No One Will Know by Rose Carlyle was not at all what I was expecting. As usual I hadn’t read the backcover blurb just before starting so I got my villains wrong from the outset, thinking it involved those we’re introduced to early in the novel – namely the family of Eve’s partner. But then things take an unexpected twist – devastating Eve, until she’s offered a lifeline – a nanny job that will allow her to afford to keep and raise her child.
Edenhope by Louise Le Nay reminded me of Days of Innocence and Wonder by Lucy Treloar – as it was about a woman whose life was changed (saved, kinda) by a place and the people she met there. It’s a delightful book and could be heavy-going – given it deals with drug use, addiction and child neglect – but instead, through our narrator (Marnie) there’s a sense of hope, despite everything else. A reminder that there are good people willing to do good things.
Tom Baragwanath is a New Zealand-born writer living in Paris. I mentioned recently (in my review of the anthology, Dark Deeds Down Under) I don’t read a lot of NZ authors so wonder if that’s why I was occasionally a little lost here with some terminology.
It’s often the case when I read French, Italian or Nordic crime fiction as I really (really) don’t understand their law enforcement hierarchy but here – weirdly (given our proximity to our good friends across the ditch) I found myself confused by phrases and colloquialisms.
For some reason I don’t see new release listings for some publishers. Text Publishing is one, though one of my favourite books in the last few years was one of theirs – Toni Jordan’s The Fragments.
I’ve engaged with debut author Sarah Thornton on Twitter and hadn’t seen the first in this series featuring former corporate lawyer, Clementine Jones when it came out a couple of months ago. I’m glad to have caught up however. It takes us a while to learn why Clementine has left her previous life in Sydney (and I suspect Thornton will eke that out slowly) but when we meet her here she’s had an unlikely career change.