry. There are some powerful examples woven into both narratives, and I will admit that many caught me by surprise – and I don’t mean that in a good way. The double standards, the games of sabotage, the blatant discrimination towards women: lower wages, lower conditions, yet higher expectations when it came to body size and shape, modesty and chaste behaviour. In Claire’s circumstances, she had to fend off on the job hostility and bullying from a man who was disgruntled at her getting the position she was in over him. I liked how the author gave Claire and Lena different career paths but within the same industry, effectively demonstrating the widespread nature of these issues.

Against this backdrop, romance blooms for both women.

Read my full review here.

For 2019, I’m teaming up with Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse for an even bigger, and more challenging book bingo. We’d love to have you join us. Every second Saturday throughout 2019, we’ll post our latest round. We invite you to join in at any stage, just pop the link to your bingo posts into the comments section of our bingo posts each fortnight so we can visit you. If you’re not a blogger, feel free to just write your book titles and thoughts on the books into the comments section each fortnight, and tag us on social media if you are playing along that way.

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The Week That Was…

Holidays! I started off my weekend deeply immersed in a Little Women-a-thon, revelling in all of this luxurious time I had to read, and in keeping with my ‘read at whim’ goal, I was doing exactly that! Reading only what I felt like which turned out to be not only Little Women, but its follow-up, Good Wives as well. You can read about my Little Women adventure here if you haven’t already done so.

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Then Monday arrived and I woke up feeling a bit off. Tired and light headed. Then I started to sneeze. And four days later I’m only just starting to stop. A head cold, with accompanying lethargy has levelled me completely and stolen the first week of my holidays from me. I’m not impressed. This was me for most of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday:

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TV of the week:

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Simply divine! I loved everything about this mini-series.

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Joke of the week:

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Book of the Week:

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Took me a while to get through but it was worth it!

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What I’m reading right now:

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Until next week…

#TBT: What I was reading on this day five years ago…

According to Goodreads, on this day five years ago, I was reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. According to The American Library Association, Speak was one of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books between 2000 to 2009. It’s a vitally important novel and one I highly recommend.

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Have you read it? In 2004 a film adaptation was released which I have also seen. Both the novel and the film offer a range of talking topics for parents of teens.

The Classics Eight: Little Women

Little Women AND Good Wives – a reflection in words and images

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I first read Little Women when I was ten. I was gifted a copy and took it with me to Europe in that same year, carting it everywhere and reading it over and over. I never read it again, but still have that same treasured copy. When the classic film adaptation starring Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon was released in 1994, I flocked to the cinema to watch it, purchased the VHS and later upgraded to the DVD. It’s not until now, at the age of 42, have I realised that at some point, I confused the film with the book. When I sat down this last weekend to read Little Women for book club, it’s not until I got to the last page that I realised my grave error:

I HAD ONLY EVER READ HALF OF THE BOOK!

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At least, I had only read volume one. Volume two, Good Wives, which makes up half of the film, had escaped my notice. How utterly embarrassing for a literary lover who claims Little Women as one of her favourites. As a ten year old, I had no idea there was more to the story. Google didn’t exist and my edition didn’t elude to it. Several years later, the film came along and I suppose, in the absence of reading it again as an adult, over time, in my mind, it morphed into the book I had read, and loved, as a child.

We’ll pause now for the raucous laughter…

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The situation has been amended and this last weekend gone I reread Little Women and read Good Wives for the first time. Read as a complete novel, it made for a beautiful and delightful experience. I also re-watched the 1994 film and then watched the television series starring Emily Watson which was released last year. This was utterly divine television. It far eclipsed the 1994 movie, largely owing to the fact that there is more room to move within a television series than there is in a movie.

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The television series told the story of all four March sisters, as well as focusing some attention onto Marmee, providing a beautiful depth to the story and all of the characters. This is a TV series I will watch again. This article in Vanity Fair called it ‘the Most Ambitious, Faithful Adaptation of Little Women Yet’, and I wholeheartedly agree.

If you haven’t watched it, or even heard of it, here’s a little trailer:

Little Women (TV series 2017)

So, I watched two adaptations and read two of the books in the four book series. I’m going to stop at Good Wives for now, but the e-book I purchased contains all four books, so I will certainly read the other two at some stage. What did I achieve over the course of the weekend through this Little Women immersive experience? Heartache. I experienced Beth’s death three times, so heartache is right up there at the top of the list. A close second is admiration for Louisa May Alcott, who writes with such warmth, humour, and feeling. These two novels really are brilliant pieces of fiction. I also loved how she narrated them as herself, piercing the fourth wall well and truly – by no means an easy task to pull off! But she did it, and did it with a style that was absolutely delightful.

Instead of blathering on about how much I loved these two books, I thought I would instead show you, using this set of cards I made up with images from the television adaptation paired with memorable quotes. But before I do, I want to just say two things:

On Beth – it’s tragic how some people are just too fragile for this world. Louisa May Alcott captured many things within the character of Beth about mental health and physical wellbeing, which seems to me quite intuitive and ahead of her time.

On Jo – I know that there are millions of people who are team Teddy, and while I love Teddy and his deep friendship with Jo, I liked that they never ended up together. Jo needed someone who could challenge her and stimulate her high intelligence whilst also keeping her grounded. In the Professor, Louisa May Alcott gave us Jo’s perfect match. I don’t think I was ready to see that until this stage of adulthood. Back in my twenties, I was still team Teddy.

