We Saw What You Started

 

It's fitting that I've finished the final book the CBCA Notables list during Book Week, just after the winners have been announced. I predicted that Barry Jonsberg's Darkest Night, Brightest Star, with its themes of toxic masculinity, male violence and trauma would be a timely winner this year, so I'm not surprised that it took out the top prize, while I was pleased that Lili Wilkinson's Unhallowed Halls and Jade Timms' Golden were both Honour books in the Older Readers category.

In some ways We Saw What You Started by Carla Salmon is a very typical entrant in the Older Readers list. Set in a coastal town -- tick. Elements of romance -- tick. A mystery/crime plot -- tick (crime is very hot right now). One character with an American background to increase its international appeal -- tick. In fact I didn't mind the American character this time, Otto splits the narration with local Aussie Milly, so the US viewpoint is not overwhelming (apparently as soon as an Australian book mentions the word Mum, it instantly forfeits any chance of US publication).

What gives We Saw What You Started its unique flavour is that the action is centred around the local surf club and the rivalry over championships. Milly's father seems to favour her twin brother Jasper; is Jasper really a bad seed, or just obnoxious? Meanwhile fires are starting all over town, and new arrival Otto keeps being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who is innocent and who is guilty? We Saw What You Started is a satisfying mystery story, and dare I say it, a great beach read.

The Set-Up Girl

The Set-Up Girl by Sasha Vey is a fun novel about romance, crushes, sexual identity, misunderstandings and friendship. Amalia comes from a Slovenian Catholic family, a background I haven't seen explored before, and one which apparently comes with strict parents and tight extended family relationships. Amalia, her sister and mum are in a book group with her aunts and cousins, which adds a wry commentary to the boy/girl crush and friendship dramas she finds herself in. Amalia's see-sawing attraction to the hot boy and the hot girl felt very plausible, but it was grounded by her deep friendship with Mae, who is having identity and romance struggles of her own.

One element of The Set-Up Girl that I found slightly disturbing, but no one else seems to have a problem with, was Amalia's and her sister's routine deceptions of their parents, sneaking out after dark, setting up 'camping trips' that are a cover for visiting music festivals, secret alcohol drinking, secret dating, and other mild rebellions. It seemed to me that it might be better to open up communication between the generations, especially since both Amalia and her sister are over 18 and technically adults... but neither my daughter nor the members of my book group had any problem with the situation at all. Maybe I'm still in denial about how much (or how little) my own kids deceived me in their adolescent years! Anyway, in a YA book I should definitely be on the side of the kids.
 

Never Thought I'd End Up Here

Last year I read Ann Liang's I Hope This Doesn't Find You and was bemused by its transcontinental ambiguity. Never Thought I'd End Up Here is more firmly rooted in an American background, but its characters are swiftly translocated to a two week student trip to China, where the young protagonists can explore their heritage and family language.

Narrator Leah is battling not just her judgmental extended family, but a complicated personal history which encompasses changing schools under suspicion of attacking and injuring a fellow student, being overlooked as plain and dull, and then giving herself an extreme makeover which resulted in a modelling career -- which she has just quit, leaving her directionless. No wonder she's confused! And when the China trip reunites her with her nemesis, Cyrus, the one who accused her of hurting him, Leah is torn between a plan for revenge and ... starting to like him?

I'm sure you can guess how the story unfolds (I definitely did think we'd end up here), but Liang pushes all the right buttons for an audience eager for young adult romance. My school librarian friend assures me that her books fly off the shelves, and she is a New York Times bestselling author, so she's certainly found a winning formula. Never Thought I'd End Up Here is not quite my cup of tea, but an entertaining and polished ride.

The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin

First, my only niggle -- where is the apostrophe in the title of this book? It seems to have been shaken loose and lost in the tumult of events. But that quibble aside, it was an absolute delight to rejoin the company of adventurous Regency sisters, Augusta and Julia, and their rogue love interests, Lord Evan (sometime highwayman) and Mr Kent (proto-police officer). The sisters are sheltering the noble lady they rescued from a madhouse in the first book, but her brother is hot on her trail, and they are also desperate to get to the bottom of the duel that cost Lord Evan his freedom and his reputation.

