About this Event
No One's Looking
From the internationally bestselling author of Lost & Found comes a comedic and uplifting novel that brings home the secret rage of women through a lively suburban family and the brawling love between two middle-aged sisters - who no one is looking at anymore.
'They've seen each other before,' the nurse says, spookily, enigmatically. Vicki and Susan look at each other, they just look and look.
When Susan first meets Vicki, her new baby sister, she puts a hand on her tiny forearm, and Vicki stops screaming. Just like that.
If only it were so easy forty-five years later.
Susan has always been the quiet, nice sister, but her husband's sudden demand for an open marriage - and a rather large purple object she'd forgotten about - provokes a slow-dawning epiphany: being the 'good' girl doesn't always mean it's good for you.
Just down the road, Vicki listens at the door of her seventeen-year-old daughter's room - her only child - and is shocked at what she hears. Her old urge to scream builds. As she listens to a true crime podcast and doom scrolls the news headlines, she can feel a terror building in her bones. She can't help believing something very bad is going to happen.
It's January in suburban Australia - stinking hot, the sound of tennis and cricket on telly, the threat of bushfires in the air. Vicki is right, something is unravelling. Rage, desire, fear, wonder (and the occasional nipple) are unleashed. In the aftermath, will Susan and Vicki ever find out what's possible when no one's looking?
One For Sorrow
A new novel from the much-loved, Miles Franklin shortlisted Favel Parrett. In the tradition of Claire Keegan and Sarah Winman comes an unforgettable story of love and betrayal through the eyes of a child.
The rhythm drew me in, so even though I did not understand all of the words, I felt like I understood the feeling of the story. And that shook and excited me at the same time. For it was not only words that told a story. There was a kind of magic happening and I wanted to find out how it worked and how I could do it. I wanted to find out everything about it.
Norway, 1939. When young Einar Halvorsen first meets his new teacher, he does not yet know that this man will introduce him to a profound love of words. He cannot guess how he will teach him that stories can open up your world and bring joy in the darkest of times.
Or how the new teacher will change his family forever.
As war comes to Einar's town, this man ignites a pride in Einar that the Nazis cannot steal. Seventy years on, he will also teach Einar that some sorrows are never left behind.
Poetic and brutally tender, One for Sorrow is a timely novel of family and love in a world deeply divided. Like Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These, there is truth and power in its telling and its characters. It is masterful, exquisite and unforgettable.
Event venue & nearby stays
The Book Room At Byron, 27 Fletcher Street, Byron Bay, Australia
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