Alice Campion is the pseudonym for five members of a Sydney book club who challenged themselves to write a ‘21st Century Thorn Birds'. The result is The Painted Sky, a novel brimming with romance, mystery and suspense.
Each member of the book club has selected their most influential book.
Kate Grenville’s The Secret River changed my life. Firstly, there’s the subject matter – fiction based on truth - around the white invasion of Australia and the frontier wars that followed. It is fascinating that the settler family on which the story is based is the author’s. What terrible moral dilemmas they faced and it is only now that this side of Australian history is being explored in fiction. As a white Australian, with family lines stretching back into the early 19th century rural history of NSW and Victoria, it prompts me to wonder what role my own ancestors may well have played.
And then there’s Grenville’s beautiful literary style. I’ve learned much from her clean, evocative prose. Though she uses dialogue sparingly, the characters and action leap from the pages. Thanks Kate Grenville for this moving and controversial book!
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