Austria in WWII: ‘The Secret Society of Salzburg’ by Renee Ryan
This historical fiction book opens with the arrest by the Gestapo of acclaimed and loved Austrian opera singer Elsa Mayer-Braun, on a stage in Salzburg in 1943. So, an early heads up of what one of the two main characters has to deal with.
From here the narrative weaves back and forth in time, and also across the English Channel, from the Continent to London, where we meet the other protagonist Hattie, who works in a dull civil service office, but longs to paint.
An unlikely pair of women to put together, but that is what the author does, as a chance meeting develops into a deep friendship between the two. Hattie travels to Austria with her sister to see Elsa perform and the sisters become stalwart fans of Elsa and her operas.
But of course war is coming and once their nations are at war, everything changes – except the women’s determination to carry out the secretive work of smuggling Jews out of Austria to England. Both Elsa and Hattie will not stop these life-saving rescue missions, despite the ever-increasing danger involved.
While Hattie’s artistic career takes off and Elsa travels Europe to perform – including singing for some high ranking Nazi officers – their secret missions ramp up.
As the tension mounts the reader is left guessing: is Elsa’s husband a threat or an ally? Who is the art dealer who supports Hattie’s artistic success and may just be falling in love with her? Will Elsa’s deep secrets be kept hidden or discovered by the Nazi heirarchy?
I loved that this story was inspired by real-life English sisters, civil servants who learned of the persecution of Jews through a freindship with an Austrian conductor and his wife. In my view, the best kind of historical fiction is that which touches on real people or events.
The Secret Society of Salzburg gives an insight into the experiences of Austrians in the lead-up and the early years of the war and Nazi occupation. It’s an engrossing story, well told.
The Secret Society of Salzburg was published in November 2023 by HarperCollins. My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
Re-peopling history: ‘Dirrayawadha – Rise Up’ by Anita Heiss
I read this book with a sorrowful heart, knowing that the resolution could not be a positive one, even with the strong threads of family, love and strength that are twined throughout.
Historical fiction, it is based on the early conflicts between the Wiradjuri people of the central west of NSW with colonial settlers. These became known as the ‘Bathurst wars’ but were part of a wider, escalating series of violent encounters and retributions that today are more accurately referred to as the ‘Australian wars.’ Yes, folks, Australia has indeed had armed warfare on its soil.
The novel tells the story of Windradyne, a Wiradyuri leader, who refuses to submit to the ‘white ghosts’ who are attempting to take over his country and force his people into subjection. Windradyne is a real figure from history, a freedom fighter, though of course at the time the colonial authorities and many settlers regarded him more as a terrorist.
Along with Windradyne we meet his sister, Miinaa, who is living with some of her family at the property of the Nugents, Irish settlers who arrived free to the colony and have taken up land to farm. Of course the Nugents are part of the colonial mission and therefore part of the problem. However, they are kind people and have some sympathy for the Wiradjuri, and treat their employees, assigned convicts, and Wiradjuri, fairly.
Miinaa misses her extended family and their way of life, as she watches her world rapidly changing, almost beyond recognition. And as the violence surrounding her increases, she worries for her brother and the rest of her family.
Into the picture steps Dan, an Irish political prisoner transported to NSW as a convict. Dan can see the similarities between the British subjugation of the Irish, and the situation faced by the Wiradjuri. As Dan and Miinaa fall in love, he starts to understand more of the Wiradjuri world view, their cultural and spiritual practices and how Country is at the centre of it all. He is not alone but definitely in the minority among his fellow convicts and most white people, in his empathy with the Wiradjuri.
The outcome of this novel is not a happy one. How could it be, knowing how real history played out – and how First Nations people across Australia continue to suffer from generations of inherited trauma and dispossession?
There are some moments of hope and happiness, though. The strong bonds that unite and support Wiradjuri as they face an existential threat. The ability of some characters to reach across the racial divide and find things that connect them with each other.
