JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Silent Listener by Lyn Yeowart

Propelling the reader back and forth between the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s, The Silent Listener is an unforgettable literary suspense novel set in the dark, gothic heart of rural Australia.

In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell . . .

Yet, decades later, she returns to the family’s farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her ‘perfect’ sister Ruth is also there, whispering dark words, urging revenge.

Then the day after their father finally confesses to a despicable crime, Joy finds him dead – with a belt pulled tight around his neck . . .

For Senior Constable Alex Shepherd, investigating George’s murder revives memories of an unsolved case still haunting him since that strange summer of 1960: the disappearance of nine-year-old Wendy Boscombe.

As seemingly impossible facts surface about the Hendersons – from the past and the present – Shepherd suspects that Joy is pulling him into an intricate web of lies and that Wendy’s disappearance is the key to the bizarre truth.

Set in rural Australia, Lyn Yeowart’s psychological thriller The Silent Listener follows the decades-long saga of the Henderson family, and the daily domestic abuse at the hands of Joy’s father George. Switching between the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s, the story is mainly told from Joy’s point of view, although in the earlier setting we do get a small glimpse into Gwen Henderson, before and shortly after she marries George.

Anxiety and fear bubbles beneath the surface of every chapter. The domestic abuse runs heavy through this tale, and at times is both descriptive and hard to swallow. Like many men in society, George is incredibly violent behind closed doors but to the outside world he’s a pillar of the community. After he’s murdered, neighbours and community members express deep sympathy to Joy for her father’s passing, and his funeral is expected to receive a massive turnout. Joy wishes everyone knew the truth about her father.

“I can’t believe he’s confessed. Just like that. I want to shake him, but I’m scared it will kill him, that his body will disintegrate into millions of fragments of dry skin and bone. And I’m not going to let him die that easily.”

I like to think all narrators are somewhat unreliable, but Joy is next level. Her memory of certain events is hazy, and her inner monologue portrays her as a calculating and intelligent, but unhinged. Her father’s violence breaks her as a child, and decades later, she’s still traumatised by what happened. She’s spent most of her life trying to find her brother, who fled the family when she was a teenager.

The chaotic structure of the novel and the surprise twist about her sister Ruth adds another layer to Joy’s unreliability. Just how much of what Joy describes is happening? How much can we trust her?

“Walking down the aisle wearing a borrowed wedding dress, Gwen thought about how quickly the two months had gone by since her first dance with George. But everyone got married quickly these days, at least in Willshire, thanks to the wars and the Depression. Everything was precarious, except marriage, which was forever. Especially, she thought, marriage to George Henderson.”

The Silent Listener captures a secluded setting. The Henderson farm is far enough from neighbours that no one can hear the children scream, and George chooses his friends wisely. Joy suspects people knew about the abuse, but chose not to do anything about it out of loyalty to George.

Lyn also captures the dense, isolated setting of rural Australia with ease. Her description evokes instant imagination in the reader. We can see the dilapidated houses, and the sparse farmland. The dam and its eels, and the danger of snakes. The method of burning rubbish, and the horrid smell that resulted. The one florist in town, and the long, sometimes hot journey into town for supplies once a week. Gwen really couldn’t leave George, even before she had children. She was trapped and George knew it.

“She wondered if the Felicities would go to Hell too, because as Joy knew all too well, it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it was for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, no matter how hard they prayed or how much they thanked the Lord for their wonderful food.”

Lyn’s prose is swift and brutal, her sentences flowing seamlessly. This is a somewhat long read at 460 pages, but with more than one mystery to solve, there’s plenty to keep the reader hooked.

Visceral, gripping and seductive, crime thriller The Silent Listener is highly recommended. For fans of Jane Harper and Chris Hammer.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Silent Listener
Lyn Yeowart
February 2021
Penguin Random House Book Publishers

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.

Darcy Phillips:
Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes – for a fee.
Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
Really cannot stand the new Australian jock at school, Alexander Brougham.
Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
Does not appreciate being blackmailed.

But when Brougham catches Darcy in the act of collecting letters from locker 89 – out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service – that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.

Darcy has good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she’s not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.

Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could possibly go wrong?

