JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Elizabeth and Elizabeth by Sue Williams

‘I’ve waited for this moment so long, dreamed of it, prepared for it, I can barely believe it’s finally here. But it is. And it is nothing like I expected.’

There was a short time in Australia’s European history when two women wielded extraordinary power and influence behind the scenes of the fledgling colony.

One was Elizabeth Macquarie, the wife of the new governor Lachlan Macquarie, nudging him towards social reform and magnificent buildings and town planning. The other was Elizabeth Macarthur, credited with creating Australia’s wool industry and married to John Macarthur, a dangerous enemy of the establishment.

These women came from strikingly different backgrounds with husbands who held sharply conflicting views. They should have been bitter foes.

Sue Williams’ Elizabeth and Elizabeth is a rich, heartfelt historical fiction debut, exploring early colonial Australian history and the story of two women who forge a strong bond amidst unlikely circumstances. Together, they wield incredible power and are pivotal in the development of Australia.

It’s quite refreshing to read historical fiction that doesn’t centre around a budding romance — a rare find! Instead, Elizabeth and Elizabeth is about a budding friendship, and the support that each characters provides the other within this male-dominated environment.

This novel puts women front and centre during a time when females generally didn’t have much say. Sue establishes a strong, multi-layered characterisation in each of these women — Betsey is hopeful, eager, and perhaps a little naive. Elizabeth is older and wiser, has lived in Australia for longer, and possesses a slightly judgemental and skeptic attitude, which does adapt and change over the course of the novel.

“It would be one last adventure for us both, I told him, an experience we could share and an exciting chance to help shape a part of the world we were hearing so much about. It would be a fine legacy for him, a fitting finale to his long career of service to his country and a great opportunity for me to see something of the world.”

Another strength in the novel is setting and location. Capturing Australia in the early 1800s requires vivid description, and an understanding of the political landscape of the time. Sue brings authenticity to the novel, making it clear how much research has gone into this work — how much time and dedication. I’ll admit some of the political dealings and international relations went over my head, but I appreciate the necessity of these elements in the novel, and how Sue seamlessly wove them in with intrigue.

“Ironically, given the number of times Lachlan urged me to be patient when we arrived, it’s now my turn to worry that Lachlan might be moving too far in relation to the emancipation of convicts, and it’s me who’s warning him to slow down so we don’t make too many enemies.”

Admittedly, I did feel like there wasn’t enough tension in the novel, and challenges felt thin and skimmed over. Because Sue was covering such a large amount of time within the confines of one novel, she did move through the plot quite quickly. As a result, any struggles the women faced, such as miscarriages or home invasions, happened too quickly to really dwell on.

Truthfully, I never really felt worried for either of the women. They both come from incredible privilege and so for the majority of the novel, tensions just didn’t really seem that heightened. Elizabeth’s husband is a bit of a sore point but he’s gone for majority of the novel. For Betsey, her most impressive act of courage doesn’t really happen until the end of the novel, when she’s working so hard to have her husband’s report published. I felt there was scope to expand on that, but instead the months are skimmed over and so I never really felt concerned for her plight.

“She’s a similar age to me, maybe just a few years younger, and she’s plucky, too. Apparently, when the mutineers appeared at Government House to depose her father, she tried to fight them off with her parasol! I would have loved to have seen that.”

Recommended for readers of historical fiction.

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

Elizabeth & Elizabeth
Sue Williams
January 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

He is her husband. She is his captive.
Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name.

She lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields. Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows how she got to the UK: no one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come to the farm; if they do, she is never seen.

Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn’t like what he sees, she is punished.

For a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed. She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching him, and waiting …

The perfect thriller to devour this Summer, Will Dean’s The Last Thing to Burn follows a kidnapped woman and her desperate plea to save herself, her baby, and her captor’s latest victim. The novel charges forward at a roaring pace, exploring the evils of human trafficking.

Set in rural United Kingdom on an isolated pig-farm, the novel clocks in at just under 250 pages and is hard to put down once you’ve started. Will Dean does a masterful job of keeping tension bubbling under the surface, filling the reader with dread. Like the main character, a trafficked Vietnamese woman, we can sense how much control her ‘husband’ has over her, the danger she’s in.