As I often do, I checked out the historical facts that this story is inspired by, and was heartened to learn that the Nugents were based on a real family who did indeed employ (and shelter) Wiradjuri people, and maintained strong friendships with them across several generations. And Windradyne did not meet his death at the hands of the ‘white ghosts.’
The one aspect of the novel that jarred a little for me was the language used by characters, Wiradjuri and white, especially that of Dan. In his attempts to get his fellow-convicts and local settlers to understand the shared injustices faced by Wiradjuri and Irish, his dialogue includes many terms and expressions that I doubt would have been used by a young man at that time, such as ‘civil liberties’ and ‘plight of the dispossessed.’ Perhaps a well-educated Irish political activist may have done so, but I’m not sure about a man such as Dan.
However, the author uses these for a reason – to put the concepts into a modern-day perspective. In doing so, she blurs the boundaries of historical context a little, but makes the ideas and themes in the novel more accessible to many readers.
One of the many things I enjoyed about the book is the liberal use of Wiradjuri words and phrases throughout. This is a noticeable trend in books by First Nations authors and I love it! There is an extensive glossary provided but after reading through it, I found that simply immersing myself in the story and encountering repeated uses of words allowed me to absorb the meanings without feeling like I was taking part in a language lesson.
Use of Wiradjuri language also allows readers to glimpse some of the important concepts for Wiradjuri people, both in the past and today. It is no coincidence, for example, that the words I ‘learnt’ from reading this book included ones for children, Country, respect, family.
Dirrayawadha – Rise Up is gripping, troubling, and insightful and I recommend it to all who want to understand more about Australia’s colonial past. One of blurb comments about Heiss’ historical fiction is that she is ‘re-peopling history’ and I think that is accurate. Books like this bring to life real events in our nation’s past that most would have only a vague idea of, at best. I guarantee you will never visit Bathurst (one of my favourite country towns) in quite the same way after reading it.
Dirrayawadha – Rise Up was published by Simon & Schuster in July 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for a copy to review.Historical richness: ‘Threadbare’ by Jane Loeb Rubin
I reviewed US author Jane Loeb Rubin’s debut novel In the Hands of Women last year. Her second novel has been released recently and is actually a prequel to the first, as it tells the story of the experiences of refugees and immigrants in New York in the late 1800’s.
Once again there is a treasure trove of historical riches in this book. The main character is Tillie, a girl whose aspirations to attend high school are cut short by the tragic death of her mother from breast cancer. Tillie is left in charge of helping her father run their farm in Harlem, on what was then the northern outskirts of the city. She also keeps house and looks after her younger siblings, including Hannah, who is the main character featured in In the Hands of Women. In this new novel we get a fuller understanding of the tough circumstances in which Hannah’s life began, and the sacrifices made by her older sister.
Tillie marries at sixteen and fortunately – for it’s a match arranged in part by the local Rabbi – it is a mostly happy one. However her new husband brings her to live in the tenements of New York’s lower east side, notorious for their terrible squalor and poverty. The plan is to stay here only temporarily until they can save enough to move to a better area.
Tillie’s refuge is the local Jewish centre with its lending library, where she begins teaching English to the many people from Europe crowding into the city.
She helps her husband with his business selling buttons to the burgeoning clothing trade in the city, and becomes fascinated by fashions and the beautiful clothing she sees, but can never afford. During this time the family experience the trauma of the infectious diseases that run rampant through the poorly ventilated apartment buildings, and the death of an infant.
As an aside, I looked on Google maps to get an idea of the areas being described in the book. I was pleased to note that in the district where Tillie and Abe first live, there is now a museum dedicated to telling the stories of the many immigrant communities who lived here from the nineteenth century. The link to the Tenement Museum is here, if you are interested. If I ever get to New York City, it will be on my ‘to do’ list for sure.
As Abe’s business grows they move to a newer apartment and things begin to look up for the family. With her best friend Sadie, Tillie starts a business, making kits for poorer women to be able to sew their own clothes, using patterns rather like the ones my own mother used to buy, to sew for herself and her family.