The pace of The Ladies['] Guide to Utter Ruin never slackens for an instant as Augusta dons disguises, penetrates a hellish private gentleman's club, tears about on horseback and in racing carriages, tells outrageous lies and begs favours from Beau Brummell, no less. There are sobering reminders of just how much power men hold over women at this time (hint: it's total), but also a cute moment where Gus finds time to read a recent novel starring another pair of sisters (one with sense and one with sensibility).

Thrillingly, Utter Ruin ends with Augusta and companions about to embark on their most challenging quest yet, some kind of Scarlet Pimpernel-ish rescue mission into revolutionary France. I can hardly wait.
 

More Than We Can Tell

 

I borrowed Brigid Kemmerer's More Than We Can Tell because it includes a teenager who makes her own online game, but unlike Slay, the online world plays only a relatively minor role in this story. This novel is a kind of sequel to Letters to the Lost, and the characters of Juliet and Declan reappear here. However, the novel centres on a different pair: reclusive, damaged Rev (aka the Grim Reaper, because he's always shrouded in a hoodie) and Emma, torn between her distracted computer geek father and her critical, driven doctor mother.

Emma's game features because she's being harassed by a player called Nightmare; she's also befriended by a supportive player called Ethan (we never discover if they are, in fact, the same person). Her parents' marriage is dissolving, and in the midst of all this, she strikes up a tentative friendship with 'weirdo' Rev. We learn that Rev has many reasons to be weird, mostly connected with his estranged, abusive father. These two defensive characters have to overcome their inner demons to help each other.

I quickly became hooked by More Than We Can Tell. It's a very YA novel; especially early in the book, I felt like shaking both Rev and Emma and urging them to just tell their parents how they were feeling -- it would have saved a lot of drama! But I can imagine adolescent readers gobbling up this tortured romance with a spoon. 

I think I was most horrified to learn about Lucky Charms, allegedly a breakfast cereal, eaten by Rev and his foster brother, which consists of MARSHMALLOWS and 'frosted oats.' It sounds horrific, and definitely not something anyone should eat for breakfast.

The Sweetness Between Us

The Sweetness Between Us by Sarah Winifred Searle, the next title on the Notables list, surprised me in several different ways. First, it's a graphic novel -- the only one on the list, as far as I recall -- which meant I could race through it in a single sitting. Second, it's set in the US (at least, a parallel universe US with supernatural elements). The author is an American now living in Perth, but more than a little homesick. Third surprise: vampires! They appeared just as I thought I was settling into a conventional high school relationship story. Fourth surprise: one of the main characters, Perley, turned out to be a boy, though I had mentally coded him firmly as a girl for quite a while. My bad.

I enjoyed the twist on high school odd couple romance. Amandine, 'turned' into a vampire after a near-fatal accident, is still trying to come to terms with her new identity, as is Perley, who has recently been diagnosed with diabetes, something that creates inconvenience but also huge financial difficulties for his family (this is one issue that I assume wouldn't arise with such sharpness if the story was set in Australia). Happily, Amandine can save Perley some cash on testing strips by tasting his blood sugar levels, while that little bit of real human blood also gives vegan Amandine benefits in energy and health. However, both characters need to separate for a while and explore their identities independently before they can truly be together.

The Sweetness Between Us is, appropriately, a sweet and thoughtful story with plenty of space for diverse identities of all kinds, and kicking back against all kinds of stereotypes.

Return to Sender

First of all, what a beautiful cover! It's a work of art. Hazel Lam was shortlisted for a book design award for this cover and rightly so, it's gorgeous. Lauren Draper's debut novel, Return to Sender, is next on my list of CBCA Notables, and it's a novel with a lot going on: a returning delinquent, a group of friends, a mystery, a simmering romance, historical pain, a secret house in the woods, a cache of mystery letters...