Now, on with the slideshow!

Click to view slideshow.

About the Author:

Louisa May Alcott wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, at age seventeen, but it went unpublished for nearly 150 years until 1997, after two researchers (Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy) stumbled across the handwritten manuscript in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Of course, Ms. Alcott is best known for a different novel, Little Women, which she wrote in two parts. The first volume, alternately titled Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, was published in 1868, and the second volume, Good Wives, was published in 1869. Like Jo in Little Women, Louisa also wrote many “blood and thunder” tales, which were published in popular periodicals of the day. She did not openly claim authorship for many of these Gothic thriller stories, however: for some, she used the pseudonym, “A. M. Barnard”; for others, she chose to remain completely anonymous.

Blog Tour: Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati

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Where the Light Enters…
About the Book:

In this spellbinding historical epic, Sara Donati (bestselling author of the Wilderness series) combines romance and mystery to tell the story of two pioneering women in nineteenth-century Manhattan. Where the Light Enters is the sequel to The Gilded Hour.

Obstetrician Dr Sophie Savard returns home to the achingly familiar rhythms of Manhattan in the early spring of 1884 to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. With the help of Dr Anna Savard, her dearest friend, cousin, and fellow physician, she plans to continue her work aiding the disadvantaged women society would rather forget.

As Sophie sets out to construct a new life for herself, Anna’s husband, Detective Sergeant Jack Mezzanotte calls on them both to consult on two new cases: the wife of a prominent banker has disappeared into thin air, and the corpse of a young woman is found with baffling wounds that suggest a killer is on the loose.

In New York it seems that the advancement of women has brought out the worst in some men. And Sophie and Anna are soon drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse . . .

My Thoughts:

I feel as though I have been waiting forever for this novel but in reality, it has only been a couple of years. I have been very aware of it for all of that time though as Sara Donati is generous to her fans and regularly shares progress and research via her Facebook page, ensuring that all of us who read The Gilded Hour have been eagerly awaiting the chance to get our hands on Where the Light Enters. It has definitely been worth the wait, but all of Sara’s novels are. Those who have been following my blog for any length of time will have seen Sara’s work pop up here before. She is without doubt, one of my favourite authors. Her Wilderness Series, which I featured here, and The Gilded Hour, which precedes Where the Light Enters, are nothing short of master classes on writing historical fiction that fulfils its true potential. Now she has another worthy addition to her stable of brilliance. Stop reading now if you don’t want to hear me gushing. Because I do not intend to hold back.

Where the Light Enters seamlessly picks up the threads left dangling at the end of The Gilded Hour. We are immediately transported back into the lives of the Savard cousins as though we had never left them. In this, I feel it important to point out that Where the Light Enters is very much a second book in a series. Some may read it as a standalone, but as a die-hard fan, I recommend reading The Gilded Hour first in order to maximise your appreciation for the world building and character depth that Sara Donati has infused into this series from the beginning. Fans of her preceding Wilderness series will enjoy the continued references throughout to those characters, who are the ancestors of Anna and Sophie Savard. Each time I noticed one of these threads, it was like a gift from the past. I loved the Wilderness series so much, and while not all good things can last forever, I am so pleased that some elements of it remain immortal through this new series.

Where the Light Enters offers readers such an immersive reading experience through its use of different mediums. The narrative is broken up with letters, newspaper articles, tables, maps, postcards, telegrams, court transcripts, police reports, doctor reports, and even household lists. Even though these elements are all fictional, they still offer such an insightful view into the history of the era. The research that Sara Donati employs is very much in evidence throughout the entire novel within the depth, breadth and scope of her setting and themes. As it was with The Gilded Hour, the focus within Where the Light Enters is on women in history, but its gaze is a broad one, encompassing a myriad of social, welfare, economic, professional, and health issues across the classes for women of all colours and cultures. This novel is huge, but it needs to be on account of its story depth and significance. It goes without saying that this is recommended reading. I have seen on Sara’s website that there is a third book in the making – we just need to be patient!

I’d like to finish with a few of Sara’s own words. They sum up what this story is about far more elegantly than I ever could:

‘For the most part I write about women who lived in male-dominated societies, who fought for education, acknowledgment, and self-determination, often against all odds. My curiosity about women who sacrificed a great deal to pursue a medical degree in the last half of the 19th century was the natural extension of the women healers who were central to the earlier Wilderness series, and so Anna and Sophie Savard are Hannah and Elizabeth and Curiosity’s granddaughters, women who lived their lives in Manhattan when women’s health was still mostly a matter for men to decide.’

And on that note, I leave you so you can get started on reading it for yourself.

Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of Where the Light Enters for review and for the invitation to participate in the #WhereTheLightEntersTour.

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About the Author:

Sara Donati, the pen name of Rosina Lippi, is the bestselling author of the Wilderness series. A native of Chicago, she lives with her husband, daughter, and various pets between Bellingham Bay and the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest.

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Where the Light Enters

Published: 17 September 2019

ISBN: 9780857982407

Imprint: Bantam Australia

Format: Trade Paperback

Pages: 672

RRP: $32.99