A Dangerous Language by Sulari Gentill

Most of you know my love for the Rowland Sinclair series. I've had to wait nearly 12 months for the latest instalment, A Dangerous Language...and it was so worth the wait!

I had the pleasure of hearing Sulari Gentill talk about her books recently and was thrilled to hear that she has long term plans for Rowland and his friends that will take us all the way through to the end of WWII. Initially she planned to write a book set in each year from 1932 - 1945. However we have now just finished book 8...and we're still in 1935!

One of the things I love about this series is the mix of fictional and real life characters. Gentill talked about how she always sticks to the known facts but that her stories exist in the gaps in between.
A quick wiki search on the journalist Egon Kisch shows that he did in fact jump from his ship in Melbourne in 1934 and break his leg. Gentill has simply added Rowly and his friends to the picture with a plausible reason about why Kisch may have 'jumped'.

Having an historian as a husband has kept Gentill honest in all matters relating to these times. It's this authenticity that makes Rowland feel so real...and the fact that he is such a lovely, lovely man. It must be wonderful to carry him around in your head all the time, as Gentill does.

This particular story is mostly set in Victoria and Canberra as Rowly and his friends help the members the Movement Against War & Fascism get Kisch into the country to speak his 'dangerous language'. Naturally, Rowland's brother, Wilfred, is not happy about this turn of events, but there are many others even unhappier. This unhappiness quickly turns into violence and places our much loved characters in many dangerous situations.

Poor Rowly has been shot, stabbed, tortured, kidnapped and hit over the head so many times, it's amazing that he's still standing. It's getting a little harder to classify these books as 'cosy crime' or 'gentle crime', perhaps historical fiction that just happens to have crime and political intrigue is a more apt description.

Gentill is getting better and better with each of the Rowly stories. I love how she brings to light little known historical events for her characters to engage with. Fact and fiction are woven together seamlessly and gracefully and her main characters are being allowed to evolve into nuanced, complex individuals. Does anyone else feel that little break/ache of their heart every time Mrs Sinclair calls Rowland, Aubrey?

Sense of place is a another thing that I love about these books. Gentill's good eye for detail brings 1930's Sydney to life (or in this case 1930's Melbourne and Canberra). I have a real sense of walking beside Rowly and his friends, seeing what they see and feeling what they feel.

As for Rowly and Edna? It's so obvious that the adore each other, but will they ever be able to work things out? They are the Mulder & Scully or the David & Maddie of 1930's Sydney!

Any of these stories would be great choices for this year's #AusReadingMonth BINGO card. Most of the books are set in Sydney, NSW, except for Book 4 that took us to Munich, Germany and this latest one.

#1 A Few Right Thinking Men
#2 A Decline in Prophets
#3 Miles Off Course
#4 Paving the New Road
#5 Gentlemen Formerly Dressed
#6 A Murder Unmentioned
#7 Give the Devil His Due
Prequel - The Prodigal Son (e-book only - download your copy here.)
#8 - A Dangerous Language
#9 - due for publication Sept 2018

My #AusReadingMonth Possibilities

As many of you know, my TBR pile is out of control. A bigly number of those books are by Australian authors (I feel safe using bigly now that 1. we know that Trump actually said big league and 2. that bigly is a real work, although archaic and rarely used.)

I thought I'd list some of them, focusing on the state, territory or town that each is predominantly set in, to help our overseas #AusReadingMonth participants.

Since I haven't read any of these books yet, I'm using their blurbs and goodreads reviews to help me work out where they're set. If anyone would like to correct me, please feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Aunts Up the Cross by Robin Dalton (memoir) - Kings Cross, Sydney, NSW
The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough (historical fiction) - The Blue Mountains, NSW
The Dyehouse by Mena Calthorpe (fiction/classic) - Sydney, NSW
Mirror Sydney by Vanessa Berry (non-fiction) - NSW
The Timeless Land by Elenor Dark (fiction/classic) - NSW
Watershed by Fabienne Bayet-Charlton (fiction) - NSW, I think.
True North by Brenda Niall (biography) - NSW (& elsewhere)

