Summer In Bellbird Bay by Maggie Christensen

Jul15

Coming Home

Summer In Bellbird Bay by Maggie Christensen is a most delightful contemporary novel that I adored. It is the first book in the fantastic Bellbird Bay series.

Maggie Christensen writes with warmth and an understanding of her characters lives. Her leading characters are in their fifties. They prove that even though they are older, their personalities remain the same as thirty years ago. We age on the outside but not on the inside. They are wiser and have their priorities in place – but their insecurities and fears remain the same.

Both leading characters have had the foundations of their lives shaken. They need to learn to live and to trust again.

Bellbird Bay is a very charming coastal town in Australia. It is a place where hearts come home and lives heal. “Bellbird Bay… was a place a person could come to heal, to discover there was more to life than fame and fortune.”

Life is about love – who we love, and who loves us. Love is what is most precious. It is the greatest treasure.

A character returns to Bellbird Bay when life has hit hard. He believes “home is the place you return to when you have nowhere else to go” – but home is not always a place. Sometimes it is a person.

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My Dear I Wanted I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young

Jul12

Horrifyingly Powerful – The Futility Of War

My Dear I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young is a horrifyingly powerful historical novel that consumed me from the start.

It is set during World War I and perfectly illustrates the futility of war. It is mainly written from a masculine point of view of a soldier, but we also hear of the viewpoints of women too, particularly two nurses and a wife.

World War I was the first ‘modern’ war with tanks, planes and so many horrors on the battlefields. It is the reason why medicine rapidly advanced, especially in the field of plastic surgery and facial reconstruction.

Of the war, a character says: “It can’t go on much longer. Governments will just have to take a look at the hospitals… and they’ll stop.” But governments did not look at the hospitals. Governments didn’t care, and the war went on for another four long years.

Louisa Young has produced a novel that absolutely captures the horrors of war. We see what war does to minds, and to bodies. She does not shy away from descriptions of horrific injuries. Never before have I read such a powerful, graphic description of World War I in a novel. War is not glorious. War is horrific. War is not sanitised as in Hollywood movies, war is dirty. “Flanders had become mud beneath their feet” – and not just mud, but blood and guts too.

We learn that boys went to war and one commented; “I’m so… scared out there every day, every night – and now they’ve made me a… officer.” Boys went to war. They had to walk across No Mans Land or they would be shot by one of their own. 

Boys and men tried various ways to block out the horrors – alcohol, women, or focusing on home – but nothing worked. They numbed their minds in any way they could. “We have horrors, and the worst horror is that before I came away on leave, I no longer saw them. I stopped looking… because I didn’t like what I was seeing.” For some, they found humour in the macabre. “So remaineth these three faith, hope and charity and the greatest of these is a sense of humour.”

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Mandarin Road by Ann Bennett

Jul8

Heartbreaking

Mandarin Road by Ann Bennett is a powerful dual timeline novel that I read in just one sitting. I could not put it down. It is a heartbreaking read.

The action is set in 1967 and 2015 mainly in Vietnam, but briefly in America too as this is where the novel opens.

We see the futility of war. The Vietnam war was particularly hated in America – it wasn’t their war. There were many protests held. It was a cruel war with atrocities on both sides. The Viet Cong were cruel to their own people. The Americans were cruel too, burning villages and shooting the Vietnamese people. It was a war that no one could win. Mothers lost sons on both sides. “He was aggressive, difficult and demanding, but he was still very young to be fighting a war, and he was somebody’s son,” it was said of a Viet Cong soldier. And of an injured American, we hear; “he was not just an enemy soldier; he was a living, breathing human being who was in trouble.”

We witness the bravery of a young girl to help an injured American. Her heart is full of compassion.

A deathbed scene in 2015 sends a daughter overseas in search of a half sister that she never knew she had.

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The Club For Rebellious Ladies by Siobhan Curham

Jul8

Follow Your North Star

The Club For Rebellious Ladies by Siobhan Curham is a powerful dual timeline novel that I absolutely adored.

The action is set-in present-day France, and also towards the end of World War I in 1918 in France. The two time periods are linked by location and family.

We witness family secrets. The silence of those who knew make them complicit in the abuse of a husband to teenage girls living in the school next door in 1918. In present day, descendants are appalled, distancing themselves from their long-dead relatives.

A secret diary is found that uncovers the truth. We learn the tale, along with the present-day characters.

We witness the devastating effects of World War I. Some died, others left their minds on the battlefields of France. “The things I saw in the war, it’s like I can’t escape the memories.”

At the start of the twentieth century, young girls were seen as ornaments and the property of males – first fathers, and then husbands. “Being trained in the art of becoming an ornament rather than a living, dreaming human being.” Girls’ ambitions were squashed. We see a group of girls determined to break free of the mould of society. They wanted to live their lives.

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