Published 2020 by Abacus 375 pages
ISBN 978-0-349-14374-3
Genre: crime
Keywords: Tasmania, Australia, rural village and hamlet, storm and drowning, guilt, grief, family
Grade 3
Now a days most young people leave the rural living for the big city because of education, better paid jobs or they run away from events that haunt them.
Kieran is the main character in this novel and he ran away for all of the above reasons. For 12 years he has been haunted by the death of his older brother and his best friend Toby; a once-in-a-century-storm wrecked their boat trying to rescue Kieran who against all odds managed to survive. It is devastating when a small community experience the drowning of two young men who grew up and decided to and live in the community. Kieran felt grief and guilt all at the same time; he felt his parents had wished he had died and not his successful older brother, Finn. Kieran went to Melbourne, became a licensed physiotherapist; he tried therapy, sports like swimming but never felt that anything helped until he met Mia, she is four years younger, she also grew up in the same village, Evelyn Bay, they had not known each other then, but known of the other. In the same storm Mia lost her best friend, Gabby, but it took two days before anybody had realized she was missing and lost, her body never found. Mia and Kieran have made a life together they even have a young baby, Audrey.
Kieran’s father has dementia and he is too much for his mother, Verity, to manage so he has to go into care and Verity will move next to the institution to be near him. They book starts with Kieran and Mia having come home to help Verity to pack and move. Kieran has many friends in the village but has not kept in touch. Throughout the book we are in Kieran’s head, his thoughts and anxieties. Bronte is a student of art and stayed in the village for the summer, worked in the local pub. She was found murdered on the beach the day after Kieran and Mia had arrived. The police start to investigate.
The book is incredibly slow to get into, I got messed up in the family connections between the different characters. Of the 41 chapters it is only by chapter 37-38 the story really caught my attention and I could not put down the book; but that is too long. The story ends up with tying a connection to what happened during the storm 12 years earlier.
I found the description of the small community realistic and very good.
Overall, I found the story somewhat unrealistic. In a small community everybody knows everyone and their business so I find it not very likely that what had happened could have been hidden for 12 years. Bronte found a clue but she did not realize what it was and anyway she would have returned to the university a week later and be gone, so why kill her.
A nice quote:
His daughter lay milk-drunk against his bare chest (page 4)
Mia: “it did change your life (that Finn died), but I’m not sure in the way you sometimes think it was. Honestly Kieran, I think it made you a better person. Kinder, definitely. More aware of other people, more conscious of your actions” (page 331)
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