Sophie Gonzales’ Perfect on Paper is her second contemporary YA novel, once again set in the halls of high school and exploring sexuality, friendship, family and budding romance. Earlier this year I read Only Mostly Devastated. and loved it, so I’ve been excited to read this next one from Sophie.

The concept is enticing — Darcy runs an anonymous advice service for fellow students, and she’s very good at it. But when her secret is discovered, she teams up with an unlikely classmate to help him win back his ex-girlfriend. Young readers will devour this one.

“I sent back a text to Brooke. What I wanted to say was abso-fucking-lutely she could come over, as soon as possible, and in fact, she could also move in, and marry me, and mother my children while she was at it, but my extensive study in relationships had taught me wild obsession wasn’t cute.”

Perfect on Paper features bi-sexual representation, and issues around queerness and identity. The chemistry between Darcy and Brougham is evident from the beginning, setting up a really sweet love story between two unlikely allies.

As with her last book, Sophie’s strength lies in her first person narration. We get an immediate and all-encompassing sense of who Darcy is based on her voice and her narration. She’s flawed, yes, and she makes poor choices when she’s blinded by love, but her heart is in the right place even when her mind isn’t. Over the course of the novel, Darcy comes to understand the importance of being honest and owning up to past mistakes. The fallout may be damaging, but in the long run, it’s best for everyone.

Sophie captures that ache you felt as a teenager when the person you loved didn’t feel the same way — even adult readers will be able to relate to Darcy in this way. I think, deep down, Darcy knows Brooke doesn’t like her in that way, and it’s devastating. Darcy is so good at advising others on how to pursue their interests, but she can’t follow her own advice. She struggles to work up the courage to communicate with Brooke about how she’s feeling.

“He held eye contact with me, and I felt like maybe I should be waving, or something? But what if Finn noticed, and asked how we knew each other? And then what if Brougham told him, and Finn told literally everyone he’d ever met, and then my whole life fell apart?”

Darcy’s inner turmoil and emotional pain about not being ‘queer enough’ felt a little underdeveloped in the plot, and subsequently its resolution at the end of the novel felt a little rushed.

Additionally, some of the conversations in the novel ran a little long, and the banter a little dragged out. Whilst conversations felt relatable and authentic, some of them could’ve used some trimming to make scenes more succinct.

“As usual, getting a message from Brooke made me feel like the law of gravity had declined to apply to me for a beat. She was obviously thinking about me instead of doing her homework. How often did her mind wander to me when she started daydreaming? Did it wander to anyone else, or was I special?”

Tender and charming, Perfect on Paper is suitable for teenage readers. 12+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Perfect on Paper
Sophie Gonzales
March 2021
Hachette Book Publishers

New Animal by Ella Baxter

It’s not easy getting close to people. Amelia’s meeting a lot of men but once she gets the sex she wants from them, that’s it for her; she can’t connect further. A terrible thing happened to Daniel last year and it’s stuck inside Amelia ever since, making her stuck too.

Maybe being a cosmetician at her family’s mortuary business isn’t the best job for a young woman. It’s not helping her social life. She loves her job, but she’s not great at much else. Especially emotion.

And then something happens to her mum and suddenly Amelia’s got too many feelings and the only thing that makes any sense to her is running away.

It takes the intervention of her two fathers and some hilariously wrong encounters with other broken people in a struggling Tasmanian BDSM club to help her accept the truth she has been hiding from. And in a final, cataclysmic scene, we learn along with Amelia that you need to feel another person’s weight before you can feel your own.

Ella Baxter’s debut novel New Animal explores sex, family, death and grief. Our protagonist — Amelia — is using sex to mask emotional pain. Not quite ready to process the suicide of a friend one year earlier, her chaotic life is disrupted even further when her mother unexpectedly passes.

New Animal certainly feels unique, a compact read sitting at just over 200 pages. It almost feels like a slightly extended short story, delicately weaving through Amelia’s life with intimacy and ease. The reader feels like some sort of passenger along a journey, intimate enough that we quickly grow to love Amelia, but at times so closely following this life that we find ourselves feeling a little claustrophobic — in a good way — when Amelia’s experiments with sex escalate.

Trigger warning around suicide and also BDSM. There is one particular scene in a Tasmanian BDSM club that took me quite some time to process.

