Thornwood House by Anna Romer

I originally reviewed this book on my blog last week. Whilst technically it is possibly not truly historical fiction, there is a strong historical thread running through it, and it does have many of the characteristics of the modern gothic that so many HF readers seem to enjoy!

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When Audrey Kepler's former partner, and father of her daughter Bronwyn, dies suddenly she is very surprised to find that he has left her a property in Queensland called Thornwood House.  It is where Tony grew up, but he never spoke about his childhood years in the house and he most certainly never spoke of his family.

When Audrey and Bronwyn travel from the home in Melbourne, it is purely with the intention of seeing the house so that they would be able to decide to sell the house and then continue with their lives in Melbourne.

It doesn't take long before they both feel the attraction of living in a big rambling Queenslander style home, and the decision is made that rather than sell the house, they would make the move permanent.

Audrey, in particular, is drawn to the history of the house and to the history of Tony's family, which isn't a happy one. At the end of WWII, Tony's grandfather Samuel was accused of murdering his grandmother, Aylish. They had been young lovers, who had been torn apart by war, by circumstance, and seemingly by other people's interferences. Ostracised by the town, Samuel lived a pretty solitary life but Audrey come to believe that maybe he had been treated badly.

That was not the only unfortunate death to hit Thornwood and the family, and soon Audrey finds herself searching for the truth of all of them. But can she find the truth without putting her life, or the life of her daughter, at risk.

The story unwinds through three time frames. The first, and most prominent, is the current day storyline of a young woman trying to make a new life for herself and her daughter, both of whom are working through the grieving process.

The second storyline is that of Samuel and Aylish, the doomed lovers, which plays out against the spectre of World War II and it's immediate aftermath. This story is predominantly told through a series of letters.

The third story comes from the 1980s and focuses on the tragedies that caused Tony to leave his home in the first place, and why he would never speak of his early life. This particular storyline is told mainly through the pages of a journal but also through the memories held by the people that were left behind, who are slowly becoming friends with Audrey and Bronwyn.

 I felt that the author made interesting choices with her secondary characters. Just when you thought that a character was one thing, they would turn out to have a back story that completely changed the way that you thought of them.

I also enjoyed the relationship that developed with Danny, the local vet, who also happens to be deaf. I completely understood why Audrey struggled with the idea of moving on even though she had been by herself for so long. I will probably freak out the first time I am kissed again because it has been so long for me. I should put a disclaimer on that to say if it ever happens really!

My only minor qualm with the book was in relation to the bad guy. I can't really go too much into detail without sharing fairly big spoilers, but I did find myself wondering about the motivation, and the physicality and whether the latter in particular would be possible, or more precisely, likely.

Before I read the book, I had seen it compared to other Australian authors like Kate Morton and Kimberley Freeman, and the comparison is relevant. There is that same gothicky feel that is so common to Morton's books, although I would tend to say that this might be a bit darker than some of Kate Morton's books and definitely darker than Kimberley Freeman's books. There is the dual story line, the connection to the past through various artifacts and a kind of spiritual link to the past so if you like any or all of those factors then this could be a book for you.. 

Where Romer really stands out is in her ability to describe the landscape without overwhelming the reader. For example, there is a section where one character is explaining carnivorous plants to  Bronwyn, and I found myself thinking that it shouldn't have been anywhere near as fascinating as it was!

This was an excellent debut novel and I will be looking forward to reading Anna Romer's next book with great interest.

Rating 4.5/5 

Synopsis

When Audrey Kepler inherits an abandoned homestead in rural Queensland, she jumps at the chance to escape her loveless existence in the city and make a fresh start. 

In a dusty back room of the old house, she discovers the crumbling photo of a handsome World War Two medic - Samuel Riordan, the homestead's former occupant - and soon finds herself becoming obsessed with him. 

But as Audrey digs deeper into Samuel's story, she discovers he was accused of bashing to death a young woman on his return from the war in 1946. When she learns about other unexplained deaths in recent years - one of them a young woman with injuries echoing those of the first victim - she begins to suspect that the killer is still very much alive. 

And now Audrey, thanks to her need to uncover the past, has provided him with good reason to want to kill again

Banquet of Lies by Michelle Diener

Giselle "Gigi" Barrington is quite an unusual young lady for her time. She travels around Europe as her father's companion, taking her to many places and meeting many people that she normally wouldn't meet. Whilst he collects fairy tales and folk stories, and acts as a British spy, she collects the recipes from the places they visit with the hope of eventually being able collate them into a book. Not only does she like to collect the recipes, she also likes to cook them herself - very unusual behaviour for a young lady of her class.

Whilst in Stockholm, Giselle's father is handed a very important document to take back to England that will change the course of history dramatically. When he is murdered for that document, Giselle knows that the killer will soon be after her too. She doesn't know who the murderer is, but she could identify him from a distance, but she knows that she needs to get away as it is very likely that he knows who she is. Where does a young woman who is alone go to hide in a foreign country though? Then again, the same problem faces her in England as well. She can't go to her family home, as that would be the most obvious place for the killer to look for her.

There is only one person that she can go to, which is her family friend Georges Bisset, a chef in the Duke of Whittaker's house. He is able to recommend her for a position as cook in the house of Lord Aldridge. No one would think of looking for a young lady in the kitchens of a nobleman's kitchen and this position has the added bonus of being quite close to her own home so Giselle can see if anything is happening there. Whilst whipping up fantastic dinners, Gigi gets a glimpse into the lives the servants live as well, battles against the butler who clearly dislikes her, find herself on the wrong side of the law and so much more. She knows that she is still a target for the assassin so she needs to work out who the person is who should have received the dangerous missive, get it to them and stay alive!

Lord Aldridge is a former soldier who gained a taste for continental food during his years serving his country. A younger son who inherited a title, Aldridge fills his day managing his estates, attending parliament and involving himself every now and again in some intrigue for his country. He can't quite understand why his cook has him all twisted up. His reaction to her is incredibly strong which is difficult for him as he is a fundamentally good man who has never engaged in trysts with his staff and he doesn't intend to start now. If only he could stay away from her.

Over the last 12 months or so I have been fortunate to read three of Michelle Diener's books and each one of them has been a delight! This book, which was recently released was the third, and once again I was treated to a fun story with good characters that is an easy book to read and get lost in. The reader is treated to a mix of romance, history, mystery and adventure that the author balances really well.

It is worth mentioning that the characters from The Emperor's Conspiracy do make an appearance in this book. I am a stickler for reading in order and as such get really upset if I don't know this kind of thing in advance. Having said that, you could easily read this book first without missing out on too much. Hopefully you would be intrigued enough to go back and read their story if you hadn't previously read it. I am already hoping that Michelle's next book will feature these same sets of characters. The Duke of Whittaker in particular seems to be an ideal candidate to have his story told, particularly if it means that he gets to meet an unusual woman to shake up his life.

I should mention the food too. Oh my goodness, the food in this book sounds so good! I was left salivating as Gigi served up course after course of delicious sounding food. On her website, Diener has shared a number of recipes that were mentioned in this book, and I have to say...I would be happy for her to come and cook for me anytime!

Rating 4/5

About the tour

Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/banquetofliestour
Twitter Hashtag: #BanquetOfLiesTour

Michelle Diener's website

Michelle Diener on Twitter

Michelle Diener on Facebook

About the book

A Secret Treaty and a Secret Life

LONDON, 1812: Giselle Barrington is living a double life, juggling the duties of chef with those of spy catcher. She must identify her father’s savage killer before the shadowy man finds her and uncovers the explosive political document her father entrusted to her safekeeping.