The mental image of her mangled, broken angle and how it sits at 90 degrees will haunt me for some time. This injury is enough to know why she’s still there — why she can’t run. It’s enough to realise the danger her captor poses, the damage he could still do. I found myself pulling my feet close to me whenever I was reading, my anxiety growing.

“I want more pills to dull my life, but then I’ll never get out of this place and he’ll do whatever he wants. Whenever he wants. It’s a horrific balance. Numb enough to carry on but not too numb that I lose control.”

At the beginning of the novel, we come to understand that with each indiscretion that the main character commits, she has to choose one personal item to be destroyed. When we meet her in chapter one, attempting to escape her prison, she does not have many personal items left. She is down to the final few cherished items, and departing with any of them strips her of her identity, forcing her into a depressive state.

Dialogue is lean in the book, which I’m sure is a deliberate structural technique. Without too much dialogue, Will is able to establish this incredibly tense, moody setting — claustrophobic — and we’re forced to deduce elements of this woman’s story without her explicitly telling us. And for her captor, the less he says, the more terrifying he is because you don’t know what he’s thinking.

“I drink a sip of water and try to stand. My ankle has the colour and ripeness of some long-forgotten soft fruit. It feels less cohesive than usual after my walk yesterday, my failed not even halfway walk. It feels like it might crumble and fall apart if I put any weight on it.”

Written in first person, hope keeps the reader enthralled in the story. But there’s admittedly so little of it throughout the novel. She’s alone and rescue is not coming — her ‘husband’ makes sure of that. She’s secluded and it’s been so long since she’s seen family, she’s been brainwashed into thinking her actions may have consequences for her sister, who is apparently working off her debt in Manchester.

Spoiler: I wish there was more time explored on the outside of the house — the epilogue skimmed over what would’ve been a really tense escape away from the burning house and I felt a little cheated we didn’t get to experience some of that.

“And I’ll reread the letters in three weeks’ time when I get to sleep in my own room again, not mine, his, but my air, at least when he’s not barging in to watch me undress for bed or watch me sleep or watch me brush my hair with his mother’s brush.”

Recommended for readers of thriller and mystery. Room by Emma Donoghue is a good comparison title, although The Last Thing to Burn is far more violent.

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

The Last Thing to Burn
Will Dean
January 2021
Hachette Book Publishers

A Lovely and Terrible Thing by Chris Womersley

Around you the world is swirling. You pass through a submerged town, its steeples and trees barely visible through the thick water . . .

In the distance the wreck of the gunship HMS Elizabeth lolls on a sandbank. Oil slicks the canals of the capital and even now the old men still tell tales of mermen in the shallows . . .

A pool empty of water save for a brackish puddle and bones and hanks of fur on the floor – the remains of mice or possums that have tumbled in, lured perhaps by the moisture. Or perhaps by something else . . .

Chris Womersley’s A Lovely and Terrible Thing is a memorable collection of twenty short stories, each as vivid and original as the next.

It’s hard to try and capture a concurrent theme in this work, or even a message that runs within each story. They’re all very different. Whilst most of the short stories are written in first person, the protagonists of each story are all unique creations. Some you sympathise with, or grow to love. Others you forget about the second the story is over, because they’re not the most memorable aspect of the story — and weren’t intended to be.

Each story has the potential to linger in your mind, leave you thinking. And the beauty of a short story collection is not every story will resonate with every reader. Everything is open to interpretation.

“I’m watching Frank and something happens to him as he tells his story. Right in front of my eyes he seems to age. He sags in his seat. Earlier you could see the guy he might have been twenty years ago, before whatever happened to him happened, but now he resembles an old bunyip with a comb-over.”
THE VERY EDGE OF THINGS

My favourites from the collection include The House of Special Purpose, for it’s ominous, tense plot and the sense of dread that builds throughout; Growing Pain, for it’s fantastical, other-worldly feel, and how it follows a character at the cusp of her teen years, a seemingly domestic setting, but she’s going through something a reader cannot relate to; The Mare’s Nest, for the secrets it doesn’t reveal; The Deep End, for the build up, the tension, and the jaw-dropping, incredibly juicy ending; and Theories of Relativity, for establishing familial dynamic in so few words, for circling back to earlier moments in such little time, and for that haunting ending that I had to re-read just to believe it was real.

