Immagine dell'autore.

Mary-Rose MacColl

Autore di In Falling Snow

10 opere 427 membri 20 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Mary-Rose MacColl is an Australian author of five novels, a nonfiction book, short stories, feature journalism and essays. Her first novel, No Safe Place, was a runner-up for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award, and her first non-fiction book, The Birth Wars, was a finalist in the 2009 Walkley mostra altro awards for journalism. Her novel In Falling Snow was an international bestseller. She won The Courier-Mail 2016 People¿s Choice Queensland Book of the Year with her book Swimming Home. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno

Comprende il nome: Mary-Rose McColl

Fonte dell'immagine: Courtesy of Allen and Unwin

Opere di Mary-Rose MacColl

In Falling Snow (2012) 241 copie
Swimming Home: A Novel (2015) 66 copie
Lost Autumn (2020) 50 copie
Killing Superman (2004) 10 copie
The birth wars (2009) 10 copie
No Safe Place (1997) 6 copie
For a girl (2017) 1 copia

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Sesso
female
Nazionalità
Australia

Utenti

Recensioni

Fabulous book, moving and tender. A wonderful story, one I won't soon forget.
 
Segnalato
SharleneMartinMoore | 10 altre recensioni | Apr 24, 2021 |
Some great themes here: girl power, women's rights regarding their bodies, imperialism vs. cultural identity, all handled with a light touch and an engaging story. It is 1925 -- the scandalous beginning of true modernization of short hair and short skirts, jazz music and loosened strictures about men and women mixing. Dr. Louisa Quick is a competent surgeon, but a much less competent guardian of her niece Catherine who has newly moved to London from Australia after the death of her father, Harry, Louisa's brother. At 15, Catherine is naive, but accomplished in school subjects, which Louisa values, and in swimming, which she does not. Raised on Thursday Island, Catherine had grown up without a mother, but had Florence a native housekeeper and Michael her son, who has been like a brother to here. After Harry's sudden death and her subsequent move to London, Catherine is adrift without the anchors of her home life. Staying on the island was never an option to Louisa, who viewed the school there and the life through the lens of British superiority. With the help of her own housekeeper Nellie, Louisa begins to see the depths of Catherine's unhappiness and how she patently does not fit in at her London all girls' school where the cattiness of fellow students and sternness of instructors is counter-intuitive to everything Catherine knows. When she swims across the Thames in a desperate bid for friendship and approval, she is expelled but is also propelled into the limelight and the attention of Manfred Lear Black (an historically accurate character). He believes she can be the first woman to swim the English Channel and the remainder of the story becomes about her quest to do it. Because she is so guileless, Catherine wants to do it for the thrill of swimming and testing herself and pleasing Black rather than the fame and fortune it would bring her. Louisa is uncertain, but sees the positive impact swimming has on her charge, even as she is withholding letters from Florence and Michael in the hope it will make Catherine forget them and move on with her life. She has her own interest in Black who has promised to fund her medical clinic and has also pursued her as a love interest. Though Louisa has been forward-thinking and revolutionary in her own time, place and field, she has trouble extending this attitude toward the Island inhabitants and Catherine herself. She understood that "Poverty did not discriminate between good and bad, clean and dirty, caring and uncaring, or intelligent and stupid. It only changed things like having a roof over your head or not, having enough to eat each day or not." (179) Watching Louisa's growth and Catherine's accomplishment is very satisfying reading and heartening ending.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
CarrieWuj | 5 altre recensioni | Oct 24, 2020 |
This novel was intriguing, with interconnected stories from the 1920s to the more recent 1990s. In 1920s, Maddie Bright is hired as a part of the staff for Edward, Prince of Wales, during his tour of Australia. While serving, her colleagues include Helen and Rupert Waters, a couple who share a passionate unrequited love for each other, who might be torn apart forever by the events of the trip. In the 1990s, journalist Victoria Byrd is struggling to write about the death of Princess Diana and with her own personal relationship when she's offered the opportunity to meet the legendary and reclusive author M.A. Bright. The stories are, of course, connected, and, while perhaps following a formula familiar to readers of this genre, done well enough to deliver sanctification and a kind of happy ending.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
wagner.sarah35 | 2 altre recensioni | Jul 19, 2020 |
t looks like the title of this book has changed from "The True Story of Maddie Bright
by Mary-Rose MacColl" so you might have read this already - don't be fooled.

This book has some trigger issues that may bother some readers: rape, assault, cancer.

I must agree with another reader that said that this book would have made a perfect trilogy. And I think it would have made a BETTER trilogy. I invested a lot of myself into reading this and felt a tad cheated at the end-fuller length stories, books or even novella might have given me that little something that my heart missed.

Both women deserved to have a fuller story told; a less rushed and somewhat confusing conclusion.

This book did hold my interest after the first few chapters -and the first chapter does resonate and really stay with you throughout the entire novel.

I had wished that the characters grew a little more, but I see that there really wasn't enough time for them to do so.

I do think that it was a very emotional novel and an interesting look into the early 20th-century royalty.

*ARC supplied by the publisher.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
Cats57 | 2 altre recensioni | Feb 17, 2020 |

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Statistiche

Opere
10
Utenti
427
Popolarità
#57,179
Voto
½ 3.7
Recensioni
20
ISBN
56

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