Book Review: Heart of the Cross by Emily Madden

Heart of the Cross

by

Emily Madden

From Ireland to Kings Cross, a legacy of loss and hope echoes across the generations ...

Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises Australia

Imprint: Mira-AU

Publication date: 19th August 2019 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 400

RRP: $29.99AUD  

Format read: Trade paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

  

Tinahely, Ireland, 1959 Rosie Hart is content leaving her home behind to follow her new husband to Australia. But she soon discovers there is no room for her or their young son in the life he has built in vibrant Kings Cross. As their marriage crumbles, Rosie will need to fight for the golden future her son deserves ... until the day her world is shattered and all hope turns to dust.

Eighteen years later, haunted by her past, Rosie is determined her daughter Maggie will follow the path she has set out for her. But when Maggie rejects her plans and moves out of home, all Rosie can hope is that she has also left behind the grief that plagues the Hart name.

Sydney, 2017 When her grandmother dies and leaves Brianna Hart a secret apartment in Kings Cross, Brie wonders what else Rosie was keeping from her. As Brie chases the truth of Rosie's past she uncovers an incredible story of passion, violence, love and tragedy.

 

Heart of the Cross is a heartfelt story of love, tragedy and loss told across three generations of Hart women. This multiple time line novel will have you cheering for these three strong women.

Rosie falls head over heels for Tom Fuller. When she falls pregnant Tom marries her and moves to Australia to set up a new life for them. When Rosie and their son move from Ireland to Australia to join him, Tom is a changed man and Rosie knows no-one.

The story follows Rosie as she makes a life for herself in Sydney’s Kings Cross whilst her husband spends his nights drinking and gambling. She has a hard loveless marriage however Rosie is vibrant and kind making friends with everyone around her. She is loved by this close community.

Maggie feels smothered by her over-controlling mother who monitors every aspect of her life. She moves out of home with best friend Sharon and they soon become embroiled in the bright lights of the Kings Cross night life.

Brianna is back in Sydney for her Grandma’s funeral only to find out her grandmother has sold the house. The more people she talks to the more she wonders if she really knew her grandmother at all. Secrets are uncovered and many more questions are left unanswered.

“Are you saying that secrets are a good thing? Secrets are just like telling lies.”

“All I’m saying is that if you dig, be prepared for the sting.”

Brought up by her grandmother Brie knew nothing of her mother and even who her father was. She now feels betrayed and hurt that Rosie kept all these secrets from her. She is determined to dig and reveal the truth and find out where she belongs.

Madden has written a heartbreakingly real story of Sydney in the early 1960’s and the struggle for married women with no rights. She includes themes of love, family, belonging, friendship and the kindness of strangers. The three women prove to be strong and resilient with Rosie becoming a legend in her time.

 

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My rating    5/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

book #32 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

 

 

Photo credit: Goodreads

I am a book nerd, coffee lover and love anything 80’s (except the fashion, okay, I admit – I like some of it).

My love of books started at a young age when I would often go shopping with my mum just so I could score yet another novel. Nothing has changed – I rarely leave a bookstore without a book.

I read anything and everything, but stories that touch the heart and uplift the soul are what I love the most.

I have an unnatural obsession with needing to be close to the ocean, but am terrified of deep water. 

 

Book Review: Wearing Paper Dresses by Anne Brinsden

Wearing Paper Dresses

by

Anne Brinsden

'A compelling story of country Australia with all

 its stigma, controversy and beauty.'

FLEUR McDONALD

Publisher: Macmillan Australia 

Publication date: 24th September 2019

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 384

RRP: $32.99 AUD

Format read: Trade paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria. Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don't impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises.

As their mother withdraws more and more into herself, her spirited, tearaway daughters, Marjorie and Ruby, wild as weeds, are left to raise themselves as best they can. Until tragedy strikes, and Marjorie flees to the city determined to leave her family behind. And there she stays, leading a very different life, until the boy she loves draws her back to the land she can't forget...

Wearing Paper Dresses is a beautifully written, heartbreaking story of mental illness and a family struggling to keep their head above water in the harsh Australian Mallee region.

The drought is in full force and son Bill is sent to the city to earn money to help support his parents back on the farm. He meets city girl Elise, refined and beautiful.

“Bill was from the Mallee, which meant he didn’t muck around either. He asked Elise to marry him – even though she was a non-catholic. And out of his league.”

They marry and have two children, Ruby and Marjorie. When Bill’s mother dies the family returns to the farm. Elise came from hats, gloves and pearls and tea in the Botanical Gardens to the dry, parched heat of the Mallee. Elise’s city ways never seem to fit in. The heat is oppressive and her French meringues are scorned. Ruby and Marjorie become as wild as the land around them.

