The River Home in Aussie Readers

Feb 17, 2020 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aussie-authors, sent-by-publisher, contemporary-fiction, 2020-release, reviewing-by-request, net-galley, own-read, arc

When Margot Sorrell received the text from her sister Lucy, saying “please come home, I need you”, she knew she had to return to Lucy’s side. The heartbreak of the past that she’d buried so deeply wouldn’t stop her returning to the family home and celebrating Lucy’s sudden and unexpected wedding. The estrangement from her mother Kit, the tension with her father, her need to see their eldest sister Eve – surely for a few days Margot could hold it all together.

Windfalls was the home they had all g ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 Helen rated it it was amazing

This is a book I could barely put down, set in a quiet village in Somerset, England, it is the story of a dysfunctional family, secrets kept and of love, hurts and forgiveness, MS Richell has dug deep with emotions from these characters and told a story that had me grabbing for the tissues and feeling so many emotions, I hope that you will pick this one up and get to know Eve, Lucy, Margot and their family who live by the river.

Margot Sorrell is finally returning home to Windfalls the family hom ...more

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Aug 13, 2020 Janine rated it really liked it

This is the second book of Hannah Richell's that I have read and I really enjoyed it.
Another example of dysfunctional & broken families and the consequences that carries into adult life. Three sisters come home for the middle sister's wedding and are reunited with their parents.
Their mother is a well known author of steamy romance novels who never finished her series after the last manuscript was burned, she has never got over this, and blames Margot the youngest daughter. Margot left home at a ...more

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Feb 20, 2020 Bree T rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, arc, netgalley, kindle-version

This is Hannah Richell’s fourth novel and it’s the story of a family with cracks. Eve, Lucy and Margot are sisters. Margot fled the family years ago and has rarely been seen since. However for the occasion of a wedding, refusing to attend is not really an option and so Margot finds herself back in her childhood home, back with the mother that resents her, a father that lives somewhere else now and two sisters that want to know why she left, why she did what she did, something that Margot has nev This is Hannah Richell’s fourth novel and it’s the story of a family with cracks. Eve, Lucy and Margot are sisters. Margot fled the family years ago and has rarely been seen since. However for the occasion of a wedding, refusing to attend is not really an option and so Margot finds herself back in her childhood home, back with the mother that resents her, a father that lives somewhere else now and two sisters that want to know why she left, why she did what she did, something that Margot has never been able to confide. She promises to be on her best behaviour though, not to stir anything up for the length of her stay. But sometimes, some promises are too difficult to keep.

Margot is in her mid-20s, she left home at 17 or so and has made her own way ever since. She’s obviously very angry about something and also hurting badly. She did something incredibly awful before she left, something that people can’t seem to get their heads around. Now Margot is back, her sister Lucy is getting married and everything is being planned in about a week, which is quite Lucy-esque. She’s a free spirit and it’s up to older sister Eve to assume to responsible role, organising catering and the marquee, drinks, music, flowers etc. The sisters seem to have some clearly defined roles and even as adults, they cannot seem to escape them.

Margot’s story comes out quite slowly – the book takes great care to fill in the background of the sisters’ parents, Kit and Ted and how they met, came to be together and their early years in the country home. Also how their roles reversed, how it was suddenly Kit that was the breadwinner and Ted fulfilled the day to day parenting role. The girls struggled with connecting to Kit as they grew up – she was always buried in her work, rarely ‘present’ in the way that they longed for. She forgot important things, she abandoned plans to work. They didn’t have friends over because she couldn’t be counted on not to do something embarrassing, like show up in the middle of the day in her pyjamas, or barely dressed at all. Her sisters being older meant that they left to go to college and live adult lives, which left Margot on her own, especially after their father moved out with the breakdown of the relationship. For Margot, this was just the beginning of her pain and it’s something you can see coming before it unfolds, although I didn’t actually expect it to be as deep and as severe as it was – not did I expect the staggering consequences and all of a sudden, Margot’s actions before she leaves home make sense with cold clarity.

This is a wonderfully written book, a book that deeply explores a fractured family and dissects their pain. The pain isn’t over either, because there are several revelations at the end of the novel, from both the past and also one that revolves around the present, that are incredibly distressing. There are a couple of scenes within this book that I feel would be incredibly difficult for some people to read, especially those that have experienced one or both of those incidents. It’s really hard to say this without spoiling the story, because it’s important in terms of why Margot….became the Margot of the present. They’re both vital pieces of the journey that led to her estrangement, the resentment she felt, the self-loathing, the destruction and they give the reader understanding to her actions, they make it very clear how much pain she was in and how no one really noticed. She had changed deeply, most I think putting it down to the changed living circumstances at the house, no one really tried to find out precisely why she was behaving the way she was and then it was basically too late. However that doesn’t change the fact that the scenes are really very confronting, quite graphic (especially the latter one). And for me, Lucy’s story is deeply affecting.

Hannah Richell creates an incredible atmosphere, an incredibly intriguing family and set of circumstances and lobs a few grenades that keep the story moving. I was so keen to find out the answers, what had happened both in the past and what was driving the plot forward in the future. It was gripping from start to finish.

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

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Sep 01, 2020 Kim rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, australian-women-writers, australian-fiction, act-library, 2020-read, contemporary-fiction, 2020-aus-release

3.5 stars
A straightforward narrative about family relationships mainly set at an idyllic English country home. I found some of the family situations a bit cliche and there wasn't really any surprises in the two big family reveals, but the writing is as clear and fresh as spring water and it had a strong ending for me, which made it a rewarding reading experience.
Knowing the author's own family experiences and challenges actually influence my reading quite a bit with her work and I probably rate ...more

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