JANUARY BOOK!

December was a rest period from reading.    Too much going on and paintings partially finished.   So reading somewhat stopped!   Happenings became the book that was partially read, so I picked it up again and began turning the pages.  It happened to be a very long book - 544 pages - but the read equals simply wonderful.   

It took place in 1959 in a small town in South Australia where someone local discovers the Turner family - mother and three children - lying dead by their estate.   "The police quickly rule it a murder-suicide."   Sixty years later the story where Jess Turner-Bridges becomes journalist in London takes over as she receives a call from her grandmother, Nora Turner, who is in the hospital after a fall.   Jess returns to Australia to take care of her and finds an old book in the attic defining a true-crime account of the 1959 tragedy.    The tellings of old ancestral layers of hidden history and Nora's connection to the Turner family begins as Jess unravels the mystery through "old diaries, newspaper articles, and interviews."   The surprising resolution tells us the meaning of "homecoming".

All sorts of themes appear throughout this story:   family secrets, returning to one's roots, truth and story telling (fact and narrative), shifting roles of women.   It is a literary mystery and an emotional family saga to create a narrative exploring the secrets we somehow inherit shape who we become.  

I learned a lot of new vocabulary in my reading of this novel - along with parts of my personality showing up throughout the book.   This put me into thinking about myself.   Have you ever kept secrets from loved ones?