
After a tumultuous year in which I wrote a novel, helped my mother sell our family home, supported my daughter through her final school exams, and caught Covid, I was very much in need of a summer holiday! And for me, holidays mean a lot of reading. Here are my seven favourite books from the many I read, handpicked for your reading pleasure.
After
by Nikki Gemmell
The best memoir I read in recent months is definitely After by Nikki Gemmell. A searingly honest memoir, she began writing it the day after her mother quietly decided to end her own life rather than endure any more pain. She left no note, no farewell letter, no written explanation. The book explores Nikki’s anguish and guilt, which largely arises from her tumultuous relationship with her strong-willed and opiniated mother, and also from the trauma of the police investigation and the lack of a chance to say goodbye. After also explores the moral dilemmas of the right to choose the time and place of one’s demise, a very timely exploration given the continuing battle for the right to death movement in Australia. The writing is fierce and intimate, and breathtaking in its bravery.
‘The grief is not over, it will never be over. It still trips me up in unexpected moments, stumbling me all over again … But the moving forward is stronger, swifter now; the seam of melancholy more hidden. Yes, climbing back into the world.’
Highly recommended.
Buy it here
Still Life
by Sarah Winman
This novel brings together some of my own passionate loves: art, Italy, the work of E.M. Forster, the untold lives of women … and so, of course, it’s not surprising that I adored it. Sarah Winman has a fresh and unusual style of writing. She abandons quotation marks (which I usually hate), and she leaps over years with whimsical vignettes or quirky summaries. Yet somehow it all works. The book tells the stories of an elderly art historian named Evelyn Skinner and a young British soldier named Ulysses Temper, who met once in Florence at the end of World War II, but whose lives continue to touch and affect each other 40 years later. There are a great many colourful and eccentric minor characters, including a blue parrot that acts like a kind of wise fool, quoting Shakespeare or the Bible in eerily prescient ways. I particularly loved the women at the heart of the book – Evelyn herself, Ulysses’s former wife Peg, and her daughter by another man, often called simply the Kid.
The novel is long and languid, like an Italian lunch, and full of musings on the importance of art and love and kindness and the meaning of life: ‘So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes carelessly. And in unsuspecting moments, the pain catches and reminds one of all that’s been missing. The fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfil and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit. Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity.’
I finished it with a big lump in my throat.
Buy it here
Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku
by Natalie Goldberg
This slim little hardback is a gentle and delicate exploration of the writing of haiku, a form of short poetry that originated in Japan and has now taken the world of Instagram and Twitter by storm. I love it, and try my hand at writing it whenever the mood takes me. I also follow quite a few other poets online, some of whom write a #haikuaday – along with other forms of #micropoetry.
Natalie Goldberg is best known for her classic book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, which I have not yet read. She writes with great elegance and gentle touches of humour about her own personal journey into learning about haiku, and her journey to Japan to walk in the footsteps of the ancient masters. It’s a lovely introduction to both her, and the deceptively simple seventeen syllable poem. I would have liked more about the women writers of haiku, and modern masters of the form, but somehow the austerity of the book suits the artform it describes.
Buy it here
The Survivors
by Jane Harper
Another clever and atmospheric Australian crime novel from Jane Harper, set in a small coastal town in Tasmania. The wild, rugged cliffs and unpredictable sea are vividly evoked, and the mystery is slowly but compellingly unfurled. Once again, Jane Harper has avoided a conventional detective novel, focusing instead on the interlinked lives of local people whose families were torn apart ten years earlier by a cataclysmic storm. The main character is a young man named Kieran Elliott, who feels deep corroding guilt over the death of his elder brother on that night. His wife lost her best friend, and one of his oldest mates also lost a brother. The whole town still blames Kieran. The discovery of a young woman’s body on the beach rakes up old grudges and bad memories, as long buried secrets begin to emerge.
Buy it here
The Charleston Scandal
by Pamela Hart
A delightful historical romance, The Charleston Scandal tells the story of a young Australian actress trying to make her way in the glamorous world of the theatre in 1920s London. Kit Scott comes from a privileged background, with her father being the Dean of the St Andrews Cathedral in Sydney. She has always yearned for a life on the stage, however, and so is ecstatic when she wins the role of an ingenue in a West End play. She dances, sings, and acts alongside a young Canadian named Zeke, who has a very different back story to hers – he comes from poverty and violence and sends much of what he earns back to his struggling mother in Canada. Kit is drawn to him, but their backgrounds are very different, and it seems the gap is too large to bridge.
