An award-winner, an ethical dilemma and a memoir walk into a bar…
Here we go, another bundle of book reviews as I plow through my stash of reviews from last year’s reading.
The Road to Freedom by Gabrielle Davis
This was my first foray into YA fantasy since (I think 🤔) I was a YA myself (aka right before lockdowns) and oh my, what a foray! Here’s a quick blurb:
Trained as a spy since childhood, Issanka uses her powers over light and sound in service of the higher castes. A caste-less urchin herself, Issanka knows she must be careful never to get too involved in citizen business. But when the newly crowned King sends an army to tour the country, Issanka no longer has a choice. The journey will take her to a city of wealth and mystery, where the line between castes is no longer clear, and where Issanka must step out of the shadows if she is to survive.
Here’s my take: the world building leaves me positively gaping like something that gapes a lot (see, not a world builder) and the plot was gripping and fast-paced. I’m a sucker for a #strongfemaleprotagonist and Issanka brings the goods. Congrats Gabrielle on a fantastic (literally!) read.
The Mix up by Kylie Ladd
This book made me skip Park Run to finish it and I had absolutely zero regrets. What a cracker of a premise executed so masterfully in a page-turner that kept me up until the early hours. Long story short: an IVF mixup is discovered after 14 years where two couples have been raising children that biologically aren’t their own. What would you do? Would you want to know? Would you want to know the other family, the other child? I have no answers, which is kind of the point, although Ammy I think I’d trade in a heartbeat… I jest. Do I? Anyhoo, go read, insist your friends read it then book a dinner to chat it out.
Five Seasons in Seoul by Christine Newell
… a bridge ‘lit up the sky with a thousand coloured lights, which bounced off a midnight sea, across the velvet water and into the twinkling stars.’
How’s that for a banger of a line? This is from Five Seasons in Seoul, a memoir where armchair travel is just one sliver of this incredible story of grief, resilience, growth and presence by my fellow #DebutCrew25 member. Christine thought a year in South Korea would hit the pause button on her messy life. Her dad’s death had left her anxious and depressed, and her career in musical theatre had reached a new low of shopping-centre kids’ shows. When she found herself pulled over by the side of the road, dressed as a dinosaur and sobbing uncontrollably, it was clear something had to change.
A role with an experimental theatre company based in Seoul seemed the perfect way to put off dealing with her problems, at least for a year. But she soon found there’s no running away from yourself. Travelling through South Korea, immersing herself in its culture and shifting her mindset along with the seasons, Christine discovered that sometimes the place you go to escape your life can hold the answers for how to heal it.
Here’s my take: Christine writes with such … compassion is the best word I can come up with. It’s evocative, the descriptions are almost visceral (the love hotel scene had me snort laughing on the train) and this feels like a love letter to Seoul, family (found and biological) and most importantly to self.
The Woman in the Waves by Camille Booker
This incredible, evocative, deliciously creepy novel by my Hawkeye Publishing stablemate won a slew of awards, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s 1921 in Widow’s Peak, a gloomy fishing village on the south coast of New South Wales. Nineteen-year-old Missy Green fills her days helping her fisherman father on his trawler, and spending time with her grandfather, the town’s reclusive lighthouse keeper. It’s a dreary existence. Everything in her sea salt-soaked life is upended, though, when she glimpses something in the water – a mermaid ominously staring at her.
My take: I could’t put it down until I reached the end, which had me gasping. Camille weaves words so beautifully, and the plotting, characterisation, pacing and structure of this was so, so good that poor Camille received message after message from me as I was reading, including ‘you had me at fungating wound.’
The Season by Helen Garner
Confession: Helen could write a shopping list and I’ll not only read it, I’ll wax lyrical about it. It’s footy season in Melbourne, and Helen Garner is following her grandson’s under-16s team. She not only goes to every game (give or take), but to every training session too, shivering on the sidelines at dusk, fascinated by the spectacle.
She’s a passionate Western Bulldogs fan (with an imperfect grasp of the rules) who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.
My take: this was sublime. I downloaded it as an audiobook for a long drive, then bought the hardcopy to sit alongside my Helen shrine, which has everything from The Children’s Bach and True Stories through to The Spare Room, and now this. So good I could weep. Ugh.
The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey
Another banger from a fellow #Debutcrew25 member that had me asking did anyone feel like running off with me in decent hiking gear to check out a lighthouse on a creepy island? On a small island off the coast of Scotland, an isolated community is grieving. Eighteen-year-old Alan Ferguson was found at the foot of the lighthouse – an apparent suicide. DIs Georgina Lennox and Richard Stewart are sent to investigate. A raging storm keeps them trapped on the island for five days. And the locals don’t take kindly to mainlanders.
Here’s my take: creepy island notwithstanding, I really enjoyed this banger of a debut with incredible world building that made this remote Scottish Island with its secrets and myths feel so real I googled it. This is a mystery and thriller that feels relevant and authentic, and the hostile locals (including an interfering priest that’s everywhere at once) along with the atmospheric details create a setting that’s filled with suspense and creepiness. The twists and turns of the plot kept me guessing and I loved the connection between the detectives that felt respectful.
And there we have it – six books that floated my boat. I hope you find a read here that you might like, and let me know what you think!