I always love learning the ‘back story’ of a place, a company or industry, and Threadbare provides so much of the history of ‘Gilded Age’ New York – which was anything but gilded for its poorer citizens, especially women. Contraceptive devices and abortions were illegal then and made life so much harder for poor women and their families – something that Tillie herself experiences. There is also the scourge of diseases such as tuberculosis and women’s cancers, at a time when germ theory was a relatively new idea and surgical and other medical treatments still far from those we would recognise today.
Especially vivid in Threadbare is the way in which women in business were ignored, patronised, or ridiculed. Tillie’s husband must accompany her to meetings with potential business partners even though the ideas being pitched were hers and Sadie’s.
As in the best historical fiction, Threadbare offers opportunities to learn about the past while enjoying an engrossing story about believable and sympathetic characters. The ups and downs of Tillie’s life had me cheering her on, metaphorically speaking, and hoping that the many obstacles lined up against her could disappear. They don’t, of course, but in the process of her dealing with them we see what determination and courage look like.
As always with such stories, I drew particular pleasure from the fact that Tillie is inspired by the author’s real-life great-grandmother, Mathilde, who had arrived with her family from Germany in the 1860s. I can’t think of a better way to honour an ancestor than by writing a book inspired by their life!
Threadbare is published in 2024 by Level Best Books.
‘Women & Children’ by Tony Birch
Australian First nations author Tony Birch’s 2023 novel Women & Children was shortlisted for the 2024 Australian Book Industry Awards – Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
Set in the mid 1960’s it concerns a young boy, Joe Cluny, whose main preoccupation is his tendency to court trouble with the nuns at his Catholic school. He lives in a working class suburb with his single mum and older sister. They are a tight-knit family with the usual money problems and squabbles of families in his neighbourhood.
When his mum’s sister Oona appears at their door, Joe’s world view has to adjust to a new reality – that of violence perpetrated on women by the men in their lives, and the way doors slam when they seek help.
Joe comes to understand that there are many types of men, including Oona’s violent boyfriend and his own, mostly absent, father. There is the priest who won’t help Oona. But there is also his grandfather Charlie, and Charlie’s friend Ranji, both of whom offer a kind of companionable time-out from the troubles and mysteries of the adult world.
As Joe tries to understand the complexities of his society and the way that secrets can damage, he has to leave part of his childhood behind.
This reads like a very personal sort of novel, which the author acknowledges in his note at the end:
Women & Children is a work of fiction. It is not the story of my own family, but a story motivated by our family’s refusal to accept silence as an option in our lives.
Women & Children loc 208 of 210 (eBook)One of the novel’s strengths is its spare use of language and the way it conjures young Joe’s world, largely seen through his eyes.
Another is the bond and strength of the female characters: Joe’s mum Marion, Oona, and his sister Ruby, all demonstrate a particular quality of spirit, hints that they will survive, perhaps even thrive, despite the obstacles lined up against them.
Children who have the kinds of troubling experiences that Joe has had, need allies. Charlie and Ranji are good examples of how adults can provide alternative experiences so crucial for kids to understand that violence does not have to be part of relationships.
This novel tells a simple story that is both very old and completely current. I wish it didn’t feel so timely, but it deals with a theme that, sadly, seems to be ever present. Uncovering the silences and secrets around violence and what it does to people is an essential step to stopping it.
Women & Children was published by UQP in 2023.
What price beauty? ‘The Beauties’ by Lauren Chater
The ‘beauties’ in the title of this new historical fiction by Australian author Lauren Chater, were elegant women of the court of Charles II of England. Chosen by the Duchess of York for their looks, grace and, of course, position in the pecking order of Restoration-era nobility, the ‘Windsor Beauties’ portraits adorned palace walls and now hang in Hampton Court.
Several characters’ stories weave across each other in this narrative.
Emilia is a young wife whose husband’s lands and title have been stripped from the family due to her brother-in-law choosing the ‘wrong’ side to support during the English Civil Wars. Seeking the King’s favour in order to have the family’s position reinstated, she comes to the uncomfortable realisation that the surest way is to use her beauty – by striking a bargain with the King himself, agreeing to become his mistress in return for his forgiveness for her husband’s family.