“Once, I told a man what I needed from him and he recoiled, appalled. He said that I was basically using people, crushing them between my pincers. He tapped his thumb and forefinger together to demonstrate.”

Ella’s biggest strength is how easily and expertly she writes in first person. The prose is eloquent, as if pored over for hours. But we also get such fascinating insight into Amelia’s state of mind — her pain. Amelia’s observations about others are insightful and imaginative, but the prose is also lean and brief, allowing for a succinct and quick-moving plot.

Another admirable aspect to the book is the family dynamic, and Ella’s ability to capture Amelia’s family with an authentic sense of warmth. Despite Amelia’s struggles, she’s got a really beautiful family who all come together in a crisis. Their voices are very different, and Amelia’s relationship with both of her fathers adds layers to the family make-up.

“People can sometimes act boldly around the bereaved. They can quickly take care to an unfathomable level. It’s part of the horror of it all really. One person rolls out of your life and half-a-dozen others roll right in. I’ve seen people turn up to funerals ready to harass Judy for extra biscuits or seat cushions. In it for the long haul.”

I think there was room to further explore Amelia’s relationship with her family, in particular her fathers. Her siblings in particular are absent for most of the novel, and I think there was more that could’ve been explored with their presence in Amelia’s life.

Interestingly, a lot of messaging around this novel positions it as ‘funny’, which isn’t how I would describe this. I found the story moving and tender, at times situationally awkward. It’s heartbreaking, yes. But I wouldn’t call this a laugh-out-loud comedy.

“Most nights I find myself trying to combine with someone else to become this two-headed thing with flailing limbs, chomping teeth, and tangled hair. This new animal. I am medicated by another body. Drunk on warm skin. Dumbly high on the damp friction between them and me.”

Original and engrossing in style and characterisation, recommended for readers of literary fiction. Ella offers incredible insight into humanity and its multitude of emotions. Readership skews female, 25+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

New Animal
Ella Baxter
March 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

Cuckoo’s Flight by Wendy Orr

When Clio’s town in Bronze Age Crete is threatened by seafaring raiders, she faces the greatest sacrifice of all. Can Clio, her herd of horses and a new young friend find a way to change their destinies?

When a raiders’ ship appears off the coast, the goddess demands an unthinkable price to save the town – and Clio’s grandmother creates a sacred statue to save Clio’s life.

But Clio is torn between the demands of guarding the statue and caring for her beloved horses. Disabled in an accident, she must try to put aside her own grief at no longer being able to ride – and in the process, save a friend’s life and stop a war.

Cuckoo’s Flight is Wendy Orr’s third middle grade novel set in the Bronze-Age Mediterranean, following on from Dragonfly Song and Swallow’s Dance. Whilst this is the third novel set in this time period, and there is some overlap in characters and history, you don’t need to read the other two novels to be able to read Cuckoo’s Flight.

The setting is one of the strengths of this novel, as well as the seamless transition between prose and poetry that readers will recognise from Wendy’s other works.

Wendy captures the era with accuracy and thorough research. Immediately, you’re swept up in Clio’s saga. She’s tenacious, resilient and strong, brave and confident. She doesn’t conform to what the community expects of her, and looks for alternate solutions. She’s self-driven, but she’s also a great teacher of others. She doesn’t let her disability — a stiff, twisted leg from when she fell off a horse as a young girl — stop her.

“Clio can’t imagine life without her grandmother. She knows that only the gods live forever and that all other living creatures — birds, beasts and people, dragonflies and dolphins — will return to the Great Mother one day.”

Wendy’s Bronze Age trilogy are all female-centric, with young female characters as the protagonists. They are all disadvantaged in some way. Perhaps they’re physically disadvantaged, or they’re an outcast in society. Perhaps they’re poor. Wendy crafts her protagonists so that readers can watch them rise above what others expect of them. Young readers will feel reassured that bravery and courage will always save the day.

Whilst this may appear to be an adventure series, a rollercoaster of a journey for all the characters involved, there’s a lot of heart and depth to these novels. They’re multi-layered and offer insightful characterisation — all readers will find something to love within these books.

“The gully at the river’s bend
carved from the steep bank
washes silt to the water
trapping the pebbles from the creek above —
gravel and silt forming a ledge
across the river, nearly to the other shore.”

