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Everyday drama — from divorce to droving to a mysterious death — comes to life in these new novels and memoirs, reviewed by Victoria Carey.
WORDS VICTORIA CAREY
A FARMING LIFE
Liz Harfull
In the introduction to this latest book, Liz Harfull talks about how things have changed for women on the land since she first became a rural reporter, at a time when people assumed that women who said they were farmers were actually inside doing the accounts. The six featured in the pages of A Farming Life are definitely not doing that. These women are out mustering, driving tractors and milking cows, among a host of other things.
The story of Amber Driver, from Elkedra station in the Northern Territory, leads the book. We learn how her childhood dreams of living in the outback come true after she meets her husband John while jillarooing. From the heartbreak of four miscarriages to battling mining companies, her life has certainly had its challenges, but clearly Amber wouldn’t have it any other way.
Harfull is a skilful interviewer who can get her subjects to answer even the hardest of questions.
HEARTBAKE: A BITTERSWEET MEMOIR
Charlotte Ree
The idea for this book arose when Charlotte wrote an article for Vogue about her divorce. “It was the dress rehearsal,” she writes. After leaving her marriage in her thirties, she started baking as a way of recovering from the breakup, a painful decision she had agonised over. “I am often asked if there was an exact moment: a moment I knew I was going to leave my husband. I have always been reluctant to answer, because of course the decision to leave is born of many moments… but the truth is there was a moment.”
You’ll need to read the book to discover what that moment was, in this raw and honest account. Charlotte bravely puts her experiences on the page, including her battles with anxiety and a particularly harrowing dating experience. In her day job as a book publicist, she is, of course, immersed in a world of writers and here she proves beyond doubt her own skill in the art of words.
We learn about her life, growing up with her mother, of whom she paints an evocative picture through food — “She loves hard gingernut biscuits, Portuguese custard tarts and toasted salad sandwiches. She loves English breakfast tea with a drop of milk. But most of all, my mama adores salt” — and the heartbreak when her relationship with a new partner ends. Go on the journey with Charlotte, cook the banana muffins she gives to her friends and neighbours and the burnt Basque cheesecake on page 323. I seem to have spent at least an hour tonight staring at that recipe — and it looks incredibly easy to make!
THE LAST DAUGHTER
Brenda Matthews
This heartbreaking memoir tells the story of a two-year-old Indigenous child taken from her family. Brenda’s parents never give up and after five years she is returned to them, the last of their daughters to come home — hence the title of the book.
Brenda has also co-directed a documentary about her endeavours to reconnect with her much-loved foster family.
LOVE MATCH
Clare Fletcher
The second novel from Clare Fletcher, who grew up in Queensland’s St George, has all the classic ingredients needed for an enjoyable romantic comedy, just like her 2022 debut, Five Bush Weddings. It’s set in a town called South Star where everyone knows that our lead character, Sarah Childs, has just been dumped by Johnno West. Sarah would much rather stay home on their property, Dunromin, but her parents refuse to let her hide away from the rest of the world.
LOWBRIDGE
Lucy Campbell
This debut crime thriller from Lucy Campbell centres around the 1987 disappearance of 17-year-old Tess Dawes from a shopping centre in the small town of Lowbridge — a fictional town loosely based on a New South Wales Southern Highlands town Lucy once lived in.
Nearly 30 years later, Katherine Ashworth stumbles across the case. Kat, who has also tragically lost her teenage daughter, has just moved to her husband Jamie’s hometown and is struggling to cope. She decides to join the local historical society and is drawn into the old mystery. With plenty of twists and turns, the dual timeline works well and it’s an enjoyable read.
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