Paula from Tasmania
BY PAULA XIBERRAS
GREEN LOOK AT ORANGE BLOSSOMS Sophie Green’s new novel ‘Thursdays at Orange Blossom House’ is about three very different women with their own problems and difficulties who unite through a weekly yoga lesson and form friendships. Grace is in her seventies and a surviving twin. She is dealing with familial issues. Patricia is a high school teacher dreaming of travel (while a fellow teacher dreams of her!), but finding it will have to the armchair kind as she cares for her ageing parents. Dorothy is the owner of a cafe and yearning to be a mother. While all women are dealing with what life gives them, they find joy in their new found friendships. One of the traditional meanings of orange blossom is good fortune and it would seem something that readers would wish for the women of the book. Sophie likes to put different generations in her books and show that older characters should be represented. Sophie tells me her own grandmother was doing crosswords at 92. To celebrate the different generations and give nostalgia to her readers, Sophie prefaces every chapter with a list of significant events of the year and the hit songs (Sophie also writes for a country music magazine). THURSDAYS AT ORANGE BLOSSOM HOUSE IS OUT NOW, PUBLISHED BY HACHETTE.
72 | THE IRISH SCENE
PEPPERTREE CROSSING TO WATTLE SEED INN Wattle Seed Inn’s protagonist Gabrielle Moreau has a challenge to make a successful business out of the old pub she has bought. But it’s not only the pub that takes interest. Resident stone mason Aiden Paech intrigues her, but as the reader learns, he has willed his heart to stone due to the loss of a woman close to him. Ilse is another inhabitant, it was her grandparents who built the pub and she wants to see someone care for it as they did. She sees Gabrielle as that person. When I speak to author Leonie Kelsall, I mention how her titles give the reader a glimpse of what the novel is exploring. In her first novel Peppertree Crossing, the characters are at a crossroads in their lives, while The Wattle Seed Inn suggests the characters wounded in the past have the opportunity to plant seeds of a new life in the future. Leonie also – whether consciously or subconsciously – makes use of juxtaposition of a scene where an old floor is being removed with Aiden’s shirt being removed to reveal his scars. Leoni welcomes her daughter’s opinion of her books and it was her daughter, who while driving around with Leoni, saw the old building that would inspire The Wattle Seed Inn. Just like the refurbishment of the old pub, the characters too have within them the seeds of renewal. THE WATTLE SEED INN IS OUT NOW, PUBLISHED BY ALLEN AND UNWIN