As anyone who has read Dear Swoosie will know, I am a sucker for a cache of mystery letters. In this case, Brodie and her delightfully eccentric grandmother actually live in a post office with a Dead Letter Office attached, so there is plenty of scope for mysteries and possibly even ghosts. But the heart of the story lies in the tight bonds between Brodie, her gay bestie Elliot (and his boyfriend), and heart throb frenemy Levi, all of whom have families with suffering in their pasts.

At times I felt a little unmoored in the landscape of Return to Sender, possibly because it enjoyed a simultaneous Australian and US publication which might have left it hovering between the two countries. The lake and the woods felt more American than Oz, though the wildlife and vegetation was fairly non-specific. Even a reference to the local police department coded US to me. It's all carefully internationally flavoured, nothing to scare the horses (I may have a bias here, as Crow Country was rejected by US publishers as 'too Australian!') Return to Sender apparently began life as a Covid book, and I can't think of a better way of spending lockdown than in spinning this layered, heartfelt novel.
 

The Morning Gift

Wow, I have certainly done a massive binge on Eva Ibbotson -- I reserved all the available titles from the local library and I've been reading them as they come in. The Morning Gift was the last one, though I have also bought a couple of books and added them to my pile. I might take a rest for a while. The good thing about Eva Ibbotson is that you know exactly what you're going to get. Our sweet, funny heroine this time is Ruth, a refugee from Vienna at the beginning of the Second World War. Our reserved, masterful older man is Quin Somerville, professor and paleontologist. This time, the plot starter is that Quin secretly marries Ruth in order to extract her safely from Austria. There are, as usual, complications galore, mostly in the shape of classical pianist Heini, to whom Ruth is officially devoted, and ruthless student (ha ha) Verena Plackett, who has set her marital sights on Quin.

One thing I love about Ibbotson novels, apart from their comforting reliability, is the large cast of eccentric characters that she manages to so deftly create and move around the chess board of the story. Though our hero and heroine tend to be very similar characters from novel to novel, our minor characters are delightfully varied and vividly sketched in such an endearing way that we can't help becoming invested in their fates. In The Morning Gift, we meet passionate gardener Uncle Mishak, horrible snob Lady Plackett, free spirit Janet, floundering biology student Pilly, and many others.

I seem to be declaring each Ibbotson my favourite as I make my way through them, but I really think  The Morning Gift (named for the symbolic gift that defines a morganatic marriage, freeing the husband from any future marital obligations -- I always wondered where that came from) might be my actual favourite!

A Song For Summer

Another lovely Eva Ibbotson novel, this one from 1997 (she kept writing almost up until her death in 2010). A Song For Summer is set at an eccentric artsy school in Austria, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Our heroine is Ellen, who despite being the child of a famous suffragette, has turned her talents to the housewifely arts and is working as a cook. Our hero is Marek, who despite being a world-renowned composer, is working as a groundsman and handyman in the same establishment (he's secretly rescuing Jews from the Nazis). This time there are three ill-matched couples who need to be disentangled and reassorted, and the obstacles in their way are even more dramatic than usual, including an actual marriage, a terrible fire, and of course the war.

By now I know exactly what I'm going to get from an Eva Ibbotson novel, and if some of her notions are a little old-fashioned, she's also refreshingly candid about sex, and values kindness above all other virtues. There will probably be a big old neglected house somewhere in the mix, a lake or a river and some animals, a precocious child, and music, as well as our star-crossed lovers. My only quibble was an anachronistic mention of Bletchley Park at a time when its very existence was top secret, but I can overlook that. I'm so glad to have discovered Eva Ibbotson.
 

The Wedding Forecast & I'm Not Really Here

By chance, I ended up reading two contemporary Australian romances at the same time: Gary Lonesborough's YA novel, I'm Not Really Here, and former YA writer, now adult novelist, Nina Kenwood's The Wedding Forecast.