Posing as a French cook in the home of Lord Aldridge, Giselle is surrounded by unlikely allies and vicious enemies. In the streets where she once walked freely among polite society, she now hides in plain sight, learning the hard lessons of class distinction and negotiating the delicate balance between servant and master.

Lord Aldridge’s insatiable curiosity about his mysterious new chef blurs the line between civic duty and outright desire. Carefully watching Giselle’s every move, he undertakes a mission to figure out who she really is—and, in the process, plunges her straight into the heart of danger when her only hope for survival is to remain invisible.

Lighthouse Bay by Kimberley Freeman

Libby Slater is in mourning. Her lover of 12 years has died but she can't really openly mourn because she was the other woman, his mistress. Realising that she needed to make some changes to her life, she decides to return to the small town that she grew up in. Her lover, Mark Winterbourne, had bought a home in the town years before but Libby had always been reluctant to visit, mainly due to her fractured family relationships. Now there is just her sister left but after Libby left the small town 20 years before to live in France following a terrible tragedy and only minimal contact during that time, the two women barely have a relationship to speak of.

On returning to the small coastal town, Libby needs to establish a new life but she is also initially keen to hold onto her links with Mark, even if that means working closely with his widow on the new season's catalogue for Mark's family jewellery company. The company has been around for generations, and there is a mystery in the family's past. Back in the early 1900's Arthur Winterbourne travelled to Australia along with his wife Isabel. In his possession was a jewel encrusted mace which had been commissioned by Queen Victoria in honour of the federation of Australia as an independent country.

Isabel, like Libby, is in deep mourning, but in her case she is mourning the death of her baby after just a few days. In her very tight laced Victorian family she has not been allowed the respect of being able to openly mourn her little boy and she is now a very unhappily married woman. When the ship that Isabel and her domineering husband are travelling on sinks, it is believe that all on board are lost but after many searches over the years, there has never been any sign of the mace.

When Libby is given access to the diaries of the lighthouse keeper at the time, she begins to read them and starts to find references to a mysterious woman. Could it be that someone did survive the shipwreck? And if so, was the mace saved and what could have happened to it? Some stories suggest that it is buried near the lighthouse and there is more than one party that is looking forward to it.

The story follows Libby as she tries to navigate her new life with focus on reestablishing her relationships with her sister and others from the past and as she decides if she wants to stay in the town or if she should sell the cottage and return to her more familiar world in Paris.

We also meet Isabel as she is making the journey to the other side of the world, see her unhappiness, and see what fate has in store for her after she miraculously survives the shipwreck. Alone in the world, she must forge a new life for herself - one that is very different to the high class pampered life that she has left behind.

I know that the dual storyline is something that is very popular in historical fiction at the moment. When done poorly, you can find yourself only interested in one of the stories, or not quite getting the connection between the two timelines. There are no such issues here. I was totally engrossed in this book, staying up way too late at night to try and find out what happened to all the characters as they faced challenges in their respective contemporary societies.

One of the interesting things about this author is that she doesn’t seem to get that much recognition in the Australian blogosphere (or at least not the ones that I read) and I am not sure why that is. Before I saw it mentioned on Kate Forsyth’s blog back in February I didn’t even realise that Kimberley Freeman had a new book out so I requested it from the library straight away. After it had been sitting on my bookshelf for several weeks I began to see it mentioned on overseas blogs, especially those with a historical fiction focus.

Whilst Wildflower Hill was a good book and was well reviewed (again predominantly on overseas blogs), I thought that Lighthouse Bay was a much better read and I couldn’t wait to turn the page and see what happened next! It is a shame that Freeman isn’t getting that same notice here. I am not sure if she fares better in the spec fic blogosphere as she also writes under the name Kim Wilkins. One of these days I will try one of her spec fic titles and find out for myself.

I will definitely be paying more attention next time there is a new Kimberley Freeman book out! I am always a bit stingy with my 5/5 grades but I closed this book with a contented smile, and now I am also determined to read Freeman's two earlier books!

Rating 5/5

Synopsis

1901

Trapped in a lovely marriage, Isabella Winterbourne struggles with a grief from which she doubts she will ever recover.

2011

Alone and heavy-hearted, Libby Slater has finally come home from her Paris life, not sure what she will find.

On the wild and isolated east coast of Australia, Isabella and Libby have to wrestle with the choices they have made and the cards fate has dealt them. A mystery that stretches from one to the other leads Libby to the old diaries of the local lighthouse keeper. The dusty pages help her to unearth Isabella's legacy and rediscover the importance of family and forgiveness. Both women will find that no matter how dark things seem there is always light somewhere ahead.

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Taking a Chance by Deborah Burrows

Last year I read and reviewed Deborah Burrows' debut novel A Stranger in My Street. There were numerous things that I enjoyed about the book, not the least of which was the fact that it was set in my home town of Perth during WWII. Once again Burrows has turned to this time frame and setting to give us a story that is a strong combination of history, mystery and romance.

Nell Fitzgerald is a journalist who works for one of the more sensationalist of the newspapers in Perth. Whilst she worked hard to become a journalist, she is quite content in her current role where she writes the fashion column, the highlight of which is a weekly column advising how to rework hats in this time of austerity. It's not that Nell isn't ambitious - deep down inside she is - but more that she feels that she is helping to raise spirits and she knows what her own future holds namely marriage to a good man, her lawyer fiance, who is currently on duty in Melbourne.

It is only a matter of chance that she ends up being sent to cover a more serious story. Lena Mitrovic has been accused of murdering her lover who lived with her in an artists commune in the hills just outside of Perth. If found guilty, the judge has no choice but to sentence her to death. Whilst she is at the court she meets another journalist who has a personal interest in the case. Captain Johnny Horvath is a much lauded war American war correspondent who is recuperating in Perth after having been injured whilst reporting from the battle field. Johnny is good looking, charming and suave, and has a reputation with the ladies - a very different man to Nell's solid fiance Rob. Johnny knows Lena very well as they are former lovers. He doesn't believe for a minute that Lena would have killed Rick Henzell using rat poison and he is determined to prove her innocence

Johnny soons draws Nell into his quest, firstly because he is attracted to her, but also because he believes that Nell can do more, be more. He believes in her talent and he wants to push her so that she writes her own features, not only about Lena but also about some of the other big issues that are going unreported on in Perth.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book for me was the plight of the so called lost girls of Perth. With the influx of American servicemen, many of the young women of the city were swept off their feet into a world of glamour and excitement. After all, the Americans were seen as glamourous, could get access to goods that have long been unavailable to ordinary citizens and they had plenty of money. Many of the girls just wanted to have some fun. Some ended up married to men they barely knew, but there were still more young women who ended up with damaged reputations, unwanted pregnancies, incarcerated in juvenile detention for being wild, or worse.

When Nell and Johnny meet 14 year old Evie after saving her from an unsavoury situation with some drunken soldiers they both feel the need to do something. For Nell, this means taking Evie home to her aunt who has a history of taking in young girls. After all, she took in and raised orphan Nell. When their investigation impels Nell and Johnny to search for two other underage girls who have gone missing from the same artists commune that Lena lived in, Nell decides that she needs to write an investigative piece highlighting the issue.

Whilst Nell is attracted to Johnny and feels that attraction growing the more time they spend time together, she is also determined not to succumb to his charms. As she hears more stories about his past, she knows that there can be no future in a more personal relationship with him, so why can't she stop thinking about him, wanting to be with him.