Admittedly this story takes a bit longer to engage with the characters than the previous two works. I felt like the opening started in the wrong place. We’re thrust into Clio’s life a little too chaotically, and it does take a few chapters for the reader to settle into the story. Additionally, the pacing in the novel is quite fast so we don’t have a lot of time to really sit with the characters. Cuckoo’s Flight is very much a plot-driven novel.

“On her wooden stage in the dim light of the courtyard, with the east mountain looming darker behind her, the Lady begins to sing. Slowly, slowly, she calls the sun up from behind the mountain into the pale sky. Blinding the audience, streaking the sky with pink and gold, the miracle of sunrise happens again.”

Imaginative and enticing historical fiction, Cuckoo’s Flight and its two predecessors will engage any young reader.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Cuckoo’s Flight
Wendy Orr
March 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

City of Vengeance by D.V Bishop

Florence. Winter, 1536. A prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home, a death with wide implications in a city powered by immense wealth.

Cesare Aldo, a former soldier and now an officer of the Renaissance city’s most feared criminal court, is given four days to solve the murder: catch the killer before the feast of Epiphany – or suffer the consequences.

During his investigations Aldo uncovers a plot to overthrow the volatile ruler of Florence, Alessandro de’ Medici. If the Duke falls, it will endanger the whole city. But a rival officer of the court is determined to expose details about Aldo’s private life that could lead to his ruin. Can Aldo stop the conspiracy before anyone else dies, or will his own secrets destroy him first?

Debut historical thriller City of Vengeance by D.V Bishop takes us to Renaissance Florence, 1536. Cesare Aldo is tasked with solving two murders — moneylender Levi, who was stabbed to death in his home, and cross-dresser Corsini, who was bashed to death after dark. The novel also explores the unrest in Florence, and the traitorous plan to overthrow Alessandro de’ Medici by his own cousin. Whilst fiction, this book is inspired by true events, which are detailed in the Author’s Note at the end.

Readers needn’t love historical fiction to enjoy City of Vengeance — you must merely enjoy crime and thriller stories. At its core, this is a book about two murders, and a lead detective trying to uncover the truth. Whilst the setting may feel vastly different, this novel follows a similar format to most police procedural tales.

“It took Strocchi hours to find a true address for Corsini. The Otto’s records revealed several arrests of him in recent months: petty theft, pickpocketing and indecent acts. But the accused gave a different address each time, forcing Strocchi to eliminate them all.”

D.V Bishop does well to paint the setting. I’m somewhat familiar with the Medici reign and felt like the author captured the atmosphere of the time — societal behaviour and attitudes— rather well. It’s clear that years of research went into writing this book, a lot of source material and perhaps reference books as well.

City of Vengeance explores political intrigue, betrayal, familial obligation and keeping secrets. Each major character has been crafted uniquely, their personalities differing significantly. We have more than one villain, and plenty of red herrings along the way to throw us off the scent of the murderer/s. Aldo in particular is a well-developed character. He is in charge of uncovering secrets, but at the same time, he’s hiding some secrets of his own.

“Aldo went to the door. It stood ajar but there was no splintering to the wood, and no damage to the bolt. That suggested Levi had let his attacker in — a debtor, maybe, or a rival? Or had it been someone closer to home? Killings in Florence were not infrequent and were usually personal, fuelled by family, love, hate or greed.”

Despite the book only taking place over a few days, the pacing slows in the middle and suddenly the novel feels very long. Four hundred pages wasn’t necessary for the scope of this story, and I’ll admit I groaned a little when I found out this was the first book in a planned series. Please, make the sequel more succinct!

Admittedly, the other gripe I had with the story were the similarity in names. Perhaps unavoidable when writing a story based on true events, but we had Cesare, Corsini, Cosimo and Cerchi. It took me about one hundred pages to tell them apart whenever they appeared in a scene together — some names starting with another letter would’ve been welcome.

“Levi had been anxious on the road back from Bologna, but not defeated. If what Dante said was true, something must have happened after Levi’s return to Florence.”

Energetic and intense, with enough intrigue to keep you reading. Recommended for readers of fantasy and medieval history.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

City of Vengeance
D.V Bishop
February 2021
Pan Macmillan Book Publishers