First, though, her portrait will be painted to join the other Windsor Beauties.
Henry is the ambitious artist who sees this commission as a way to a secure future and favour from the royal family.
In the process of painting Emilia’s portrait, Henry realises that the road to fame is not straightforward, especially as his elusive and troubled sitter tries to delay the completion of his project for as long as she possibly can.
Anne is a young lady-in-waiting to the Princess Anne, the King’s niece (and later Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch.) She experiences the rivalry, malicious gossip and betrayal that is the royal court. She, too, has her portrait painted – in different circumstances and with very different results than Emilia – and it changes the trajectory of her life.
The Beauties encompasses many of the tumultuous events of mid-seventeenth century England: the Civil Wars that tore communities and families apart; the frippery and indulgence of Charles II and his court; the reinvigoration of London’s theatre scene after the oppression of the Republic and Puritans; the constraints of the roles assigned to women; the devastation and ugliness of the dreaded plague that tore mercilessly through homes and towns.
Towards the end of the novel, Anne expresses one of its strongest themes, when she muses:
I was a duchess now, not a frightened lady-in-waiting. Not a girl, waiting for her life to begin. What if I could do that for others? Help them find their power, the courage to go on? I thought about the women I knew – mothers, sisters, daughters, mistresses, wives. Did they know how strong they were, that those roles, assigned by society, failed to define them? Did they ever see themselves in all their wonderful complexity? Did anyone ever hold up a mirror to show them how well they were doing, how far they’d come, how much they’d grown?…Why shouldn’t women see themselves as they truly were – strong, powerful, intelligent? Instead of gazing outwards, I wanted them to look within, identifying the unique skills and accomplishments that would allow them to endure the trials every woman must face.
The Beauties eBook loc 350 of 384The Beauties is published by Simon & Schuster in April 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advanced reading copy to review.
Did you know that in Victorian times, the fear of grave-robbers disturbing the final resting place of a loved one led to a brisk sale in ‘mortsafes’, an iron frame anchored over graves to secure them? And that there was an equally brisk, and to modern eyes very disturbing, trade in the bones and other body parts of non-Europeans, smuggled about the globe and ending up in private collections, museums and scientific institutions?
These are some of the snippets I learned by reading Black Silk and Sympathy.
I love Deborah Challinor’s historical fiction for this reason. She weaves into her stories fascinating insights about the places and periods in which her novels are set – in this case, London and Sydney in the 1860’s. Specifically, it is the world of Victorian undertakers: not usually a topic for a novel, especially one with a female protagonist, but all the more reason to enjoy it.
Tatiana at seventeen has been recently orphaned and makes a decision to leave London – and England – and try her luck in the colony of New South Wales. She is offered work as an undertaker’s assistant by Titus Crowe. It’s an unusual offer, but Crowe is an astute businessman and recognises the attraction of a ‘woman’s touch’ to grieving clients. Echoes of today’s women-operated funeral businesses, I suppose, but truly ground breaking in Victorian-era Sydney.
When Titus dies, Tatty is determined to keep running the business on her own terms. Not unheard of, but unusual for the time, especially in the competitive world of the funeral industry.
Unfortunately for Tatty, the competition is even fiercer than she’d thought, and one rival in particular will stop at nothing to limit her success.
Being a businesswoman in this town, and particularly in your industry, will not be without its challenges. And you will be the only female undertaker in Sydney. To my knowledge there are seven other local undertaking firms apart from yours, all chasing the same profit to be made from funerals. Be prepared.
Black Silk and Sympathy p167She is a formidable adversary though, and through quick thinking and a willingness to take risks, Tatty and her business endure.
Previous books I’d read by this author include the Convict Girls series, and it took me a while to realise that several characters, who felt vaguely familiar, were from those novels, albeit several decades on. It’s always nice to meet old friends from earlier books again.