I loved the development of the relationship between Nell and Johnny. He lets his feelings show but it is Nell who is reluctant to pursue more. Initially he doesn't push her emotionally, but he does constantly push her to be the best journalist she can be, encouraging her to believe in her abilities and to challenge herself in her career. Whilst the actual time frame of the story is relatively short, the way that the relationship develops feels organic even with the knowledge that Johnny's time in Perth is coming to an end, and the author does a great job in showing the relationship developing from colleagues to friends to more.

I also enjoy the historical details that Burrows manages to include in her books, from fashion to the gas conversion cars that I don't remember hearing about before, there is plenty of historical detail included in the pages of the book.

I once again enjoyed visiting WWII Perth through the pages of a Deborah Burrows book. All that is left to say now is bring on the next one!

Rating 4/5
Synopsis

Perth, 1943. A time for taking chances.

Eleanor 'Nell' Fitzgerald is smart – inside and out. For now, she writes helpful fashion advice for a local rag, but is bursting with ambition and plans to marry her lawyer beau as soon as he returns from wartime service. When she meets the handsome, famous and oh-so-charming Johnny Horvath of the American Press Corps, she finds herself dragged into a murder mystery.

Convicted of the murder of her artist lover, Lena Mitrovic is languishing in Fremantle Gaol. Johnny is sure of Lena's innocence and ropes in Nell to help him find the truth. During their investigation, they uncover some seedy secrets of wartime Perth: the other side of the "American Occupation". Girls and young women have been throwing caution to the wind, entering into romances and liaisons with the visiting servicemen.

And Nell soon discovers that not everybody has good intentions...

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

When I first heard about Kate Forsyth's book Bitter Greens just before it was released here in Australia last year I was instantly intrigued! A retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale mixed in with life at the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV and Renaissance Venice - yes please! Of course, combining these three different elements could either work spectacularly or end up in a jumbled mess. Fortunately, Kate Forsyth's writing skills mean that it turns out to be a great success.

The novel opens with the banishment of Charlotte-Rose de la Force whose status as a blood relative of the King is not enough to save her from banishment from his court following a series of ill advised love affairs. In addition to the affairs, Charlotte-Rose also writes about the going ons of the court anonymously and  she is also known to be a fine wit, but not always for the restraint to know when to not take that step too far when lampooning the members of the court. She is also a former Huguenot, having converted to Catholicism under extreme political pressure, and in order to avoid some of the persecution that is being visited upon others of her faith. From her place in the convent, Charlotte looks back on her life from the very first time she met the King, to her life as maid in waiting in the court, the politics that surrounded her on every side, religious persecution, her love affairs and so much more.

When she arrives at the convent, Charlotte-Rose is stripped of all of her belongings. Whilst she will not be forced to take her vows as a nun until she truly feels the calling to do so, her life will be austere with little to no comfort. After struggling in her new environment, one of the other nuns takes her under her wing. Sister Seraphina is the gardener and takes Charlotte-Rose out with her. Soon the two women are talking while they are gardening and Sister Seraphina begins to tell Charlotte-Rose the story of Margherita, a young girl in Venice.

When her mother was in labour, she was craving salad greens and so her husband snuck into a neighbour's garden and is caught stealing. The owner, La Strega Bella, extracts a promise from the man. In exchange for not chopping of his hand for thieving, he can keep the bitter greens, but when she comes to take the child he must pay the ultimate price by giving her up.

The family lives in fear of the day coming when La Strega Bella claims their lovely daughter Margherita, and when it does they try to bargain with her. Her mind is set though and Margherita is stolen from her family, placed in a convent to be educated and told that her parents never loved her. Margherita's only comfort is in singing and music and she has the voice of an angel, but even this is not to be her long term home. Once again La Strega Bella comes and this time takes the young and beautiful red-haired girl to a tall tower built on the shores of a lake. Here, Margherita is to live alone with her only company to be the monthly visit from the witch. In order to gain access, the witch requires Margherita to let down her long, long hair so that she can climb up it - she is the Rapunzel that we know from fairy tales.

I love the whole story within a story concept and Forsyth is able to smoothly alternate the story between 17th century France and 16th century Venice with great skill. In due course, we get a third story too - that of the courtesan Selena Leonelli. She too is a beautiful woman who has tempestuous relationships with her lovers, most notably the artist Tiziano for whom she is a kind of muse.  Now, thanks to an apprenticeship with a witch, Selena is known as La Strega Bella and she has discovered the secret of staying young and beautiful and she is determined to stay that way no matter what the cost!

Whilst this story contains the bones of a familiar story - our Rapunzel is stuck in her tower by a horrible witch and we know that in due course that a handsome prince will show up to play his part (even though it is not necessarily in the way that you expect) - it is in the details that Forsyth's tale excels and in the way that the three stories combine as a whole. The story is emotionally engaging on so many levels. For example, the first time I realised how Margherita's hair got to be long enough to be used as a ladder, I gasped in horror.  There is an earthiness to the story telling that is engaging - it is by turns shocking, fun, sensuous, and filled with twists and turns that keep the reader engaged from beginning to end.  Whether you love fairy tale retellings, historical fiction or both, this is exceptional storytelling and I highly recommend this book! I am really looking forward to reading this author's next book!

Rating 4.5/5

P.S Above left is the Australian cover which I loved, and on the bottom right is the gorgeous UK cover! I am seriously tempted to buy the UK version so that I have them both.

Tour Details

Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/bittergreensvirtualtour/
Twitter Hashtag: #BitterGreensVirtualTour
Kate Forsyth's website
Kate Forsyth on Facebook
Kate Forsyth on Twitter

Synopsis

Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from court by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of Bitter Greens ...

After Margherita’s father steals a handful of greens—parsley, wintercress and rapunzel—from the walled garden of the courtesan, Selena Leonelli, they give up their daughter to save him from having both hands cut off.

Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1513 and still inspiring him at the time of his death, sixty-one years later. Called La Strega Bella, Selena is at the centre of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.

Locked away in a tower, growing to womanhood, Margherita sings in the hope someone will hear her. One day, a young man does...

Three women, three lives, three stories, braided together to create a compelling story of desire, obsession, black magic, and the redemptive power of love.

Kate Forsyth on Why I Love Fairy Tale Retellings

Today we are pleased to welcome Kate Forsyth to Historical Tapestry for the first stop on her Bitter Greens blog tour! I am super excited to host Kate for a couple of reasons. The first is that she is an Aussie author and the second is that I loved her book, which you will see when I post my review tomorrow!

Kate is here to tell us why she loves fairy tale retellings. Welcome Kate!

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I have loved fairy tales since I was a little girl.

I was first given a book of ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ when I was seven, and in hospital. I had been cruelly savaged by a dog as a baby and spent the first ten years of my life in and out of hospital, suffering high fevers and seemingly endless operations to repair a damaged tear duct. 

Reading that book of fairy tales were such an escape for me, and yet, also a comfort.

I could imagine myself riding a winged horse, soaring free of my narrow white hospital bed, escaping to have marvellous adventures somewhere else. 

The world of fairy tales was filled with beauty and mystery and romance and strangeness, all the things my hospital ward was lacking. In fairy tales, blinded princes were healed as I wished to be. In fairy tales, imprisoned maidens won their way free. 

I read that collection of fairy tales to tatters, and was always hungry for more. 

