My Account
Black Silk & Sympathy by Deborah Challinor
It’s 1865 when Tatiana/Tatty at just 17, departs London to start afresh in Sydney. With dreams of self-sufficiency, she accepts an assistant position with Crowe Funeral Services and finds a passion for the industry of death. A series of events leave Tatty with the challenging role of sole female undertaker in Sydney. As her success grows, accusations of murder from a rival business owner threaten everything. With the help of some diverse comrades, the fight is on to save her name and business by any means necessary. Midnight excursion to the cemetery with a shovel anyone? I have always been a fan of Deborah Challinor’s works. With her PhD in history and meticulous research, I find her novels some of the most realistic portrayals of historical life that I’ve come across in a modern author, filled with characters that are oh-so-human. Hence my excitement to hear she had started a new series. My anticipation was well-founded – I was hooked into Tatty Crowe’s world from the very first page. While the old adage may mark this as inconsequential, even the cover of this book is fittingly beautiful. Worthy of the words within.
If you have read Challinor’s previous books, you will get the perk of a reunion with some familiar faces, but it is also a stand-alone novel. It is the start of a series that bypasses the dreaded cliff-hanger and, instead, gives a satisfactory conclusion for the first instalment. I can’t wait for the next Tatty Crowe novel and highly recommend this book.
(Trigger warnings: Domestic abuse and descriptions of cadavers and embalming)
Reviewed by Abby Soffe.
The Space Between by Lauren Keenan
This is a refreshing offering of New Zealand historical fiction. It’s the story of two women, one Māori and one English, who love the same man. By an unusual set of circumstances, they all find themselves in New Plymouth, a town about to be heavily involved in the Taranaki land wars. I say “refreshing” because we hear loud and clear from both the main characters’ perspectives. I admire Keenan for navigating her novel with sympathy and understanding, demonstrating empathy in explaining how the recently arrived settlers thought, and how the local iwi felt.
Keenan doesn’t hold back – the way people, particularly women, in the 1860s were treated is explored through the experiences of Frances, the newly-arrived Englishwoman, and Matāria, a former slave who has been semi-ostracised by her own people, partly due to her marriage to a settler.
Both women have difficult lives, but as their worlds intertwine, they find commonalities that lead to an unlikely alliance. The writer is of mixed European and Māori ancestry, and she demonstrates sensitivity and panache as the story moves along. I enjoyed this different approach to the telling of New Zealand’s history.
Reviewed by Barbara Leslie
