The Eighth Wonder by Tania Farrelly Book Review

Publication Date: July 2, 2021
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Format: Paperback
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

New York, 1897. The richest city in the world.

Beautiful, young and privileged, Rose Kingsbury Smith is expected to play by the strict rules of social etiquette, to forfeit all career aspirations and to marry a man of good means. But she has a quietly rebellious streak and is determined to make her own mark on Manhattan’s growing skyline. When the theft of a precious heirloom plunges her family into financial ruin, Rose becomes her family’s most tradeable asset. She finds herself fighting for her independence and

BOOK REVIEW/BLOG TOUR: Beyond the Moon by Catherine Taylor

Publication Date: June 25, 2019
The Cameo Press Ltd
eBook & Paperback; 496 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Time Travel

Synopsis

Outlander meets Birdsong is this haunting debut timeslip novel, where a strange twist of fate connects a British soldier fighting in the First World War and a young woman living in modern-day England a century later.

In 1916 1st Lieutenant Robert Lovett is a patient at Coldbrook Hall military hospital in Sussex, England.

BOOK REVIEW: Finding Eliza by Heather Whitford Roche

Synopsis

Everything Knill thought he knew was false. Now he must search for where he belongs...

1921. Central Victoria.

Knill McMillan’s life is perfectly ordinary: a country upbringing, caring parents, cousins who are his best mates. He is a young man with the world before him.

But he’s always had the sense he doesn’t quite fit in, doesn’t quite belong. And then one night he is brutally beaten. As he lies bleeding on the ground his attacker calls him something that he is unable to get out of his

BOOK REVIEW: Georgiana Darcy: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Alice Isakova

Alice Isakova's debut novel is a very entertaining sequel featuring Georgiana Darcy and her cousin Anne de Bourgh, two minor characters from Pride and Prejudice.

Synopsis

With her temptingly large dowry, the beautiful and talented Georgiana Darcy catches the eye of numerous suitors, not all of whom wish to marry purely for love. As Georgiana navigates the treacherous waters of courtship, her story becomes intertwined with that of Anne de Bourgh, her wealthy but painfully awkward cousin, who stirs up trouble

Book Review: Remember, Remember the 6th of November by Tony Morgan

Tony Morgan's debut novel retells the events that took place 412 years ago, at the beginning of November 1605, when English Catholics, Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes and their co-conspirators planned to blow up England's Houses of Parliament along with the King, James I, who was also James VI of Scotland.

History records that their plans were thwarted and James I reigned for another 20 years, but what if there had been a different outcome?

I don't read novels with alternate endings to what actually happened in history, but I was intrigued by the title of this one. Why remember the 6th of

Book Review: Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

Lucy Treloar’s debut novel is a wonderful exploration of colonial life, set in the ruggedly beautiful coastal region of the Coorong, South Australia, which encompasses the traditional lands of the Ngarrindjeri people.

In 1874, from her home in Chichester, England, Hester Finch’s memories of her years spent on the Coorong are evoked by the arrival of letters and an old tin trunk from Australia. The items inside the trunk take her back to when she was fifteen: to March 1855 when her father, Stanton Finch, due to several failed business ventures, removes his large family from Adelaide to the isolation of Salt Creek Station.

Book Review: The Bishop's Girl by Rebecca Burns

The Bishop's Girl is Rebecca Burns' debut novel and is one of the best historical mysteries I've read this year.

Bishop Anthony Shacklock was killed in France during World War I and buried in the graveyard of a church near the field hospital where he ministered to the injured and dying soldiers. At the end of 1919 when the Bishop’s body is exhumed for re-burial in England, a skeleton wrapped in a canvas bag is found on top of the coffin. The bones are that of a female and DNA tests on a finger bone reveal a familial link to the Bishop. Other than that there are no other clues as to who she was or how she came to be buried in the same grave.

Book Review: Wild Island by Jennifer Livett

Wild Island, influenced by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, asks the reader to forget the outcome of Jane Eyre and to imagine another ending where Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester didn't marry, and his wife, Bertha, is still alive ...

