Well-developed winged and four-legged characters star in an imaginative, haunting farm tale.
A debut novel offers a fantasy set on a sheep farm on Australia’s Kangaroo Island.
Eighth grader Samantha Carter, the daughter of sheep farmers, is on the precipice of life-altering changes. But right now, her biggest concern is qualifying for a netball playoff. That and the upper-grade bullies Sam must contend with daily. Meanwhile, this season’s recently birthed lambs are being carefully tended in preparation for their ill-fated destinies. Readers meet these happy babies as they munch contentedly on savory grass under the watchful eyes of their mothers, who “lived with the certainty of loss and the acute anxiety caused by the uncertainty of its timing.” Readers, unlike the humans in Brasher’s dark, inventive tale, are privy to the flock’s conversations. Indeed, almost all of the animals—the koala, kangaroos, and a variety of birds—speak, sharing the wisdom of their ancient ancestors and philosophizing about the future. Unlike the sheep, which were introduced to the island by humans, the Indigenous animals lace their dialogue with Kaurna, Aboriginal terminology. Fortunately, the author provides a helpful glossary. Parallel dramas among the humans and the sheep propel the disturbing and poignant narrative. Sam, who develops a relationship with one of the lambs, and her older brother, Peter, herald the future transformation of the Carter farm. Twin lambs Spring and Hope make separate breaks to explore the mysterious world beyond the fences. And Wartu, the crusty old koala with the wisdom of an elder, becomes a major secondary character when he ventures near the humans for the first time, knowing he must leave the safety of home and head west in search of food. “Well, go I must,” he tells the dark-winged birds who see all that is happening. “Most of the trees here have been eaten bare by my brethren and many of the others hacked down by the two-ups” (humans). Brasher’s ominous prologue is realized in a heartbreaking slaughterhouse episode likely to create some vegetarians.
Well-developed winged and four-legged characters star in an imaginative, haunting farm tale.Pub Date: April 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-946044-74-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Who Chains You Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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