Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall

This 2016 debut novel made the longlist for the Australian Independent Booksellers awards. The story is based on a true story. It is set in the 1880s; Kate and Harriet are two young girls whose fathers both operate a lighthouse on a remote cape in New South Wales, Australia.

The book is written from Kate's perspective and begins with a prologue; something has happened that Kate is trying to forget. The rest of the book details the girls' life on the cape. Harriet is two years older and the more beautiful, while Kate is more of a free spirit. They are both attracted to an older fisherman who moves into a cottage. It is not until Chapter 35, with 40 pages to go, that the reader finds out what Kate is trying to forget.

The book is beautifully written and well researched and I enjoyed it, but it's a good book rather than a great one. The friendship between Kate and Harriet, the envy and intimacy, rivalry and camaraderie, is beautifully detailed. The life of a lighthouse keeper's wife and family, and the bonds and tensions between men working alongside each other but miles from civilisation, are also brought to life.

I let you go by Clare MacKintosh

This fabulous 2014 debut novel, by former UK policewoman Clare MacKintosh, is the best book I've read in a while; I finished it at 2am! It's a crime story with some great twists. It begins with the death of five-year-old Jacob in a hit-and-run accident. His mum lets go of his hand for a split second, while walking home from school in the rain.  To quote the blurb...

"In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever."


The story switches between Jenna, who is trying to move on and put her memories of Jacob behind her, and the two busy detectives, Detective Inspector Ray Stevens and his talented new Detective Constable, Kate Evans, who are trying to track down the hit-and-run driver. The only criticism I have of the book is that one of the cases the detectives are pursuing involves a lot of physical domestic violence. I found reading some of these passages quite difficult. 



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Music and Freedom by Zoe Morrison

I found this book when I was looking through the longlist for the 2017 Australian Indie Book awards. Unlike The Good People, it didn't make the shortlist; however, I much preferred it. Zoe Morrison was a Rhodes Scholar and it shows. Her writing is fabulous, particularly the detail about music, academic life, and domestic violence. The book, her debut novel, brings together subjects she's very familiar with and areas that she had to research.

The book tells the story of Alice Murray, an Australian music prodigy who is sent to an English boarding school at the age of 7 to develop her skills. As a young woman, she meets Edward, a handsome Oxford academic, who makes just enough of an effort to persuade her to marry him; he then quickly begins to mistreat her. The story jumps between Alice's life in 2005, when she is in her early seventies and seemingly losing her mind, and her early life. Morrison begins each chapter with a date; this makes it very easy to follow the story.

Themes include friendship, marriage, love and family.  I noticed that there are over 100 books on Goodreads with the title Behind Closed Doors; this book doesn't quite fit with those. There are lots of detailed descriptions of piano playing that make it difficult to decide whether it's a book about music that touches on domestic violence or vice versa. I thought the relationship between Alice and her son Richard was particularly interesting. I was curious to find out what Richard would think of Alice when he became an adult and whether he would become like his father.

The book is not a thriller with dramatic plot twists. It's a carefully painted picture that brings Alice and her world to life. I hope it turns out to be the first of many novels that Morrison writes.

Conclave by Robert Harris

The book is set post-2018. The pope has died and cardinals from all over the world meet to elect a successor. There are three front-runners and a couple of outsiders who seem to be in with a chance. Some of the hopefuls have a skeleton in the closet that could leak out and dash their chances. The final skeleton was the only thing about the book that I didn't like; it seemed to have been thrown in to please a subset of readers.

I thought I might lose track of the different cardinals but the main characters were easy to follow. Harris is obviously an expert story teller. He included just enough detail of the rooms and the election process to hold my interest and help me picture the scene.

The book is written from the perspective of Cardinal Lomeli whose job it is to run the conclave. Harris's descriptions of Lomeli's thought processes, his struggles with prayer and how snippets of scripture keep popping into his head, struck me as credible. Harris reveals a world of scheming and politics, interspersed with meditation and prayer. He shows how electing a pope is a balancing act between the two. To his credit, he manages to do this in a way that is reasonably respectful of the Church.

The Litigator by John Grisham

I pulled this book from my husband's collection when I had nothing to read. It's years since I picked up a John Grisham novel; I tend to get enough courtroom drama from TV, but the book was preferable to the 300 or so war stories my husband has on his bookshelves!

I don't think it's one of Grisham's best novels (it hasn't been made into a movie) but it's still a good read. It tells the story of Wally and Oscar, two ambulance chasing street lawyers, and David, a high flying young corporate lawyer who decides that a 70+ hour week in a big firm is no life at all. The three team up and take on Big Pharma in a mass tort (class action) case. They are the little guys playing in the big leagues and soon find themselves out of their depth. Wally's love life, Oscar's bad marriage and David's disappointed family all add depth and interest to the story.

Grisham manages to make every aspect of legal work and every type of lawyer seem tarnished and unappealing. Two thirds of the way through the book it all seemed fairly predictable; the last 200 pages held a few surprises, but there was no shocking twist.


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