The author’s background as an historian and researcher show in her impeccable details of the period, including fascinating insights into Victorian mourning customs and funeral practices, and the restrictions on women owning anything of their own once they married. The laws of the time certainly stacked the odds against women having anything like independence; yet there were women like Tatty who did not let that stand in their way. Thankfully we can now read stories about such women and the circumstances in which they lived.
Tatty is a heroine to relate to and I hope to meet her again in the next book of the series.
Black Silk and Sympathy is published by HarperCollins Publishers in April 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.Legacy of war: ‘Hungry Ghosts’ by CJ Barker
English-born Australian writer CJ Barker has created a novel that delivers profound truths about war and about the ways in which trauma’s effects on lives and relationships can endure.
The protagonists are working class Vic and Ruth, whose experiences in WWII inform their relationships and life trajectories for ever.
First we meet Vic’s father Frank, a veteran of the first World War, described as a quiet reserved man who keeps to himself. He deals with the unwelcome memories of his war years by turning to alcohol and work. Young Vic witnesses his father’s drunken episodes and times when ‘volcanos of rage’ rip through the house. Then Frank deserts his family to wander the countryside, a vagabond. He leaves a gift for his son – an old camera rescued from a rubbish heap. That camera is to become a salvation of sorts, but it also adds to Vic’s later grief and despair.
After his mother is killed in a bombing raid, Vic goes to live with his aunt Amelia, an unorthodox, modern woman who introduces him to photography as an art form. When war starts he joins the RAAF and hopes to be a pilot; instead he becomes a bomb aimer: a role that requires him to lie flat in the nose of the plane, directing the pilot to the target, then release the bombs at the right moment. On each mission, the crew expect to die.
Meanwhile, Ruth grows up in a poor neighbourhood in East London. She dreams of getting an education and a proper job that would allow her entry to the bigger world that beckons. But the best her world offers is a shorthand course and a secretarial job.
Then the war begins and she endures the Blitz along with her neighbours, crowded into air raid shelters at night. She volunteers for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force where her clerical skills are put to use. She has ambitions beyond what’s expected for women at the time – she aims for work interpreting arial photographs taken by Allied reconnaissance planes, roles mainly given to university educated women, as are officer positions.
The inequalities and unfairness of their society are painfully apparent to both Vic and Ruth, even as they serve their country and what they believe is the greater good.
At RAF Medmenham base in Buckinghamshire she and Vic meet. Their attraction to each other outlasts the war and while they must endure their own wartime tragedies separately, they eventually marry on VE Day. Their child, James, is born and Ruth must give up her job and become a full-time wife and mother, something she’d never planned.
It isn’t long before the lasting effects of the war begin to impact on the little family. Vic has found work as a professional photographer and his career is promising. But his inner torment and lingering mental and spiritual injuries find expression in the same way he’d seen with his father – alcoholism. Vic becomes a distant father, often cruel, and little James grows up under the shadow of two generations of war-induced suffering.
So a third generation enters a world dominated by conflict.
James begins study at Cambridge University – an opportunity denied his parents, but he questions its relevance in the face of the protests, drug use, anti-war sentiment and counter-culture of the sixties and early seventies. His father is lost to him – not even widespread praise for Vic’s stark photographs of the conflict in Vietnam can convince James that his father is anything but a useless, cowardly waste of a life.
There is a resolution – imperfect as these often are, but one which allows us to feel more hopeful for James’s future.
The settings and characters of the story are beautifully realised; the details of wartime in Britain conjure the darkness of that time, the reality that whether civilian or military, you could die at any moment. The hope that some held for a better world afterward:
For him, England, or at least East Anglia, had become a giant aircraft carrier littered with runways and rubble. He was familiar with the Nissen huts and landing strips of his base. He was intimate with the night sky over Germany and the tracer bullets that sped towards him like a stream of malicious fireflies. His homeland, though, felt like another country, alien to his memories, like a long-lost relative with whom he hoped to be reunited, only to find that they had grown apart during the missing years. And yet this ashen graveyard – this England – this was the place where he hoped that justice would spout like crocuses in spring.
