I read Limberlost in an Asian city far away from its Tasmanian setting of orchard, forest and river. But still, sitting in the tropical heat of Kuala Lumpur, I was transported home to Australia. The author conjured the swirling flow of our rivers and the majesty of our eucalypt forests so lyrically that they were bright in my memory.
This story of a boy on the cusp of manhood, where he dreams big in the face of loss and war, was told on an intimate scale, yet felt far larger to me. Limberlost was so very human.
I kept expecting that other characters would respond to the boy with anger, dishonesty, or even violence but at every turn there was compassion and understanding. It was the world in its even-handed harshness that was determined to hurt him. A really beautiful, moving novel.
'Arnott has an eye and an ear for description that can elevate otherwise quiet moments to something genuinely transcendent... A luminously told, whole-life story of a young boy discovering how to be his own man.' Guardian
Ned West dreams of sailing across the river on a boat of his very own. To Ned, a boat means freedom - the fresh open water, squid-rich reefs, fires on private beaches - a far cry from life on Limberlost, the family farm, where his father worries and grieves for Ned's older brothers. They're away fighting in…
If The Promise wasn’t the winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, I probably wouldn’t have read past the first chapter because the author shifts point of view willy-nilly from one character to another in a very confusing manner.
This doesn’t sound like I loved it but once I became accustomed to the shifts, I was completely absorbed by the mess of a family at its heart—a white South African family in the late 20th and early 21st century—and learned a lot about South Africa.
It’s the story of a broken promise to the woman who has worked for them for decades. She’s a minor character in the novel and I would have liked to hear her POV but in a way, this lack of voice was a potent symbol of South Africa’s history.
I was torn between compassion and distaste for this family crumbling under the weight of its own folly, the broken promise that breaks them.
WINNER OF THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
On her deathbed, Rachel Swart makes a promise to Salome, the family’s Black maid. This promise will divide the family—especially her children: Anton, the golden boy; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by feelings of guilt.
Reunited by four funerals over thirty years, the dwindling Swart family remains haunted by the unmet promise, just as their country is haunted by its own failures. The Promise is an epic South African drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of history, sure…
Three took me back to the intense friendships of my youth, the sharing of so many firsts. Friendships you believe will last forever. Translated from French, it’s a wonderful study of three children, all very lost in their own way.
Set from the 1990s to 2018, the novel chronicles the development and decay of the children’s friendship, and a mystery that haunts their small village for twenty years.
I enjoyed the creeping tension, the gradual revelations, and the deep study of friendship with all its wounds and warts.
From the international bestselling author of Fresh Water for Flowers, a beautifully told and suspenseful story about the ties that bind us and the choices that make us who we are.
1986: Adrien, Etienne and Nina are 10 years old when they meet at school and quickly become inseparable. They promise each other they will one day leave their provincial backwater, move to Paris, and never part.
2017: A car is dragged up from the bottom of the lake, a body inside. Virginie, a local journalist with an enigmatic past reports on the case while…
England, 1919: Rose and Ivy board a ship bound for Australia. One is travelling there to marry a man she has never met. One is destined never to arrive.
Australia, 2016: Amongst her late-grandmother's possessions, Molly uncovers a photograph of two girls dressed in First World War nurses' uniforms, labelled 'Rose and Ivy 1917', and a letter from her grandmother, asking her to find out what happened to her own mother, Rose, who disappeared in the 1960s.
Compelled to carry out her grandmother's last wish, Molly embarks on a journey to England to unravel the mystery of the two girls whose photograph promised they'd be 'together forever'.
