Child of Fear & Fire

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve been wanting to read this book for some time. No idea why I put it off but I regret not reading it sooner!

We follow a young girl Eliza who is a servant girl at Norlane Hall. She is grossly mistreated and abused by the family. Eliza constantly lives in fear, though there is a darkness following her. The voices in her head feed off her dark thoughts and there’s a certain warmth to them. She doesn’t quite know if the voices are her own or something else. At the skirts of Norlane Hall lies a mysterious forest which remains untouched, until the young daughters of the house decide they want to explore it and manipulating Eliza to go. Little do they know, it’s about to change everything.

This is an atmospheric, dark and spooky read. Although it’s short in length, there is so much detail in the story telling. It’s definitely full of intrigue and anticipation. I was wondering if Eliza did have a mental illness, if there was a dark presence that wanted to interact with her or if it was a combination of both. This story definitely has impact because now I’m wondering if it’d be better to listen to the audiobook as it may take the story to another level.

I definitely want to check out more of this authors work.

Homecoming

Solid 4.5 from me

Thanks to Tandem Collective and Allen and Unwin for my review copy

The story follows a few timelines that are all interconnected. Jess’ grandmother becomes ill and she must venture back home to Sydney from England to be with her. Through some semi conscious ramblings, Nora speaks of a past in which Jess knows nothing about. Jess also doesn’t have the best relationship with her mother Polly as Nora had pretty much raised Jess to be the person she is today. Jess can’t shake the feeling that she must look into what Nora has spoken of and in doing so uncovers a dark family history that even her own mother wasn’t fully privy to.

Wowzers! The amount of twists at the end of this book as it all came together had my mind blown. I did not expect that much unfolding to occur. There was a few things I did guess correctly though don’t want to spoil it within my review.

As a result of this read, I will be reading other works by the author because this was such an awesome story, that I didn’t want to put it down most of the time! She’s a thick book but that comes with much intricate detail Kate was laying out for us. Some parts were slow for me, but didn’t overrule my whole experience.

It was nice to read about an area of Australia that I’ve travelled through. Even though the town itself was fictional, it wasn’t hard for me to imagine the setting. There were many nice characters in the scenes from the past. But each time I read about them, I couldn’t help but think “what are they hiding?” Appearances can only hold so much value. You didn’t know who might be deceiving who.

This is very much a story about relationships and the lengths people go to in order to protect themselves or others. Sometimes secrets have a way of delivering karma which can come back during your lifetime. When people think they’re in the clear, the universe will find a way to make you uncertain. I’ve learned it’s best not to lie and just to be honest, and this book really reinforces that message.

It was a thrilling read and I’m glad to have been part of such a whirlwind ride.

Triggers you should check before reading is: death (including murder), loneliness, lies, affairs, depression and unstable relationships.