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Phoeba Crupp is a young woman who lives with her parents and sister on a small farm near Geelong in the 1890s. Her father is an eccentric ex-accountant who moved his family from the city in order to establish a vineyard, a decision her mother bitterly – and loudly – resents.
While her sister makes a play for the local squatter's son, Phoeba is content with her best friend Harriet, until circumstances push her towards the world of men and money. Summer at Mount Hope has a lot of the black comedy of Ham's first novel, The Dressmaker, but also contains a more serious strand about the efforts of a woman a century ago to be free.
About the Author
Rosalie Ham was born and raised in the Riverina, in southern NSW, and now lives in Brunswick, Victoria. She studied drama and literature before taking up writing seriously and has had written three stage plays and one radio play which were performed in Melbourne. The Dressmaker was her first novel. Published in 2000, it is a black comedy set in the 1950s about a woman who returns to her home town in Victoria to look after her dying mother, after years of living in Paris.
In The Press
Rosalie Ham’s second novel is as unforgettable and unput-downable as her first, the quirky The Dressmaker. Ham is a gifted storyteller, her ideas are fresh, unusual and entertaining, and result in marvellous stories steeped in an Australia at once recognisable but also new. There's not a cliché within cooee. Ham also has a great talent for arranging words, using them sparsely to express the most fantastic sentiments. I cannot recommend Summer at Mount Hope highly enough.
~ The Sun Herald, 2005
In The Press
Rosalie Ham's The Dressmaker was one of those rare first novels that arrived virtually unannounced…and gathered momentum largely by word of mouth to become a bestseller and book club favourite. While it's the social and romantic intrigue that carries the story, it's Ham's wickedly black humour and finely researched social observation that deliver the real joy of the book. ('Jane Austen Meets Steele Rudd', by Liam Davidson)
~ The Australian, 2005
In The Press
Rosalie Ham has rendered the intricacies of an isolated Australian community with consummate skill on two occasions, first in The Dressmaker, and now in Summer at Mount Hope. She does not resort to stereotypes.
~ Sydney Morning Herald, 2005
ISBN: 9780975192160
ISBN-10: 0975192167
Publisher: Duffy & Snellgrove
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Dimensions (cm): 23.5 x 15.5
x 2.2
Weight (kg): 0.404
Audience:
General