One day, when I was about ten, I discovered a book called The Glass Slipper by Eleanor Farjeon on my school library bookshelf. I began reading it as I walked home from school and was instantly entranced. It’s a retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale and is full of charm and whimsy. I was so engrossed I walked straight past the end of my street and could possibly have kept on walking for miles, if a neighbour had not driven past and honked me back to the real world. 

That book has been such a talisman for me all of my life that I named my own daughter Eleanor (after the writer), nicknamed Ella for short (after the heroine). 

That book began my love of fairy tale retellings. A year or so later, I read The Stone Cage by Nicholas Stuart Gray, a retelling of ‘Rapunzel’ told from the point of view of the witch’s cat. Of all the fairy tales I loved, ‘Rapunzel’ one resonated with me the most – perhaps because I too had been a young girl locked away from the world, longing for escape, perhaps because the injuries to my eye meant that for long periods of time, I was half-blind and in pain, as the prince had been.

I began to imagine writing my own retelling of Rapunzel before I had even finished reading the book. I love The Stone Cage, and Nicholas Stuart Gray is, I think, one of the greatest children’s writers ever. Nonetheless, I needed my own retelling of the tale to be from Rapunzel’s point of view, and to give some sense of the terrible loneliness, fear and despair she must have endured. 

When I was twelve or thirteen, I read When We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, by C.S. Lewis. I had found it on my great-aunt’s bookshelf while staying there one summer, and I read the whole book, cover to cover, while lying on the floor on my stomach behind her over-stuffed tapestry armchair. It was an utter revelation. Dark and strong and full of anger, it showed how well-known tales – in this case, the story of Cupid and Psyche – could be turned utterly inside-out when told from the point of view of the supposed villain of the tale. 

I began to imagine writing part of my own Rapunzel retelling from the point of view of the witch. She had always puzzled me. Why had she wanted to lock Rapunzel in the tower? What happened to her after the story ended? 

As I grew up I devoured the work of Robin McKinley, reading her wonderful retellings Rose Daughter, Spindle’s End, Beauty and Deerskin. I also loved Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, North Child by Edith Pattou (also published as East), and Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. 

Then I read Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, the first time I had read a retelling of a fairy tale written for adults. I knew at once that was what I wanted to do – write a retelling of ‘Rapunzel’ for an adult audience.

For me, it was always a story about sexual desire and power. I never understood how it could be told as a pretty bedtime story for little children, with pictures of a smiling girl combing her hair in a tiny tower wreathed with roses. I knew, gut-deep, that Rapunzel was a far darker story.

So I began to think seriously about my own retelling. It took me seven years to write Bitter Greens – a powerfully symbolic number in fairy tales – and the book ended up very different to how I had first imagined it. As well as telling the story from the point of view of the maiden in the tower, and the witch who put her there, I also tell the story of the woman who first wrote the tale – the utterly fascinating 17th century French writer, Charlotte-Rose de la Force.

So why do I love such retellings? Because they illuminated the dark and hidden depths of fairy tales, the most mysterious and magical of all narratives.

Tour Details

Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/bittergreensvirtualtour/
Twitter Hashtag: #BitterGreensVirtualTour

Kate Forsyth's website

Kate Forsyth on Facebook

Kate Forsyth on Twitter

Books of a Lifetime by Jennifer Kloester

Today we are pleased to have Jennifer Kloester here at Historical Tapestry to talk about her "Books of a Lifetime".

Welcome Jennifer!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for having me on your wonderful website and for the chance to talk about books. I love books and their power to transport me to another place and time, to move me and teach me and make me laugh or cry. I am in awe of the lasting power of words and the way in which books read in childhood and adolescence have not only stayed with me for years but also enriched my experience and even shaped my life. For example, much of my love of England can be directly traced to my childhood reading. Books such as Swallows and Amazons, Winter Holiday, Pigeon Post, The Wind in the Willows, Winnie-the-Pooh, Schoolgirl Honour, The Secret Garden, Ballet Shoes, The Little White Horse, Sherlock Holmes, Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Malory Towers series and John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps each informed my youthful view of the world. As a child I loved adventure and mystery and romance and reveled in the possibility that the things done by the characters in these books were actually possible. I yearned for adventure and I found a vicarious satisfaction in the triumphs of Richard Hannay or the Fossil sisters or the Blackett children or Mole and Ratty and terrible Toad.

As I grew older I moved on to mystery and murder novels, though still with a civilized Englishness that I found reassuring. Dorothy L. Sayers' wonderful Peter Wimsey books with their literary allusions and intellectual interpolations in Latin and French captivated and intrigued me, while Agatha Christie proved to be perfect holiday reading whenever our family went camping. P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That and John Galsworthy's Forsythe Saga expanded my horizons in new directions as did the wonderful writing of Oscar Wilde, Nancy Mitford and Georgette Heyer. I love to laugh but it is a rare author who can make me laugh out loud and these three each do so in their own inimitable way. I especially love Georgette Heyer's Regency novels with their clever plots, witty dialogue and marvellous comic characters such as Jonathan Chawleigh in A Civil Contract, Augustus Fawnhope in The Grand Sophy, Ferdy in Friday's Child and Sir Nugent Fotherby in Sylvester (to name but a few).

My love of English literature and poetry enriched my childhood and sent me out into the world to seek my own adventures. I've found plenty of them and also plenty of marvellous new authors – and not just English ones either. Books like Mr Pip, The Help, The Hare with Amber Eyes, Perfume, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Elegance of the Hedgehog and The Tall Man have given me hours of reading pleasure and enriched my life in ways that are quite different to those experienced via my childhood reading – though they are no less potent. Each new book is a new adventure and, even now, I still love an adventure!


Jennifer Kloester is the author of two books about one of our favourites here at Historical Tapestry - Georgette Heyer. You can find out more about Jennifer and her books at her website.

Mr Chen's Emporium by Deborah O'Brien

As soon as I was offered this book to read, I knew that I wanted to do so! It ticks so many boxes for me! I enjoy Gold Rush stories, I love the whole dual timeline story concept (and have read quite a few over the last month or so) and the synopsis sounded interesting so there was a lot to anticipate liking.

Here's the synopsis:

In 1872, seventeen-year-old Amy Duncan arrives in the Gold Rush town of Millbrooke, having spent the coach journey daydreaming about glittering pavilions and gilded steeples. What she finds is a dusty main street lined with ramshackle buildings.

That is until she walks through the doors of Mr Chen's Emporium, a veritable Aladdin's cave, and her life changes forever. Though banned from the store by her dour clergyman father, Amy is entranced by its handsome owner, Charles Chen ...

In present-day Millbrooke, recently widowed artist Angie Wallace has rented the Old Manse where Amy once lived. When her landlord produces an antique trunk containing Amy's intriguingly diverse keepsakes - both Oriental and European - Angie resolves to learn more about this mysterious girl from the past.

And it's not long before the lives of two very different women, born a century apart, become connected in the most poignant and timeless ways.

The book opens with young Amy Duncan travelling from the thriving city of Sydney to the Gold Rush town of Millbrooke. She has been summoned there by her very strict, very narrow-minded father who is the town clergyman. For Amy, this means an end to a life with her aunt who lets her read scandalous novels (one of my favourite aspects of the book), buy pretty dresses and attend charming entertainments. In her new life, she will be expected to work hard by her mother's side looking after her siblings, acting as a type of governess to another young girl in the town and to behave properly at all times.