“After several minutes I became aware — by what precise means I couldn’t say — that we were being observed. There was a twitch in the bushes, followed by an intimation of snuffling. Again the sound of small bells. My father breathed heavily. His hand was warm and dry.”
THE MARE’S NEST

Traversing a number of different emotions from heartache to heartfelt, Chris’ short stories explore death, family, friendship, and expectation, among many other subjects — where our lives ended up, versus where we thought they were, how we process grief and explain that to others, how close we come to death, or perhaps others brush it, and we find ourselves fascinated by it. You could spend a long time dissecting these stories and still find things to love about Chris’ writing. What a marvellous, wise collection of work — highly recommended.

“In the short walk across the lawn I had run through a variety of scenarios, all of which involved me emerging victorious from whatever altercation I was about to engage in, but now I was here, in the thick of it, my resolve ran from me like water.”
THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

Recommended for readers of short stories, or lovers of literary fiction. A quick read, and engrossing. Can easily be devoured in one sitting. A Lovely and Terrible Thing is filled with unpredictable characters and stories, and will leave you craving more.

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

A Lovely and Terrible Thing
Chris Womersley
May 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Tell Me Lies by J.P Pomare

Psychologist Margot Scott has a picture-perfect life: a nice house in the suburbs, a husband, two children and a successful career.

On a warm spring morning Margot approaches one of her clients on a busy train platform. He is looking down at his phone, with his duffel bag in hand as the train approaches. That’s when she slams into his back and he falls in front of the train.

Margot’s clients all lie to her, but one lie cost her family and freedom.

J.P Pomare’s Tell Me Lies is a fast-paced, high-intensity psychological thriller about a seemingly perfect psychologist, her shameful secret, and the client determined to ruin her life and expose her.

The story begins when someone deliberately sets fire to Margot’s house — what ensues is a series of deliberate attempts to unravel her life. The prose and dialogue is sleek and enticing, drawing the reader in with flawed characters, delectable mysteries and cloaked pasts, all bubbling to the surface.

The real strength of the story is plot, as it should be when writing in this genre. Readers will find themselves ripping through the chapters with eagerness, desperate to find out more. What is Margot hiding? What are her client’s hiding? With each new clue and twist in the story, the stakes rise higher and higher, threatening everything Margot has worked so hard to build.

“We’re all on the curb, one officer is talking to me, another is talking to Gabe. The children are nearby but they’ve separated us to gather statements. The window to my home office was smashed and fire fighters, I’m certain, will confirm the blaze started there. Someone threw something through the window and it set the house on fire.”

Tell Me Lies plays with structure to engage the reader. In the prologue, Margot approaches one of her clients on a Melbourne train station platform — we don’t know which client — where she deliberately pushes him onto the track, instantly killing him. Then, we’re thrust back one month to the start of the story.

Interwoven throughout the novel are media reports and interview transcripts between an unnamed prosecutor and Detective Simms, the man investigating the fire that destroyed Margot’s home. These structural elements are commonly found in thrillers and crime novels, but are a useful tactic. We’re able to find out important events within a short space of time, and interview transcripts allow us to get a glimpse into the future — we get a brief moment to try and uncover where our protagonist might end up.

“A knot appeared at his jaw, I could see a decision being made. Sparks of metal on metal behind his eyes as two opposing ideas clashed: he knew he couldn’t just wait it out, but he also knew he couldn’t risk me or anyone else getting hurt.”

Margot is an unstable character, that much is easy to spot from the outset. She’s intelligent and determined, but she’s also easily deceived. She thinks she’s sly — like sitting in a coffee shop for hours and thinking the barista won’t notice her — but she’s actually a little hopeless. She pesters the detective with her theories, to the point where she comes across as paranoid (even if her theories are right).