Both these books were sweet, satisfying romantic stories. In I'm Not Really Here, gay Aboriginal teenager Jonah's struggles are mainly internal doubts -- he feels fat and unattractive, he's not sure if his crush Harley returns his feelings or if he's even gay. In contrast, in The Wedding Forecast, thirty year old Anna is fresh out of an eight year relationship with Joel, when she meets hot but US-based actor Mac at a mutual friend's wedding. There's no doubt that Mac finds Anna equally attractive, but how can they build a life together when he's so far away? The obstacles here are mostly external ones.

Interestingly, given the different ages of the characters and presumably the intended audience, the amount of sexual content is about the same and at about the same level of explicitness (ie not massively explicit, but enough to make these books probably unsuitable for very young children -- not that they'd be harmed by reading either of these novels. I got most of my sex education from reading Jean Plaidy historical novels as an eight year old, so what would I know?)

I really enjoyed both these books. I had a long wait at the library for the Nina Kenwood, so I'm obviously not the only fan out there! And I'm happy that Gary Lonesborough's book has made it to the CBCA Shortlist, because we need so many more of these kinds of tender, honest stories, especially for boys.

I Hope This Doesn't Find You

Next on my list of the CBCA Older Readers Notables is Ann Liang's I Hope This Doesn't Find You. Since I began this list, the official shortlist for the awards has been released, and it includes three books I've already read -- A Wreck of Seabirds, Birdy, and Comes the Night. I was disappointed that Deep Is the Fen missed out -- I wish Lili Wilkinson would get more recognition from awards committees.

I Hope This Doesn't Find You didn't make the shortlist cut, either, but my friend Cathy who is a librarian at a girls' school tells me Ann Liang's books absolutely fly off the shelves, so maybe she doesn't need any extra help! This novel centres on high-achieving, self-effacing private schoolgirl Sadie Wen, who has endured a ten year rivalry with her co-school captain, the insufferable (but weirdly hot) Julius Gong. Julius inspires such strong emotions in Sadie -- it's because they hate each other, right? Right?

I found this book a bit of a weird reading experience because, although Liang explicitly says it's set in Melbourne, it seems to float in a strange unanchored American-ish location, where there is a palm-lined beach two hours from the city, people say Mom and math, students aspire to attend Harvard and Berkeley and older brothers live in college dorms. I found this disorienting, but Cathy assures me it works for Liang's young readers. For me, the will-they, won't-they romance took a while to get going, and I was more interested in perfectionist Sadie's urge to control and solve every problem, while never admitting to any weakness in herself. Her dilemma is symbolised early in the novel when a secret cache of draft rage-emails are unwittingly sent to the whole school, and everyone learns what Sadie is really thinking.
 

A Company of Swans

I recently read another novel by Eva Ibbotson, The Countess Below Stairs, so I pounced on this ex-library copy of A Company of Swans. Originally published in 1985 as an adult romance (like The Countess), it was reissued in 2013 by Macmillan Children's Books. I feel this was a... dubious... decision. Certainly from the look of this cover, and the others in the Macmillan series, the casual browser would probably take A Company of Swans to be a conventional ballet book, a suitable follow-up to Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes, or Lorna Hill's Sadlers Wells series. But it's not.

A Company of Swans is a sweet, frothy romance. Young adults could definitely read it in safety, and no doubt that was what Macmillan intended. However, to my eye, it is clearly marked and packaged as a children's book: a children's book that features, as the kids say these days, 'some spice.' We have brothels, seduction, naked breasts and an instance of heartbreaking child neglect. It also has an exotic setting -- South America in 1912 -- with some potentially awkward colonialist overtones. However, overall, it's a delightful romp, with a noble hero, a kind, determined heroine, and an array of stiffly respectable adversaries whose defeat is a joy to witness.

I think I know exactly what to expect from Eva Ibbotson now, and I'm looking forward to reading more.