Matters are further complicated when she inadvertently sparks a scandal by being photographed dancing the Charleston next to the Prince of Wales. She is strong-armed by the Palace into pretending to be dating a charming but spoilt young aristocrat who draws her into a fast set that threatens to turn her head and make her choice of career even more difficult than it already is. I particularly enjoyed the vibrant cameo appearances from Noel Coward, Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, and the future King Edward and Mrs Simpson. Pamela Hart has such a deft, light touch and explores deeper issues of women’s empowerment, post-war malaise, gender fluidity and class without once sacrificing pace and verve. Top-notch!
Buy it here
Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens
I feel like everyone else in the world has read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens – it’s one of those books that has seized the popular imagination and become a cultural phenomenon. It’s sold more than 11 million copies, been made into a movie, and caused a lot of talk, particularly about some of the uncanny parallels with the author’s own life.
I was not sure what to expect when I came to it – I often find that books that have been so popular leave me underwhelmed. I loved Where The Crawdads Sung, though. I thought it was beautifully written, cleverly constructed, and filled with vivid urgent life like the marshes themselves. I was moved by the character of Kya, the little abandoned girl who struggles to survive alone in the swamp, and who longs only to be loved. The depictions of life in 1950s and ’60s North Carolina reminded me a little of A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter, which I have always loved for its depiction of the swamplands of Indiana and its passionate defence of nature and wilderness. The denouement of the mystery came as no surprise to me, but it did feel psychologically true, even if morally troubling. I’m glad that Kya found someone to love her and care for her, and was able to build a rich and satisfying life for herself.
Buy it here
Marlene
by C. W. Gortner
Marlene by C.W. Gortner is the fascinating story of Marlene Dietrich, the German actor who became a Hollywood star and then almost died whilst entertaining US soldiers during World War II. I came to this book because I love Gortner’s biographical fiction, rather than because of any interest in Marlene herself, but I soon found myself fascinated by her character and life, and watching videos of her performing online.
Despite studying hard to fulfill her mother’s dream that she become a concert violinist, Maria Magdalena Dietrich prefers to sing, playact and mimic others for comic effect. Her beauty and sensuality lead her into the free-spirited world of Berlin’s nightclubs and cabarets, where the atmosphere of gender play and free love appeal to her independent spirit. She has love affairs with both men and women, and works hard to establish a career for herself in the performing arts. Gradually she finds her way into film, and is chosen to play the role of Lola-Lola, a cabaret singer and whore, in the 1930’s movie The Blue Angel. Her world-weary beauty and smoke-roughened voice made her a star, and it was not long before she set her sights on Hollywood, where she causes scandal with her androgynous look and unconventional lifestyle.
Marlene Dietrich was truly an intriguing woman, and Gortner brings her to vivid, dazzling life. So good!
Buy it here
About Kate
Kate Forsyth wrote her first novel aged seven and has now sold more than a million books worldwide. Her latest book, set to be released in July 2022, is The Crimson Thread – a historical novel set in Crete during World War II, in which a young woman who fights with the resistance against the brutal Nazi occupation finds herself caught between her traitor of a brother and the man she loves. Kate’s other books include Searching for Charlotte (co-written with Belinda Murrell), The Blue Rose, inspired by the true story of the quest for a blood-red rose during the French Revolution, Beauty in Thorns, a Pre-Raphaelite reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, and Bitter Greens, which won the 2015 American Library Association award for Best Historical Fiction. Kate’s books for children include the fantasy series The Witches of Eileanan.
Named one of Australia’s Favourite 15 Novelists, Kate has a BA in literature, a MA in creative writing and a doctorate in fairy tale studies, and is also an accredited master storyteller with the Australian Guild of Storytellers. She is a direct descendant of Charlotte Waring Atkinson, the author of the first book for children ever published in Australia.
Find out more about Kate Forsyth here.

The Crimson Thread
May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka a young Greek woman saves the lives of two Australian soldiers.
Jack and Teddy are childhood friends who joined up together to see the world. Both men fall in love with Alenka. They are forced to retreat with the tattered remains of the Allied forces over the towering White Mountains...
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