Emily Paull

Eliza Henry-Jones is a writer from the Dardenong Ranges in Victoria.  She was a Young Writer in Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in WA in 2012 and a resident at Varuna in the Blue Mountains in 2015.  Her debut novel In the Quiet  is published by Fourth Estate.  You can read my review of it here. The problem with being a book loving hoarder who marries a book loving hoarder is that, at ages twenty-five and twenty-six, we currently have well over three and a half thousand books in our house. Some on this massive shelf, others on one of the other five smaller shelves, and others packed (sadly) into boxes. We’re currently in the midst of packing to move, and 90% of what I’m packing is BOOKS. And I keep trying to stop myself buying more and jump on the ebook wagon, because on the current trajectory I’m on, books will soon outweigh the mass of our actual house.  When we moved into our house, we had to insulate, plaster, ...

Today, I ran an author talk at the bookshop where I work.  The author in attendance was the charming Stephanie Bishop, author of The Other Side of the World .  Stephanie was shortlisted for the 2014 Australian/ Vogel award for this novel and she was one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists.  Her book has been published this month by Hachette Australia. The Other Side of the World is the story of Henry and Charlotte, a couple of 'Ten Pound Poms' who emigrate to Western Australia in the mid-1960s with their two young daughters.  Charlotte, who has spent most of her adult life in Cambridge in the UK misses home terribly and finds the hot, dry climate of Perth unbearable.  Henry, who was enthusiastic about the move, finds life less than easy as tensions appear in his professional life when his co-workers discover that he is Anglo-Indian rather than the prestigious Englishman they had all envisioned.  The novel is re...

In the Quiet Eliza Henry-Jones Fourth Estate 2015 Cate Carlton has died, but she hasn't moved on.  She finds herself stranded in an in-between space, watching her family go on without her, unable to communicate with them or move on.  She also can't remember how she died.  In the tradition of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones , Eliza Henry-Jones' debut novel is a brave interrogation of love, loss and family, told from the point of view of a departing loved one.  It is a book that will make you laugh, cry and want to hug the pages.  It is my favourite book of the year so far. The novel is told from Cate's point of view as she watches her family in the aftermath of her own death.  Her daughter, Jessa, is thirteen and heading for a tumultuous ride of hormones and first love without the guidance of her mother.  Raised on a horse farm, Jessa takes after her mother both in her skill on horseback and in her determination and stubbornness.  It is J...

Is it just me, or has June been another really long month?  For me, it's been four weeks of holiday from Uni, four weeks of reading, four weeks of trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to get started on my next WIP and forget that my current WIP is being read by the judges of an award.  There's been a bit of bookselling in there as well.  I tried adult colouring in, and found it surprisingly fun, thought it still breaks my heart a little that colouring in books are outselling novels by a cracking pace in Australian bookstores all over the map. Perth has had its warmest winter since the 1980s but you could have fooled me.  I started June by going to Margaret River for the Readers and Writers festival and I think I just about lost a finger or too.  Thank goodness for electric blankets!  I wrote a few short stories, procrastinated about working on the novel, and managed to crank out the first draft of an essay. And I read some books, so without further ado I shal...