Page 81 - Woman's Weekly - New Zealand (January 2020)
P. 81
readingCORNER
PRESENCE
Spooky!
Nicky Pellegrino
BOOKS EDITOR tense!
THE PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT LOO BOOK CLUB
his feels like the wrong in the phenomenon and mounts the sisters’ relationship. DISCUSSION
season to read a ghost an investigation. They spend There are lots of characters
Tstory, as they somehow much of the summer at Iron to keep track of in the two Don’t miss out on the
seem to belong in cold, dark Sike Farm observing the two halves of the story and while Weekly’s new book club.
places. But this one kicks off haunted girls, with the help of a the pace is sometimes a bit This month we are reading
during the famously long, hot local newspaper photographer. too unhurried, I really enjoyed an apocalyptic drama about
UK summer of 1976 and is no A second strand of the being haunted by The Wayward climate change, The End of
less atmospheric for it. story is set in the present Girls. It kept me on the edge the Ocean by Maja Lunde
The Corvino family is renting day when another group of of my seat and was just the (HarperCollins, RRP $37.99).
Iron Sike Farm on the Yorkshire researchers sets up camp in right amount of chilling. Sign up at womansweekly.
moors. It seems an ideal place the now abandoned farmhouse co.nz/bookclubsignup.
to raise kids but Cathy Corvino’s to see if they can pick up on Meanwhile, here’s this
artistic husband has had to go any supernatural activity. week’s discussion point:
away to find work, so she has Loo is now an adult and • The main characters in
been left to cope alone. reluctant to revisit the past this book, Signe and David,
Sisters Bee and Loo hear it and face up to what happened, are both quite flawed.
first, a strange knocking in the but soon it becomes apparent Did you like them?
walls. Soon there is other weird she doesn’t have a choice.
stuff; hailstorms of glass marbles The suspense builds insistently
in the rooms, unseen hands as the action moves back and WEEKLY
pinching skin, furniture moving forth through time. Nothing is BOOK CLUB
by itself, items mysteriously quite what it seems and there
Email your thoughts,
disappearing. Most creepy are important facts that are answers and competition
of all, the phantom presence teased out to the end. This story entries to bookclub@nzww.co.
starts to speak through the simmers with intrigue nz or post to Book Club,
mouth of youngest sister Loo. and creepiness. At NZWW, Private Bag
A group of paranormal the heart of the BOOK 92512, Wellesley St,
researchers becomes interested whole thing is of the Auckland 1141
WEEK
The Wayward Girls by Amanda
Mason (Allen & Unwin, RRP $32.99).
About the author… Amanda Mason
She used to be a teacher and has about it, the more I wondered what
always loved writing and directing effect that would have on someone’s
plays. She started writing fiction life, and what it might be like to have
seven years ago at the age of 50. to go back and face those ghosts all
She lives in north England and over again.”
this is her first novel. I wanted to be a novelist because…
The Wayward Girls was inspired “It made sense of the bedlam in my
by… “The 1970s fascination with head. I have a very lively imagination,
psychic phenomena. I had a vague and constantly play with scraps of
memory of the Sunday newspapers dialogue and ideas for characters
running splashy headlines about and scenes. When I started writing
very ordinary families in ordinary novels it felt natural. It’s not easy and,
homes who nevertheless claimed like every other writer I know, I can
there was something supernatural struggle with it – but I was absolutely
going on. I began to wonder what it willing to work very hard for as long as
might be like to be the focus of that it took. I became very determined,
kind of attention. The more I thought very ambitious. It just felt right.”
New Zealand Woman’s Weekly 79