Harriet Adair, a widow, artist and nurse, is accompanying Anna Rochester (Bertha), Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester to Tasmania (or Van Diemen’s Land as it was known at the time the novel is set) in search of a lost relative.

The decline of Edward Rochester’s health part way into the voyage results in his and Jane Eyre’s transfer

Book Review: Amy Snow by Tracy Rees

Lonely eight year old Aurelia Vennaway finds an abandoned baby girl in the snow and takes her home to Hatville Court. She aptly names the baby Amy Snow and dissuades her parents from sending the baby to an orphanage.

Amy's life is not easy in the Vennaway household.  She is brought up by the servants, treated cruelly by Aurelia's mother and with indifference by Aurelia's father. Her only champion and protector is Aurelia, who contrary to her parents' wishes, nurtures Amy and later changes Amy's role in the household from servant to companion.

When Aurelia dies young, 17 year old Amy is no longer welcome at Hatville Court. The day after Aurelia's funeral, grieving and uncertain about her future, Amy departs the only home she has ever known, but she has not been totally abandoned for Aurelia has left Amy a series of letters. These letters contain instructions and puzzles to be solved, hinting at a discovery of a secret should Amy complete this unusual quest

The story, set in the middle of the 19th century, is told from Amy's perspective and weaves memories of her life with Aurelia with her present situation. Deciphering the clues in Aurelia's letters takes Amy on a journey around England where she experiences many aspects of life for the first time including what it would be like to be part of a warm and loving family.  At times self-doubt threatens to derail the quest, but such is Amy's trust in Aurelia that she carries on, gaining confidence, finding self-worth and eventually happiness.

Amy and Aurelia are two wonderful characters. I warmed to them both immediately. Aurelia, despite her cold and aristocratic parents, has a loving nature. This, combined with a strong will and the fact that she is independently wealthy, allows her to mentor Amy and provide the love and companionship that would otherwise be missing from her life. Amy in turn adores Aurelia and both are drawn closer by the secrets they share.

I loved this debut novel from Tracy Rees. I was hooked from the very first page. It is a treasure hunt with a difference and even though I guessed the outcome of Amy's quest, this did not diminish my enjoyment in any way. Amy Snow is 551 pages of absolute delight. A very quick read given its length and a story that will leave you uplifted and wanting more from this author. I am looking forward to Tracy Rees' next novel, Florence Grace, due out in June, 2016.

Debut Novel: The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader

Imagine my excitement this morning when I opened an email from Harper Collins Australia to discover a debut novel from an Australian author. The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader won the Varuna LitLink NSW Byron Bay Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2010 and has been released in February this year by various publishers, Harper Collins Australia included. It will be released in the USA and France in May. Currently available from Australian booksellers as an ebook or paperback.

Set in the twelfth century, The Anchoress tells the story of Sarah, only seventeen when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a small cell, measuring seven paces by nine, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth and the pressure to marry, she decides to renounce the world, with all its dangers, desires and temptations, and to commit herself to a life of prayer and service to God. But as she slowly begins to understand, even the thick, unforgiving walls of her cell cannot keep the outside world away, and it is soon clear that Sarah's body and soul are still in great danger......

 'Robyn Cadwallader does the real work of historical fiction, creating a detailed, sensuous and richly imagined shard of the past. She has successfully placed her narrator, the anchoress, in that tantalizing, precarious, delicate realm: convincingly of her own distant era, yet emotionally engaging and vividly present to us in our own.' Geraldine Brooks

'An intense, atmospheric and very assured debut, this is one of the most eagerly anticipated novels of the year ...This one will will appeal to readers who loved Hannah Kent's bestselling Burial Rites.' Caroline Baum

The simplicity of the cover masks the complexity of the theme. This book is definitely one for my reading pile and will be an excellent read for the Australian Women Writers 2015 Reading Challenge. My copy of The Anchoress has been ordered and hopefully is now on its way to my mail box. What a great start to a Thursday morning!