Wearing Paper Dresses is captivating and immersive. It is not an easy read and does take some concentration but the reader is rewarded with a story that will capture your heart and leave you wondering if things could have turned out any differently.

The story follows Ruby and Marjorie as they grow up trying to protect their mother, always on alert for when the next bout of depression will hit. The girls are shunned at school and teased about their crazy mother.

In a place and time when men didn’t talk and feelings were kept inside the townsfolk offer Bill and Pa help in their own way.

Brinsden uses personification expansively and skilfully. Everything comes to life; the house, the trees, the weather. It’s a feast for the mind!

Wearing Paper Dresses is a story about life with all its harshness but from the depths of despair comes a glimmer of hope.

Anne Brinsden’s riveting debut has placed her firmly on the list of authors to watch out for.

 

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my rating  5/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

book #31 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

Photo credit: Pan Macmillan Aus

 As far back as Anne can remember she has loved stories. Mostly, she would read them. But if there were no stories to read, she would make up her own. She lives in the western suburbs of Melbourne now with a couple of nice humans, an unbalanced but mostly nice cat and a family of magpies. But she lived all of her childhood in the Mallee in northern Victoria before heading for the city and a career as a teacher. She received the 2017 Albury Write Around the Murray short story competition, judged and presented by Bruce Pascoe; and was highly commended in the 2018 Williamstown Literary Festival short story competition. Wearing Paper Dresses is her first novel.

 

Book Review: Khaki Town by Judy Nunn

Khaki Town

by

Judy Nunn

Khaki Town, Judy Nunn's stunning new novel, is inspired by a wartime true story which the Government kept secret for over seventy years.
 

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia 
Publication date: 1st October 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 382
Format read: Uncorrected proof paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Better Reading

It's March 1942. Singapore has fallen. Darwin has been bombed. Australia is on the brink of being invaded by the Imperial Japanese Forces. And Val Callahan, publican of The Brown's Hotel in Townsville, could not be happier as she contemplates the fortune she's making from lonely, thirsty soldiers.

Overnight the small Queensland city is transformed into the transport hub for 70,000 American and Australian soldiers destined for combat in the South Pacific. Barbed wire and gun emplacements cover the beaches. Historic buildings have been commandeered. And the dance halls are in full swing with jitterbug and jive.

The Australian troops, short on rations and equipment, begrudge the confident, well-fed 'Yanks' who have taken over their town (and women). And there's growing conflict, too, within the American ranks. Because black GIs are enjoying the absence of segregation and the white GIs do not like it.

Then one night a massive street fight leaves a black soldier lying dead in the street, and the situation explodes into violent confrontation.  

Judy Nunn knows how to write a great Aussie story filled with quintessential Australian characters.

Khaki Town, set in wartime Townsville, is a character driven story centred on the rumoured uprising of African American soldiers during their time in Australia helping to build airfields.

Nunn paints a vivid picture of the 1940’s. Val Callahan, one time prostitute, now owner of the local pub is beautiful, tough and astute. She watches over her two young barmaids, Betty and Jill, as if they were her own daughters. Baz Taylor the racketeer never misses an opportunity to line his pockets but he is always sure to stay on Val’s good side. Aunty Edie, an aboriginal elder, has had a tough life but she is proud and hard working. The young girls look up to her. The story follows all these characters as the soldiers invade their town.

The characters are sincere and believable and the main theme of racism rings true to the era and Nunn doesn’t soften the hate and racist talk. The story builds slowly on why the soldiers mutinied. Highlighting the effect the influx of American soldiers had on the residents of Townsville and on the Australian soldiers.

The attitude some people had to the African American soldiers is shocking but the treatment they received from their own white officers is horrifying.

Nunn has written a fictional account of the time but the main points ring true to documents that have been uncovered. This is a story that has been covered up by both the Australian and American governments far too long.

*The book contains offensive language that the author included to remain true to the era.

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My rating   4/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

book #30 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

Letter 'K' in the 2019 A-Z challenge

   

 

Photo credit: Goodreads

 

Judy Nunn's career has been long, illustrious and multifaceted. After combining her internationally successful acting career with scriptwriting for television and radio, Judy decided in the 80s to turn her hand to prose. The result was two adventure novels for children, EYE IN THE STORM and EYE IN THE CITY, which remain extremely popular, not only in Australia but in Europe. Embarking on adult fiction in the early 90s, Judy's three novels, THE GLITTER GAME, CENTRE STAGE and ARALUEN, set respectively in the worlds of television, theatre and film, became instant bestsellers. Her subsequent bestsellers, KAL, BENEATH THE SOUTHERN CROSS, TERRITORY, PACIFIC, HERITAGE and FLOODTIDE confirm her position as one of Australia’s leading popular novelists.