Home Fires in Aussie Readers

Feb 11, 2019 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-release, contemporary-fiction, net-galley, aussie-authors, arc, own-read

Eighteen months after the horrific bushfire that claimed many lives and ravaged most of the small township of Myrtle in country Victoria, inhabitants were struggling. Some buildings and homes had been rebuilt, but the town was lacking in many things. And mostly it was tourists. The money was no longer flowing in the town and Julie, who was known for her strength and determination, formed a small craft group with the intention of planning events to draw people back to Myrtle. She invited Sophie, Eighteen months after the horrific bushfire that claimed many lives and ravaged most of the small township of Myrtle in country Victoria, inhabitants were struggling. Some buildings and homes had been rebuilt, but the town was lacking in many things. And mostly it was tourists. The money was no longer flowing in the town and Julie, who was known for her strength and determination, formed a small craft group with the intention of planning events to draw people back to Myrtle. She invited Sophie, a relatively new resident of Myrtle, along with Claire, Bec and a couple of other women to share in the ideas and brainstorming to help the town and its people.

But some of these women had secrets. Trauma and grief that hadn’t left them or their husbands and partners. On the outside they looked to be doing well. Claire was a community nurse, efficient and kind, always helpful. Bec supported her husband Adam in his building business, while Sophie had to return to work as her husband Josh had lost his job due to the bushfire. And Bec and Sophie’s children were showing signs of internal struggles.

As the two year anniversary of that devastating day drew near, cracks were appearing. Would the secrets held deep inside finally be exposed?

Home Fires by Aussie author Fiona Lowe is an outstanding novel, filled with heartbreak, grief, tragedy and a burgeoning hope. The depth of emotion the author has given the characters is breathtaking; my heart was breaking for what I knew they were going through. Bushfire is an every day part of life in Australia, and not just in the summer months. The firefighters work in the most horrendous of situations, and still manage a smile. And sometimes the bushfires rip through communities like they are not there – as happened on the 7th February 2009 in Victoria, a day known as Black Saturday when 173 people perished. In Home Fires, Fiona Lowe has captured the essence of what it means to struggle to survive above all odds. Highly recommended (and straight onto my 2019 favourites list)

With thanks to HarperCollins AU (HQ) for my ARC to read in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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May 13, 2019 Helen rated it it was amazing

Fiona Lowe’s stories just get better with everyone she writes, the last two that I have read of hers Daughter of Mine and Birthright blew me away and this one has as well, I am sitting here trying to write this review and make sure I do justice to this amazing story, MS Lowe has taken me to the small town of Myrtle and the wonderful people that live there and what happens after a bushfire two years before destroys the town and plays havoc with their emotions, if you have never read a Fiona Lowe Fiona Lowe’s stories just get better with everyone she writes, the last two that I have read of hers Daughter of Mine and Birthright blew me away and this one has as well, I am sitting here trying to write this review and make sure I do justice to this amazing story, MS Lowe has taken me to the small town of Myrtle and the wonderful people that live there and what happens after a bushfire two years before destroys the town and plays havoc with their emotions, if you have never read a Fiona Lowe book do yourself a favour and read this one there will be no regrets.

We get to meet three woman, two who grew up in the town and one who has moved there with her family Claire, Bec and Sophie, as well as a few more fabulous woman, Julie who is in the CWA thinks that it is time to get the town moving again after the devastation of two years before and invites some of the woman to start a craft group in the evenings, Claire and Bec have been at odds with each other since school and Girl Guides and Sophie, Layla and Erica are pretty new to the town. This gets them working on plans and brings the woman together but along the way they learn that not all is as it should be and the emotions and hurt and pain that people keep to themselves will soon come to the surface as they learn to open up to each other.

While the woman work together we also get to know the men in their lives Matt, Adam, Josh, Nathan and Osman and Julie’s wonderful husband Phil, these men are also very different and with some of them living through the fires, they too have problems that need to be sorted and when it comes to a head on the second anniversary of the fires, I shed a lot of tears and there was a lot of different emotions flowing, there was anger, heart breaking feelings, but there was strength coming from each other and the support was amazing.

This book is beautifully written, there are heart-wrenching moments as we get to know and understand these woman and their families, there are moments that made me angry when the truth about one of the town’s favourites comes out and then the support and strength that these people show each other, this really is a book that I can’t highly recommend enough, I didn’t want to put it down, yet I read slowly to savour every word I was totally engrossed in this story, don’t miss this one. Thank you MS Lowe this one is going to stay with me for a long time to come, you did so well with issues that sadly are a part of our lives.
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Jun 20, 2019 Kathryn rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-list-2019, 4-stars, owned, australian-authors, ps-2019

Thanks to Tracey at Carpe Librum - https://www.carpelibrum.net for hosting a birthday giveaway on her blog earlier this year in which I won this book!

I was initially slightly daunted by the size (just under 500 pages, if you exclude the Birthright excerpt at the end, but it looked bigger!), but it was a really enjoyable read. Fiona Lowe has some great descriptive writing that evokes the Australian bush and rural towns so well.