When she crosses ethical lines in her job, which happens a few times throughout the novel, she comes across as unlikeable, which I think might taint some readers’ opinions of her. She does get lost a little in the novel — we’re thrust into such a heavy plot, I never really felt like I grew to understand Margot. She felt a little underdeveloped for me, which made the twist at the end of the novel less impactful than perhaps intended.

“I’m engrossed, his story has taken me away from my own problems. Childhood trauma shapes so much of our adult biases; it forms the people we become. Cormac is reckless but brilliant. He’s resentful of wealth and the powers that be. I’m seeing a pattern emerging.”

Recommended for fans of crime, thriller and mystery novels. A great gift for a relative, that person in your family who rarely reads, but perhaps will read on holiday. A safe bet.

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

Tell Me Lies
J.P Pomare
December 2020
Hachette Book Publishers

The Charleston Scandal by Pamela Hart

London, 1920s: Kit Scott, a privileged young Australian aiming to become a star, arrives in the city to find the Jazz Age in full swing. Cast in a West End play opposite another young hopeful, Canadian Zeke Gardiner, she dances blithely into the heady lifestyle of English high society and the London theatre set, from Noel Coward to Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele.

When Kit is photographed dancing the Charleston alongside the Prince of Wales, she finds herself at the centre of a major scandal, sending the Palace into damage control and Kit to her aristocratic English relatives – and into the arms of the hedonistic Lord Henry Carleton. Amid the excesses of the Roaring Twenties, both Zeke and Kit are faced with temptations – and make choices that will alter the course of their lives forever.

Pamela Hart’s The Charleston Scandal is a step away from the heartfelt war novels that her readers will be familiar with, and is instead an immersive story set during the roaring 1920s London after the war has ended and women are beginning to realise they can hold a place in this world.

Be transported to the glorious 1920s, where status is everything and parties are prevalent. It’s not what you know, but who you know.

The Charleston Scandal features an interesting array of characters, evocatively capturing the setting with fashion, culture, status and connections. Kit’s journey not only illustrates life in the 1920s, but it also highlights the difficulty for women – and actresses – to find work at the time. They weren’t taken seriously, and it took a strong, determined woman to defy society’s expectations and maintain that career path.

“He was – rather surprisingly – dressed in the most conservative suit Kit had ever seen. No tan with brown shoes here. Not even light grey. This was a proper navy pinstripe, complete with black shoes and a regimental tie. Surely that couldn’t be right?”

Written in third person and switching perspectives between a couple of different characters, The Charleston Scandal puts women at the centre of the narrative, exploring their struggles and triumphs in a time where women were not seen as equal to men.

While Kit is a little insipid at times, perhaps a little too forgettable, she is determined and she grows confident over the course of the novel. By the end, she knows exactly who and what she wants in life and she won’t let anyone’s opinions of her change that.

Themes explored in the novel include alcoholism, domestic abuse, women’s rights, equality and determination for a career that’s more than just socialising.

“She sailed off feeling momentarily on top of the world, until she recalled Lady Bridlingham’s curl of the lip. No matter who her escort or how nice her frock, that curl said she didn’t belong there and she never would.”

Admittedly, there doesn’t feel like there is a lot of tension in this novel. It just feels like party after party after party, and then some theatre/acting scenes thrown in. After a while, the plot felt a bit same-same. Zeke and Kit’s friendship felt like it was on the backburner for too long in the novel, so by the time anything significant happens between them, it almost doesn’t feel substantial enough? I think romance readers might be disappointed with this novel.

Very small thing, but Hitler is name-dropped towards the end of the novel. The book is set during the 1920s and my understanding is that Hitler didn’t really rise to ‘fame’ or power until at least 1933. It felt a little bit jarring – perhaps premature – to mention him in this story.

“He had more than one. She lost track; she had given herself a three-drink limit at the start of the night, although getting anything other than champagne from the waiter was a herculean effort.”

For fans of historical fiction.

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

The Charleston Scandal
Pamela Hart
December 2020
Hachette Book Publishers