Hungry Ghosts p99 /30% (ebook)Hungry Ghosts is a beautiful, engrossing novel about all the hurts that humans can inflict on each other; and also about resilience and vulnerability:
Over and over, a question arose in his mind, like a bad dream, or a Zen riddle: after we have seen the horror, how do we go on?
Hungry Ghosts p227/67% (ebook)You can read a guest post by the author on the blog Whispering Stories, in which he discusses the genesis of the book and describes it as a ‘letter of understanding and forgiveness to my (now deceased) parents.’
Hungry Ghosts is published by The Book Guild in March 2024.
My thanks to the author for a review copy.Art + History + Crime = ‘The Engraver’s Secret’ by Lisa Medved
This first novel by Australian author Lisa Medved shines with historical detail and the beauty of the artworks which are the main subject of the plotlines – two plotlines, as it is a dual timeline novel.
The modern-day story features art historian Charlotte, recently arrived in Antwerp in Belgium. Recovering from the death of her beloved mother, Charlotte has just landed her dream job at the university, and hopes to do more research on her artistic hero, Rubens, while in the city where he created so many of his famous works in the seventeenth century.
She is also nursing a secret: an unwelcome last minute disclosure by her mother about the identity of her father – a man she had been led to believe was ‘no good’ and long dead.
While at the university, she discovers a clue that could lead to a ground-breaking discovery about Ruben’s work, and his relationship with the eponymous engraver who worked in his studio for many years.
This is where the second timeline comes in. It’s the story of Antonia, a teenaged girl living in Antwerp in the 1620’s, the daughter of the engraver, Lucas Vosterman. Raised by her father to pursue academic and artistic interests, she later finds that the options available to a young woman are much more limited. And like Charlotte, Antonia is the recipient of an unwelcome admission by her father – a secret that she must carry to her grave.
As Charlotte sets off on a quest to find the centuries-old clues that could establish her career as an art historian, she experiences the serious consequences of the competition and professional jealousy amongst her colleagues at the university.
Meanwhile, as Antonia deals with her own heartbreak and the barriers to leading a fulfilled life as an independent woman, she must struggle with the consequences of her father’s behaviour:
I owed him my gratitude and loyalty, yet something inside me – my ingrained stubbornness, whispers of doubt, a yearning for independence – stopped me from fully submitting to his will. How can I remain loyal to my family and stay true to myself?
The Engraver’s Secret p 371Underlying both stories is the relationship between the two protagonists and their fathers, and the constraints imposed by the times and places in which they live.
I loved the mysteries at the heart of the novel; the wonderful detail provided of seventeenth century life and culture in (what was then) the Spanish Hapsburg Empire; the descriptions of the beautiful artworks and their creators. The author has a background in both art and history and her knowledge and love of these subjects inform the book in a natural and accessible way. As always I enjoyed reading about places and historical periods that I know relatively little about; it always makes me want to know more.
But most of all I enjoyed the very human dilemmas of the two women and the relationships at the heart of their stories.
The author’s next book will be set in Vienna and feature the artist Gustav Klimt. I can’t wait to read that one!
You can find out more about Lisa Medved and her work here.
The Engraver’s Secret is published by HarperCollins Australia in April 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.Different worlds: ‘The Sea Captain’s Wife’ by Jackie French
Possibly one of Jackie French’s more unusual historical fiction creations, The Sea Captain’s Wife takes us into a vivid world of her own imagination, informed by folklore and research.
The protagonist is Mair, a young woman who lives on a remote fictional island. It is 1870. Her tiny community is made up almost entirely of women, after a tsunami hit a nearby island, sweeping away many of the men who’d gone there to collect bird’s eggs. It’s a matriarchal society where women make the decisions. They wait for those men who’d survived The Wave to return from sailing ventures, or search the beaches in case a shipwreck washes a man onto their shore.