The plot was a clever one, following several threads at once, but it w ...more

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Feb 09, 2019 Janine rated it it was amazing

Another great Womens Fiction book by Fiona Lowe. This took me a little while to get into but once I did it was hard to put down. A very topical book at the moment as we have just celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria. After the devastating loss of most of the town from the fires, 18 months on the residents are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and go on. We meet Julie who is determined to get some community spirit happening and encourages Bec, ...more

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Mar 01, 2019 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, rural-lit, australian, aww2019

Eighteen months ago, the lives of many populating the small town of Myrtle were changed when a bushfire took lives, houses and businesses. Those left behind are still struggling to recover. Claire lost several of the people dearest to her and now feels the pressure in her relationship with Matt, who just wants to pretend everything is fine. Josh and Sophie lost their dream forever home and insurance laws mean they don’t have the cash to rebuild. Bec and her husband are doing just fine financiall Eighteen months ago, the lives of many populating the small town of Myrtle were changed when a bushfire took lives, houses and businesses. Those left behind are still struggling to recover. Claire lost several of the people dearest to her and now feels the pressure in her relationship with Matt, who just wants to pretend everything is fine. Josh and Sophie lost their dream forever home and insurance laws mean they don’t have the cash to rebuild. Bec and her husband are doing just fine financially, given he’s busy rebuilding everyone’s lost homes and developing land but the state of their marriage is a dark secret. Community leader Julie sees an opportunity to bring the women of the next generation together and strengthen friendships and the town.

There is a lot going on in this story – each of the characters have been affected by the fire and it’s still playing a role in their lives all these months later. Claire and Julie both lost people they love. Claire was supposed to be getting married on the day the bushfire tore through the town and she now bears a large burden of guilt about that. She hasn’t been able to reschedule the wedding and now Matt, her fiance, is pressuring her to have a baby, like they’d planned in the ‘before’. Matt is a tough character to really feel sympathetic to here. The two of them got together in somewhat dubious circumstances, Claire has experienced the backlash of that with Matt’s family, she doesn’t have a support structure of her own and so she’s vulnerable and finds it difficult to express herself for fear of losing what she still has. Matt has what seems like an overly controlling streak, taking it upon himself to track Claire’s cycle, run his mouth about things best kept private between a couple and just generally be completely oblivious to what is troubling Claire. The thing is, it’s not at all a stretch of the imagination to understand what makes Claire reluctant to do some of these things but Matt is the quintessential ostrich. If he cannot see it, it isn’t happening. He doesn’t support Claire in the face of his family, he talks at her rather than to her. That’s not to say Claire is without fault either. She’s super busy in her job but she uses this to avoid her other commitments or chooses it over them. She also cannot talk to Matt about what she wants but this is borne out of fear. Matt says some truly awful things to Claire in this novel, which I do not believe he ever seriously and genuinely apologised for, nor were they dealt with to the level of which they deserved. I appreciated the counselling angle but Matt went into it with completely the wrong attitude and it takes quite a while for him to begin listening and understanding. Claire is pretty quick to forgive hime actually.

Bec wasn’t a character I warmed to in the beginning but I think she probably ended up being my favourite one. Bec is the sort of person who presents one way and it’s a bit pretentious but then you realise just why and how she comes across this way and that part of the novel was very well done. This is insidious and not the sort of way that it’s often portrayed and Fiona Lowe does a great job escalating it throughout the story until Bec is in such danger and the things that are happening to her are so horrific. The tension builds alarmingly well and Lowe chooses a ‘town hero’, someone where it wouldn’t be easy for Bec to be heard because he’s got that ‘good bloke’ wrap that people are so fond of labelling men with, even when they do the most awful things.

I quite enjoyed the rest of the characters – Josh and Sophie were very interesting and that was another great look at how the strain of the fire had continued to have financial and emotional impacts well after it had burned out. Josh and Sophie are struggling – Sophie has had to go back to work, something moving to Myrtle was supposed to avoid so she could devote herself to their two small children. She’s finding it very hard because Josh does things in a different way to her – not wrong, just different. And that’s a really good thing to explore I think, because I know of couples who argue over how things get done, depending on who is the ‘at home’ parent because they have different standards of cleanliness and what they expect the non working parent to be able to achieve in a day. Sophie also doesn’t realise what is truly happening with Josh, because he’s never told her and that is well done too. Sophie and Josh’s situation also explores just how difficult it can be to rebuild after such a devastating incident – it’s not just a simple matter of the insurance company going oh yes, here’s the value of your house, good luck. Bushfires often mean changing classifications, changing standards and building and industry codes. And that means rebuilds cost more money.

I do feel as though this book, which comes in at close to 500p, is a fraction too long and some of the back and forth jumps in time felt a bit all over the place and I actually think I would’ve preferred a linear narrative. Apart from that and the character of Matt, who just wasn’t at all my sort of thing (nor were his family, who were also thoughtlessly insensitive and could be quite rude), the rest of this book was a satisfying read with a very realistic experience to what I think it must be like, rebuilding and recovering after a fire. It’s not easy, it leaves lasting effects and this reflects that in many ways.

***A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for the purpose of an honest review*** ...more

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