Home by Larissa Behrendt (fiction) - NSW

1788 by Watkin Tench (history/memoir) - NSW

Everyman's Rules of Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany (fiction) - VIC
The Pea-Pickers by Eve Langley (fiction/classic) - VIC
Sisters by Ada Cambridge (fiction/classic) - VIC
The Danger Game by Kalinda Ashton (fiction) - Melbourne, VIC
The First Book of Samuel by Ursula Dubosarsky (historical fiction)- Melbourne, VIC
Conditions of Faith by Alex Miller (fiction/memoir) - Melbourne, VIC predominantly

A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper (historical fiction) - TAS

The Commandant by Jessica Anderson (historical fiction/classic) - QLD
It's Raining in Mango by Thea Astley (fiction) - QLD
The Slow Natives by Thea Astley (fiction) - QLD
The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (fiction) - QLD
Omega Park by Amy Barker (fiction) - QLD
Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller (fiction) - QLD

A Dangerous Language by Sulari Gentill (historical fiction/crime)- ACT predominantly

Shallows by Tim Winton (fiction) - WA
Benang by Kim Scott (memoir/fiction) - WA
Coonardoo by Katharine Susannah Prichard (fiction) - WA

My Place by Sally Morgan (memoir) - WA

Island Home by Tim Winton (memoir/essays) - FREE - it covers various areas of Australia, although being Winton it will probably be predominantly WA based.

Maurice Guest by Henry Handle Richardson (fiction/classic) - FREE - an Australian writer with an overseas setting.

My Love Must Wait by Ernestine Hill (historical fiction/classic) - FREE - a fictional story about Matthew Flinders
Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley (fiction) - FREE - an Australian writer with an overseas setting.
The Swan Book by Alexis Wright (fiction) - FREE - futuristic novel set in Australia

The Rose Grower by Michelle de Kretser (historical fiction) - FREE - an Australian writer with an overseas setting.
Dancing with Strangers by Inga Clendinnen (history) - FREE - all of Australia.
The Bush by Don Watson (non-fiction) - FREE - all of Australia.

As you can see, I actually need a year-long AusReading event to come close to reading all these books! Can you recommend any of these books? Which one should I tackle first?

My Top Ten all-time favourite Australian books.

Where the Trees Were by Inga Simpson

One of my good friends has adored Inga Simpson's previous two books, Nest and Mr Wigg, so when Simpson's third book hit the stands recently, I knew it was time for me to see what it was that Anne loved so much about Simpson's writing.

Where the Trees Were appealed to me for lots of different reasons.

First up the stunning, bark-inspired cover created by Allison Colpoys - love it!

Secondly, the childhood section of this book is set in the Lachlan Valley - which is also where Simpson grew up near Grenfell - and where I spent my teenage years in Cowra.

Most of my friends lived on farms, riding bikes, herding sheep, catching the bus in for school every day, just like the characters in the book. One of my friend's even had a spot on her farm where we could occasionally spot a platypus in the creek.

Everything rang true, even down to the part about the boys leaving school in Year 10 to help out on the family farm, the tragic car accident that happened in every year in a rural school and all the clever science kids heading off to ANU for their tertiary studies.

I realised that Ambelin Kwaymullina's comment “to find yourself in story is the right of every child” is also the right of every adult.  I was ridiculously excited to read a story set in my own backyard and to see so many of my childhood experiences reflected in Where the Trees Were.

The alternating chapters that featured the adult story were set in Canberra. The childhood wrongs were gradually revealed through adult eyes. Subtle layers of meaning were peeled back. Indigenous land rights, burial grounds and environmental concerns were explored.

I learnt a lot about arborglyphs (burial trees), sadly a topic that I had never heard about before.

Simpson also teased us with some tantalising information relating to her next project - a history of Australian nature writers - as her protagonist, Jayne, uncovered some 19th century native flower artwork.

The only jarring note was the alternating chapter switch between first person and third person narrative. There were many times in the grown-up chapters when I wasn't sure who was talking, Jayne, or her partner Sarah. But perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Overall, a satisfying, intelligent work that has inspired me to seek out Simpson's previous two novels.