‘Wait’ and ‘search’ are perhaps misleading verbs here. These are not passive women, pining for a man, or immobilized by grief. They build gardens on the poor rocky soil of their volcanic island, birth babies and raise children, fish, prepare meals and create beautiful, functional garments. It’s essentially a subsistence life, where what they grow and produce is supplemented by occasional visits from a ship with goods to trade. They are busy and, largely, content.
They wait for, or seek out husbands for companionship, support, procreation. Potential husbands must be approved by the council of women. The community has their own way of dealing with any man who poses a threat to their way of life or to the peace and safety of the island. There are strong expectations and rules; however the individuals who live here enjoy freedoms only dreamt about by most women in western society at the time.
They named their island ‘Big Henry Island’ after the active volcano that rumbles beneath them, throwing out black boulders and sulphur-laden fumes. Islanders have lived with Big Henry for two centuries and know its moods. But they are mostly unaware of the danger it poses.
Into this world arrives Michael, a ship’s captain washed onto the beach. Mair takes him to her cottage and nurses him back to health, during which time he learns a little of the customs and ways of living. He can barely comprehend the enormous differences between the world of colonial-era Sydney, and the seemingly free and easy lifestyle on Big Henry, especially for women. However he admires Mair’s intelligence, kindness and skills. Admiration turns to love and when the next ship arrives, Michael takes Mair back to live in Sydney.
Here is where the different worlds of Michael and Mair collide. She is shocked and bewildered by the restrictions on women, in a society where wives are expected to be helpmeets to their husbands, and have little in the way of individual freedom or agency.
Michael tries to understand, but he is preoccupied by the challenge to find a ship laden with gold that he discovered on the voyage which ended in him washed up on Big Henry Island. His upbringing leads him to believe that once Mair experiences his wealthy family’s life in Sydney, she will be happy there:
But all across the world women left their childhood homes to follow their husbands. It might not be the island way, but it was the natural order of things, and surely Mair would find it so once she had the luxuries and comforts that awaited her in Australia, with three women to make her feel she had family and a home there. The most important criterion for a sea captain’s wife was a woman who was used to waiting in a household of women for her husband’s ship to sail to harbour.
The Sea Captain’s Wife, p83There are several mysteries that wind through the narrative: the ‘ghost ship’ that haunts Michael’s dreams, and a series of accidents and deaths that take place within his family. Does the gold ship really exist? Were the accidents really mishaps or something more sinister? The conclusion brings these to a satisfying end.
But the novel has deeper themes. It asks questions about humans’ lack of perception of danger – all too relevant in today’s world, threatened by climate change and conflict. And it asks readers to reflect on our own lives. What makes a worthy life? What responsibilities do we have for others?
As always Jackie French has brought her setting to life, creating not one, but two very believable worlds.
Readers who enjoy her historical fiction will not be disappointed in The Sea Captain’s Wife, which is published by HarperCollins in March 2024.My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
2024 Challenges
Once again I am signing up to reading challenges for the coming year, as a way to add to my reading diet and explore new areas of knowledge and understanding.
In 2024, I will take part in these challenges:
- Non Fiction Reading Challenge
My goal is to become a ‘Non Fiction Nibbler’, reading 6 books from any 6 of the 12 categories (details about the challenge, hosted by Book’d Out, here) - Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Of course! I’m aiming for the ‘Mediaeval’ level of 15 books.
This one is hosted by the Intrepid Reader. Sign up and find out more here. - Books by First Nations authors
This one is my own personal challenge, not an official one. I’m aiming for 6 books by Australian (or other) First Nations authors. - Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge
Hosted by Carol’s Notebook (check out the blog here)
This is a new one for me; I’m having a go for fun, as I do enjoy a good crime/mystery read.
The challenge also includes thriller/suspense/true crime books.
I’m aiming to become an ‘Amateur Sleuth’ by reading between 5 – 15 books in these genres.
So, that’s my reading sorted. Oh, and add the book group choices already programmed for the year, plus ones I review for publishers…I’ll be behind a book somewhere if you need me.
Have you joined a reading challenge or reading group, and if so, did it help you to expand your reading repertoire?- Non Fiction Reading Challenge