Life starts as expected but Amy is given a glimpse into a more exotic life when she visits Mr Chen's Emporium. He gives her some tea but like so much of her life, spirited Amy must hide this gift from her father who has a very poor opinion of men like Charles Chen. This is because Charles and his brother are of Chinese origin. Charles is a little different to some of the other Chinese in town because he was in effect adopted by one of the most influential families in town and so he has the benefit of a good English education as well as his Chinese ethnicity.

Amy is at once intrigued by Charles, and when his adoptive family facilitate a meeting between the two it becomes clear that those feelings are well on their way to being reciprocated. But it is the 1870's and whilst interracial relationships would have occurred, they would have been very unusual and would most likely have resulted in a young woman like Amy being shunned by her local community. Even with just this factor, life would have been difficult enough, but this is the goldfields where the antagonism between white miners and their Chinese counterparts is simmering just below boiling point at the best of times. Those tensions rise again in Millbrooke, potentially putting those more moderate people at risk of violence from those who want to see the Chinese forced off the diggings forever.

In the modern day, recent widow Angie Wallace comes to the town of Millbrooke for the weekend and ends up staying. She rents the crumbling Manse from grumpy Richard Scott for a pitiful amount on the proviso that she will start doing some much needed renovations. For Angie, this is the chance for a new beginning away from the everyday memories of her life with her recently deceased husband. Her grown children do not understand her need to do this, and her friends are sceptical too. Angie, however, sees this as a chance to recharge her artistic batteries, and she soon finds herself drawn into the life of the town when she starts teaching art to a group of ladies who live in the town.

Millbrooke is a town that is still under the influence of gold mining and is again potentially going through a new transition period. This time though, it is a big international mining company that has it's sights set on the town. They are promising jobs and good times for the whole town, as long as they can get the necessary approvals that they need to start the process. The face of the mining company in town is American Jack Parker. It isn't long before the smooth talking Jack has taken up residence in the Manse as a boarder.

What links the two stories is a small trunk that Angie finds that contains small artefacts that have her searching the past for evidence of Charles and Amy Chen. While she searches the historical records related to Millbrooke, she finds herself drawn more fully into modern Millbrooke. I especially loved the idea of the art exhibition that she does with her painting class which focussed on the people and past of the town. The author is a visual artist as well as an author and you could really feel her passion for this side of her work shining through the pages in that section.

In terms of the characters, I was much more invested in the historical characters. I would have loved to have seen more about Amy and Charles and their relationship, but I did enjoy the glimpses that we did get to see, especially in later life. I am not sure that modern sensibilities didn't colour the relationship more than would have been possible in reality, but I suspect getting the balance right between those two differing perspectives would be quite difficult. I also really enjoyed Amy's relationship with Charles' adopted sister Eliza, who has very grand and ambitious plans for her life and I suspect that there could be an interesting story to be told about Eliza in future if the author wished to go down that track.

I was less enamoured of the modern characters. I liked the way that Angie's friendships were portrayed, and I loved seeing a 50 something heroine who brings all her experience to the novel. I really enjoyed seeing her search for the clues that she could find about Charles and Amy and the town itself. Where I really struggled was with the choices that she made and in the representation of the two main male characters - Jack and Richard. Richard in particular was a bit of a mystery. Initially he was portrayed as something of a drunkard but later as something completely different.

The dual storyline accent was very structured - much more than you would necessarily see in other similar books. For example, this week I read another book where the first third of the book concentrated on the past, and then moved forward in time with a look back over the shoulder at the past. In this book, in the beginning of each chapter we heard about Amy and her story and then we moved forward in time to see what was happening in Angie's life. I did wonder if the intention was to try and draw direct parallels between the two stories. If so, it didn't quite work for me especially in relation to correlations between Amy's relationship with Charles and Angie's relationship (not going to tell you who with, but I will say I was disappointed with this particular aspect of the story).

Whilst this book didn't work for me in all aspects, I was interested in the story that debut author, Deborah O'Brien, has brought to the page. In the notes, she mentions that she is writing a sequel  and in the Q and A that I hosted on my blog, she says this is a modern setting only which I am not sure about but still.

Rating 3.5/5

A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper

'This is what happened tonight, every single terrible thing that I can remember . . .'

Sophie FitzOsborne lives in a crumbling castle in the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray, along with her tomboy younger sister Henry, her beautiful, intellectual cousin Veronica, and Veronica's father, the completely mad King John.When Sophie receives a leather journal for her sixteenth birthday, she decides to write about her life on the island. But it is 1936 and bigger events are on the horizon. Is everything Sophie knows and loves about the change?

I first remember hearing about the Montmaray books over at Danielle's blog. There's a certain irony when you find out about books by Australian authors at an American blog, but these things happen! It sounded like my kind of read and so when I was given the opportunity to read it (because it has recently been rereleased here as a Vintage Children's Classic) this seemed like a good time to read the book for myself.

The book is told in diary format with the author of the diary being a young girl name Sophie, or more correctly Princess Sophie of Montmaray and covers the months towards the end of 1936. Once Montmaray was a small but flourishing island nation but the Great War and the subsequent Spanish flu has decimated the population. Now there are only a few villagers who live on the isolated island, struggling to make a living. Of the royal family, Sophie and her sister Henrietta live in the 'castle' along with their cousin Veronica and their uncle King John who is a shadowy character on the edge of their lives who seems to be dealing with some form of madness. The heir to the throne, Sophie's brother Toby, is living in England, going to school and mixing with the best in society. He is accompanied by the housekeeper's son, Simon, who also has suddenly become the focus of Sophie's daydreams.

For quite a while, the diary entries reflect day to day events of what essentially is life in a crumbling castle on a big rock in the middle of the ocean. The people of the island rely on passing boats to communicate with the outside world. If they need a doctor they have to hoist a specific flag to the top of the flagpole and wait for one of the passing boats to stop and offer up assistance. Sophie's younger sister Henry is a tomboy who refuses to sit down and be educated. The castle is falling apart so there are leaking roofs, dwindling supplies and more. All of those worries become somewhat less important when two German soldiers land at the island, looking for a specific artifact that may or may not be connected to the island nation. In the space of just a couple of days, absolutely everything changes for the people who call Montmaray home. The final third of the book morphs into a bit of an adventure story as there is danger and intrigue and just a touch of romance that it is very subtly implied.

Whilst this book covers a lot of ground historically, it is not straight historical fiction. The island nation of Montmaray is fictional and so therefore are the majority of the characters and the role that Montmaray plays in European history. Having said that, Cooper covers a lot of historical ground with mentions including Henry VIII,  Napoleon and the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany along with lots of other historical figures and events. The mix between real events and made up is really well handled and in this new edition there are notes to help young readers know what is real and what isn't.

When a book is well written using the diary format, it is a thing of joy. All too often a diary format can feel restrictive in terms of view point and narrative. In this case, the diary format works primarily thanks to the voice of Sophie which is engaging and charming from beginning to end.

I was trying to fit this book in around other reads and so was intending to read a chapter a day. There were plenty of days though when I ended up reading more than one chapter as this book was more engaging than the other book I was reading!

I was charmed by the characters, setting and historical context, so I will be very much looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with the royal family of Montmaray sooner rather than later!

Rating 4/5

Thanks to the author who supplied a copy of the book for review. Also take a look at her guest posted for us telling us why she loves to read and write about 1930's England.

A Stranger in my Street by Deborah Burrows

It's January 1943. Australia is at war and Perth is buzzing.

US troops have permanently docked in the city in what local men refer to bitterly as the American occupation, and Perth women are having the time of their lives. The Americans have money, accents like movie stars, smart tailored uniforms and good manners. What's more, they love to dance and show a girl a good time, and young women are throwing caution to the wind and pushing social boundaries with their behaviour.

