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.

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

THE LIFE OF REILLY

It’s been an interesting year for Matthew Reilly. Due to COVID, he’s been able to forego his usual two year incubation period for a novel and give us the final installment in the adventures of his hero Jack West, ‘The One Impossible Labyrinth’, earlier

than expected. This past year has also seen him working on an original movie he has written, called ‘Interceptor’. This has been filmed during lockdown and will feature on Netflix next April. Matthew says he doesn’t think he would write the screenplay for any of his Jack West novels because they go back a long way and he would prefer to write something fresher. While ‘Interceptor’ is an original story, Matthew tells me he writes very different stories that appeal to different readers. For those who are Indiana Jones fans he recommends his Jack West series. This series is really one that hits the ground running. There is not a moment’s pause in these action packed thrillers. For readers who are Tom Clancy fans Matthew recommends ‘Ice Station’ and ‘Scarecrow’. Matthew tells me one thing about Jack West that fans have resonated with, is that although he has the power to save the world, Jack is also incredibly humble – evidenced in the appearance of him attending his daughter’s parent-teacher evenings. Talking of schools and the scholarly, Matthew has always loved myth and often asks what if a myth has changed due to the handing down of the story. He gives myths a novel twist in his books. In this new book, look out for a re-interpreting of the myth of the Minotaur. While Matthew hopes fans will love the conclusion to this final Jack West adventure, he is already talking of his next novel which will involve real people in a story of fiction.

THE ONE IMPOSSIBLE LABYRINTH IS OUT NOW, PUBLISHED BY PAN MACMILLAN.

THE GOOD BOOK BY BROOKS

Karen Brooks’ new book is a good book, both in content, style and in it’s subject matter ‘The Good Wife of Bath’. It was of course Chaucer, arguably the father of English literature, who told the original story of the wife of Bath in his Canterbury Tales. Karen Brooks has written her own (mostly true) version of the story. Our heroine Eleanor Cornfield aka The Good Wife of Bath, is married at the delicate age of 12 to Fulk Bigod, a farmer of elderly years, whom she later grows to have feelings for. Five additional husbands follow, including an occasional gem but also, notably, a womaniser and one who was violent. Eleanor’s fluctuating fortunes in the fidelity stakes demand she seek answers in prayer and so she journeys on many pilgrimages, Rome, Cologne and Jerusalem among them. Through all her highs and lows, her first husband’s daughter, her stepdaughter, Alyson is there for her. Theirs is a true female friendship. Eleanor, even with the constructs of her time (which as readers we must remember, when we might shake our heads at yet another marriage, is the only avenue open to her) is ambitious and thinks ahead of those times. She wants to be in control of her own destiny and seeks education as the key. A desire and determination to learn fuels her. Karen tells me that she remembers studying Chaucer at high school. She recalls her English Lit teacher telling the bawdy tales and rolling around with laughter, which of course peaked the curiosity of a sixteen year old girl. Karen later encountered Chaucer again at university, noting that the Wife of Bath is the only female in the Canterbury Tales. Once again Karen Brooks delivers a most excellent piece of work with the Good Wife an equal, if not surpassing, the tradition of other strong female characters in her previous books.

THE GOOD WIFE OF BATH IS OUT NOW, PUBLISHED BY

HARPER COLLINS. ☘