Not Meg Eaton, however. The war has brought her nothing but heartbreak, stealing her young love eighteen months ago. Until, in the middle of a Perth heat-wave, she meets her lost lover's brother, Tom – standing over a dead body in her neighbour's backyard.

Suddenly, Meg finds herself embroiled in the murder mystery, and increasingly involved with Tom Lagrange. But is he all that he seems? And what exactly was his relationship with the dead woman?

Debut author Deborah Burrows has brought her skills as a historian to the fore with this meticulously researched and thoroughly entertaining novel of love and intrigue.

Like most readers, I have my favourite types of books. For example, tell me a book is set in either World War I or World War II then I will certainly consider whether it might be something that I might want to read. Tell me that book is set in my home town of Perth then I will have to do more than that! Of course, that bring it's own dangers. What if the representation of the city feels off? Luckily, that wasn't an issue here.

Perth is a city that has been invaded, mostly by the American servicemen who have been based there as a flying base and also, to a certain degree, as a deterrent to a Japanese invasion. With them the US service men bring hard to find goods that can be sold on the black market, money and good times, especially for the young ladies in town. They look good in their uniforms, and they know how to show a lady a good time with music and dancing and more!

Whilst Meg Eaton should be out living it up, she has been living a more low key life since she heard the news that her boyfriend had been killed. Her attempt to contact his parents has been shunned and so she grieves alone. She lives with her mother and older sister, and works as a stenographer at the Crown court. Her very quiet life is changed when, on a hot summer day, she overhears a conversation outside her house. When she goes out to investigate, she finds herself talking to her dead boyfriend's older brother, Tom.

Tom is the quintessential war hero. He is handsome, decorated for bravery, former Rhodes Scholar and from a well known (and wealthy) family. He is, however, also fighting his demons as he was badly injured and is constantly in pain. He therefore can no longer take part in active fighting, but he has instead returned to Perth, with his glamourous fiancee in tow, to act as a liaison officer between the Australian and American forces that both call the city home.

Tom and Meg had never actually met before the day that he visited her next door neighbour. Neither could possibly have known the impact that meeting was going to have, both immediate and long term. When they find a body, the police know who they need to find immediately. The dead woman's husband is an Italian and therefore must have a big temper. Meg doesn't believe that at all, and so it is therefore up to Meg and Tom to work out precisely what did happen to the woman.

Once Tom realises who Meg is, and that she is still living a half life as a result of her grief, he is determined that it is time for her to start living and as a result he introduces her to some of the soldiers that he knows, and starts meeting her for drinks and lunch. The most difficult thing for Meg though is to see behind the charming exterior of the men that she is meeting to see the kind of men who are underneath, and that is especially true of Tom. He is keeping many secrets, not the least of which is what the true nature of his relationship with the dead woman was.

The author did a great job of dealing with some of the social issues of the day. The husband's family has been interred as enemy aliens and yet he is off fighting for Australia. The dead woman is working at the local hospital and has a reputation for being a bit fast and so there are plenty of judgements made about her fate, and then there is the taste of animosity that exists between the Australian and American soldiers.

Sometimes when an author tries to get good historical detail, a good romance and a good mystery into the one novel, one aspect or another is weaker, but Burrows has managed to get the balance pretty much right. Throw in the places that I am familiar with like the gardens near the court buildings and the foreshore of the Swan River among others, and some unfamiliar aspects of the history of Perth, and I was a pretty happy reader. Whilst I have that extra connection to the setting, I am sure that the setting will be enjoyable to most readers even if they aren't as familiar as I was with it.

A Stranger in my Street is Deborah Burrows first novel and it is a really strong debut. I saw her mention the other day on Twitter that she has recently been signed for a second novel which will once again feature World War II and Perth, so I am already anticipating getting my hands on that book.

Rating 4.5/5

Michelle Cooper on Why I Love Reading and Writing About 1930s England (includes international giveaway)

Imagine a global financial crisis, with the vast gap between rich and poor sparking off protest marches and sit-ins. Imagine the world is in political turmoil, with Western democracies struggling to deal with foreign totalitarian states that may (or may not) be a threat to world security, but are certainly trampling on the human rights of their own citizens. Imagine a time when rapid technological advances are transforming communication, travel, health and entertainment.

Okay, we don’t have to imagine any of this, because we’re living through these events – but so did people in the 1930s, and that’s why I love reading (and writing) about them. It’s impossible not to notice the modern-day parallels when reading about unemployed miners occupying the London Ritz in 1938, or about the League of Nations dithering over sanctions in 1935, following Abyssinia’s invasion by Fascist Italy. Then, as now, each week seemed to bring some fresh political crisis, as Hitler rose to power in Germany, Stalin tightened his deadly grasp on the Soviet Union, and Spain descended into a barbaric civil war. England wasn’t immune to ideological conflict, either, with violent clashes between Oswald Mosley’s Fascist Blackshirts and their Communist enemies. Those in England who longed for peace were relieved, though, when their Prime Minister finally returned from those tense Munich negotiations in September, 1938. Everything was going to be fine, Mr Chamberlain announced, because Hitler had promised peace. Peace for our time! Peace with honour!

Well, we all know how that promise turned out, but that makes the period even more appealing to historical novelists like me. There’s so much to write about if you set a book in 1930s England – particularly if your characters happen to be minor European royalty on a mission to save their tiny kingdom. In my Montmaray Journals trilogy, the royal FitzOsbornes clash with Nazis who are searching for the Holy Grail, help Basque refugee children escaping the bloodshed in Spain, argue with Oswald Mosley at a dinner party, fend off the attentions of the Kennedy boys (yes, those Kennedys) at the American Embassy in London, unwittingly antagonise the British royal family, have tea with Winston Churchill, and address the Council of the League of Nations. Plus, they do it all while wearing fabulous 1930s fashions!Because although political intrigue and thrilling adventures are a significant part of the Montmaray books, I also enjoyed writing about some of the more frivolous aspects of 1930s English Society. The young FitzOsborne cousins begin the series in genteel poverty, confined to an isolated and crumbling castle, but they are eventually taken under the wing of a wealthy and ambitious aunt. This allowed me to explore the final years of pre-war aristocratic glory in England, which were described so beautifully in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.

The second Montmaray book, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, features grand country estates, complete with stables and tennis courts and artificial lakes (with an army of servants to take care of everything). There’s also a mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, from which the FitzOsborne girls are launched into the Season. They experience debutante teas, fork luncheons, dinner parties, coming-out balls and a nerve-wracking presentation at Court. And, of course, they get to wear those wonderful 1930s clothes – evening gowns of chiffon and taffeta and tulle, glittering tiaras and strings of pearls, silk afternoon tea dresses and exquisite little hats (with sensible tweed suits and well-polished brogues when visiting the country). There are also, unfortunately for the animals involved, coats and stoles of mink, sable and fox (as Anne de Courcy points out in 1939: The Last Season, there were “no scruples in that pre-war climate about the right of the original owner to retain its fur coat”). Some values and beliefs have changed markedly since those glamorous, brutal, exciting years between the Great Depression and the start of the Second World War, but in other ways, that decade feels very familiar. And, as we all know, exploring our past helps us make sense of the present – and sometimes even allows us to predict our future.

**********

Michelle Cooper is the author of four novels, including The Montmaray Journals trilogy. The first Montmaray novel, A Brief History of Montmaray, won the 2009 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature and was listed in the American Library Association's 2010 Best Books for Young Adults. It has just been re-released in Australia as part of the Vintage Classics collection. Its sequel, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, was shortlisted for several literary awards and was listed in Kirkus Best Teen Books of 2011 and the American Library Association's 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults. The final book in the trilogy, The FitzOsbornes at War, has just been released in Australia, and will be published in North America in October. Michelle lives in Sydney, Australia and is currently working on her next book. Visit www.michellecooper-writer.com for more information about Michelle and her books.

Giveaway details:

- to participate, just leave a comment including your email address. You could also add a comment telling us something you find interesting about the 1930s but you don't have to in order to enter.
- one entry per household
- open worldwide
- closes 19th August midnight GMT

That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott

Bobby Wabalanginy never learned fear, not until he was pretty well a grown man. Sure, he grew up doing the Dead Man Dance, but with him it was a dance of life, a lively dance for people to do together...


Told through the eyes of black and white, young and old, this is a story about a fledgling Western Australian community in the early 1800s known as the 'friendly frontier'.


Poetic, warm-hearted and bold, it is a story which shows that first contact did not have to lead to war.


It is a story for our times.

Some times, as a reader, I need a bit of a push to read a specific book. Usually, this happens with books that I wanted enough to buy but then I struggle to fit it in between library reads and review copies.

So it was with this book.  I bought it last year when I attended a Melbourne Writers Festival session which featured the author, Kim Scott, along with a couple of other authors talking about writing books from the indigenous perspective. In this case, Kim Scott is an indigenous Australian, a member of the Noongar tribe which originates in the far south western corner of Western Australia.

As soon as Lisa from ANZ Litlovers announced that she was going to run the Indigenous Literature Week this week (to coincide with NAIDOC week) I knew that this was the book that I was finally going to read! (NAIDOC originally stood for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee although now it is more the name of the week than an acronym for something else).

Was the wait to read it worth it? I would have to say yes, but there is a bit of a disclaimer, but I will get to that in due course.

This novel asks a very simple question. What if, at first contact between native Australians and the British colonisers, things were different? What if the two groups worked together with mutual benefit, rather than be a story of domination and destruction? What if true friendship could be formed between the two groups, and by extension what lessons could we possibly take from this example today?

Of course, all those what ifs are coloured by the truth of what was, and that truth is not denied in any way, but for a while there it seems as though the colonisers and the representatives of the Noongar people might have been able to find a way.

The pivotal character of the book is Bobby Wabalanginy and he in effect performs the role of guide to the reader. At various times throughout the novel he is equally at home with his tribe and also within the homes of the British who have come to colonise the area around King George Sound, which is near  current day Albany. Bobby has a special affinity with the whales that follow their migration through the sees nearby, and also a special ability as a storyteller and to mimic those around them, both in voice and in dance. We see Bobby as both a young boy telling of his life now, but also as an old man looking back through time. Far from being a conduit between the two cultures, as an old man Bobby is something of an oddity, telling his fascinating story to anyone who would listen - in effect he was a tourist attraction.

Whilst Bobby is our guide, he is not the only voice that we get to here in the pages of this book. We meet Dr Cross, one of the first men to make the trek to the area with the hope of starting a new settlement. The good doctor is keen to foster good relationship with the locals and initially it seems that will be possible. He takes Bobby under his wing, but he is not a well man.

Following in his footsteps are the ambitious Mr Chaine  (and his family) who has high hopes of making his fortune by catering to the needs of the American whaling ships that flock to the area for the annual harvest of whale oil, Mr Skelly the soon to be ex convict, Sargeant Killam, Jak Tar the sailor who escapes from one of the ships, and the Governor who comes with very set ideas on how the native issues should be resolved.

It may sound as though the focus is purely on the Aboriginal experience, but Scott doesn't back away from the hardships that the white settlers face

The narrative is both straight forward and yet somewhat convoluted thanks to the way that the book is structured. Part 1 is set in 1833 to 1835 whereas part 2 tells of the events that occurred in 1826 to 1830 but this section is told to us by old man Bobby looking back through the years. We are then back in 1836 to 1838 for Part 3 and 1841 to 1844 in Part 4. Even within those parts there are flashbacks and past questions answered. And yet, overall, at the end of the book, the story felt quite straight forward and linear. That doesn't always happen when an author plays with the concepts of time in their storytelling.

One of the things about this book is that it did challenge me, it did make me work for the pay off. There are lots of sections where the language is beautiful and yet other sections where there was repetition of phrases which becomes very obvious as I was reading. There was also a lot of information in the book about the process of whaling as it was performed in the 1800s. Not something that modern readers would necessary be comfortable with, but certainly that aspect fitted within the historical context of the time.

One of the most poignant passages in the book is one that I shared in my Tuesday Teaser post recently:

Me and my people... My people and I (he winked) are not so good traders as we thought. We thought making friends was the best thing, and never knew that when we took your flour and sugar and tea and blankets that we'd lose everything of ours.. We learned your words and songs and stories, and never knew you didn't want to hear ours....

Later in the book as the narrative wends it's way to the inevitable truths that we know of the relationship between the two groups, the observation is made about how the white man has taken everything from the Noongar: their food, the watering holes have been destroyed by introduced stock, their freedom. And yet the whites punish the natives if they try to take the food etc that they so badly need. Even though it is the story that we know, it was a very powerful section to read.

Whilst Scott makes it clear in his notes that this story is fiction, he does acknowledge that there is evidence to suggest that this idea of cooperation between the Noongar people and the white settlers did happen.

This book won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award in 2011 amongst many other prizes, and without having read the other shortlisted books, it does seem like a worthy winner to me. By focusing on the indigenous experience, Kim Scott gave me a fresh perspective on a story that seems so familiar to most Australians. It is a story that needed to be told.

I am glad that participating in ANZLitlovers Indigenous Literature Week has finally given me the nudge that I needed to actually read this book! I definitely intend to read more from Mr Scott in the future.

Rating 4/5

Spotlight on Our Australian Girl - Grace

Last year, I saw a couple of posts on an Rebecca's Book Blog (an American blog which is kind of ironic in a way) talking about a new children's book series called Our Australian Girl.  After that I saw them mentioned on an Australian blog when the books were launched, and I was interested enough to see if I could track the books down. At the time there were four girls that we could meet, but since then another two girls have been added to the series. Today, I thought I would talk generally about the series, but then more specifically about the first girl, Grace.

The concept is that we meet a girl from a particular time in history and through a series of four books we get to follow her life. So far, the girls are:

Grace - a convict who is transported to Australia in 1808.
Letty - a free settler who is coming to Australia in 1841
Poppy - a young girl of Chinese/Aboriginal heritage who gets caught up in goldrush fever in 1864.
Rose - lives in Melbourne during the year that Australia became an official nation in 1901
Nellie - an Irish orphan who is sent to South Australia in 1849
Alice - a young girl with a passion for ballet who lives in Perth during the World War I (1918).

The publishers have done a fabulous job with the packaging of these books. Each cover features a photo of the girl, a charm bracelet where there is a charm for the year, the letter of the girl's name, the number of the book of the series, and then a charm that is relevant to the story within the books. Inside the book there are maps showing where the book is set, historical information from the time that the book is set in, as well as each author and the illustrator's Australian girl story, whether they were born here or if they immigrated to Australia. There is also additional content to be found at the associated website, including quizzes as well as additional information for teachers and parents.

Whilst I am not in the target range for these books, I love the way that the publisher has put this series together, and if I was a girl aged between 8 and 11, I am pretty sure that I would love these books! If you have a girl in your life who likes history, then these may well be a good gift idea for her!

In this video, we meet the girls who have been chosen to be the faces of  Our Australian Girls.

So let's meet Grace.

Grace is an orphan who lives with her uncle in the slums of London. He is a harsh guardian for Grace, and she has to work as a mudlark, looking for items of value in the mudflats at the edge of the Thames river. Like so many young girls through the ages, Grace is obsessed with horses. Visiting the horses nearby usually gives Grace great comfort, except when she thinks that they are also being mistreated. When she steals an apple from a nearby fruit stall to give to the horse, she is caught, spends time in prison and is eventually sentenced to be transported to Australia.

On board the ship, Grace faces harsh conditions, but she is lucky enough to make friends with Hannah and her mother Liza which helps her survive her time on board the boat.

Once she reaches Australia, she is sent to work on a farm in the country away from her new friends. There she meets the indigenous Aboriginal population as well as seeing the strange animals and flora that abound in the country. She likes her mistress but she is not sure that her master is pleased with her. Will her obsession with horses cause her trouble again, even though she is doing her best in difficult circumstances.

Grace is terrified that she will be sent back to the Factory (where the girls who haven't been employed are kept to work in horrible conditions) and so she does her best to make her master happy, but with his horse sickening due to Grace's actions, it is looking unlikely that she will be able to stay.


Originally posted at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

Kate Forsyth on her favourite books set in Venice (includes international giveaway)

Today we are pleased to welcome Australian author Kate Forsyth to Historical Tapestry. In honour of her newly released book, Bitter Greens, she is sharing her Favourite Books Set in Venice.

Bitter Greens is a fairy tale retelling of the Rapunzel story which is set in 17th century France and Venice.

We are also very pleased to be able to giveaway a copy of Bitter Greens, and it is an international giveaway! See the end of the post for details of how to enter.

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My Favourite Books Set in Venice

I don’t remember the first time I read about Venice. I seem to have longed to go there all of my life. The combination of enchanting beauty, ancient stones steeped in story, and the whiff of danger was irresistible. A book only needs a picture of Venice on its cover, or the mention of its name in its title, and I will want to read it.

I have always wanted to set a book in Venice, partly to give me an excuse to travel there again, and so my latest novel Bitter Greens is set partly in Renaissance Venice and partly in France in the 17th century. And yes, the cover has a gorgeous picture of Venice on it ...

Here are my favourite books set in Venice:

In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant

An absolutely fabulous historical novel, In the Company of the Courtesan tells the story of the escape of a courtesan from the pillage of Rome in 1527 – she flees to Venice and hopes to start a new life there. The story is told from the point of view of her dwarf. Sarah Dunant features the painter Titian and his most famous painting ‘The Venus of Urbino’, which is something I do in my own novel Bitter Greens, but we have completely different explanations for the story behind the painting. One of my all-time favourite books from one of my all-time favourite authors.

The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips

Another parallel narrative, moving between contemporary times and the early 17th century, The Rossetti Letter is a fabulous read. Claire Donovan is doing her Ph.d on the Venetian courtesan, Alessandra Rossetti, who wrote a letter to the Council of Ten warning of a Spanish plot to overthrow the Venetian Republic in 1618. The narrative moves smoothly back and forth between the two protagonists, and is filled with romance, intrigue, mystery and suspense.

A Venetian Affair: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in the 18th Century by Andrea di Robilant

A long-lost packet of letters, found by the author's father in the attic of a palace on the Grand Canal, reveals a passionate and forbidden love affair between a Venetian nobleman and a half-English commoner. The world of 1750s Venice is brought vividly to life - masked balls, gondolas on the canals, gambling, dancing, making love in secret gardens. I really loved this book.

The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato

This novel has a parallel narrative, with one story taking place in 17th century Venice and the other taking place in contemporary times. Much of the story is set on Murano Island where the glassblowers worked and lived. It’s a quick-paced, vivid and absorbing historical mystery, with some fascianting details about the art of glass-blowing.

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

John Berendt is best known for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. This book works in the same way, being a non-fiction book that uses fictive devices and a strong personal voice to bring to life a place, a time, and the people who inhabit them. It describes the events following the burning of the historic La Fenice opera theatre in 1996, as well as charting the stories of other writers and artists who were fascinated by Venice, including Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and Ezra Pound. A really fascinating, colourful book.

The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice by Laurel Corona

This novel is set in the Pieta, a Venetian hospital for founding children, during the time when Vivaldi was choir master. I had never heard of the Pieta before, and was so inspired by this novel that I decided to set a section of my own book Bitter Greens there. Abandoned babies were taken in by the nuns, and trained to be exquisite singers and musicians.

Many of them would never leave the Pieta in their lifetime, singing in the church behind high wooden screens. A really intriguing look at an unknown part of Venetian history.

Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick

This is another book set in the Pieta during the time of Vivaldi. I really loved this book – the writing was fluid and vivid, and the characters came dancing to life. The story about how the author came to write the book is just as fascinating – I’d really recommend this book too.

A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi

One day, in Venice, Marlena de Blasi fell in love with a stranger. She decides to move to Venice to be with her new love, and this book charts (with lots of wonderful recipes and descriptions of food) her romantic adventures thereafter.

Miss Garnet’s Angel by Salley Vickers

After her dearest friend dies, retired history teacher Julia Garnet does something completely out of character: she rents an apartment in Venice for six months.
An atheist, a Communist, and a virgin, Julia finds herself falling beneath Venice’s spell. She makes friends and falls in love for the first time in her life. Interwoven with her journey of self-discovery is the tale of Tobias and the Archangel Raphael, which she sees painted on a fresco in a church. A really beautiful, unusual novel.

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Donna Leon is an American crime writer who lives in Venice, and has written a whole series of books featuring the endearing, food-and-wine loving detective Guido Brunetti. Death At La Fenice is the first in the series, and it’s really worth reading them in order because the book is as much about Brunetti’s wife, family, and friends as it is about solving crimes in modern-day Venice. I love this books and buy them religiously – I have never once been disappointed.




Then, just quickly, my favourite children’s books set in Venice:

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

Absolutely wonderful, a must read book!

The Madman of Venice by Sophie Masson

A marvellous romantic adventure set in 1602, and filled with all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. Sophie Masson is an Australian writer too, though her imagination is never bound by geographic limitations.

Daughter of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli

My favourite novel by Donna Jo Napoli, this slim book bring the life of 16th century Venice vividly to life

Stravaganza – The City of Masks by Mary Hoffman

A time travel book to a magical city very much like Venice ...

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Kate Forsyth is the bestselling and award-winning author of 25 books for children and adults, translated into 10 languages.

Her latest book for adults, Bitter Greens, interweaves a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale with the scandalous life story of one of its first tellers, the 17th century French writer Charlotte-Rose de la Force. Australian Bookseller & Publisher described Bitter Greens as “magnificent” and said that Kate “has an extraordinary imagination”.

You can read more about her at http://www.kateforsyth.com.au/ .

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Thanks to Kate for sharing her favourites with us. And now, a chance to share Bitter Greens with all of you.

In order to be entered into the draw leave a comment below sharing either your favourite read about Venice OR your favourite fairy tale!

Rules of the giveaway:

- to participate, just leave a comment sharing your favourite read about Venice or your favourite fairytale and your email address

- one entry per household

- open WORLDWIDE

- closes 15th April midnight GMT