PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Set in three countries and three time spans, this engrossing novel stitches together the stories of three women. The barren, mistrusted older woman in Judea in the times of Herod; a young wife of a drunken older artist in Renaissance Florence; an art conservator in 2018 Adelaide. It is story that links them, as exemplified by the Renaissance painting of the cousins Elisabeth and Mary exchanging a tender greeting - or to give them their Aramaic names, Elisheva and Maryam - but it is their circumstances that make them sisters across the ages. They are at various stages of motherhood - having, wanting and missing children - as well as degrees of wifedom - loving, negligent and possessive. They are also women of creative and artistic talents - glassworking, painting, textiles. As each storyline unfolds, vivid portraits of each woman's resilience are framed, and the times they live in are carefully woven around the dramas and traumas - and ultimate triumphs - of these women who discover their own power and strengths. At times poignant, but always beautifully presented. Lindy
Following a globally successful corporate career in communications and event management, Sally Colin-James returned to creative writing, gaining an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarship to complete a Doctor of Philosophy in professional writing. Her novel One Illumined Thread won the 2020 HNSA Colleen McCullough Residency Award, the 2020 Varuna PIP Fellowship Award, the Byron Bay Writers Festival Mentorship Award, and a placement with the Australian Writers Mentoring program. Her work was shortlisted from over 2000 entries across 54 countries for the international 2021 First Pages Prize.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Set in three countries and three time spans, this engrossing novel stitches together the stories of three women. The barren, mistrusted older woman in Judea in the times of Herod; a young wife of a drunken older artist in Renaissance Florence; an art conservator in 2018 Adelaide. It is story that links them, as exemplified by the Renaissance painting of the cousins Elisabeth and Mary exchanging a tender greeting - or to give them their Aramaic names, Elisheva and Maryam - but it is their circumstances that make them sisters across the ages. They are at various stages of motherhood - having, wanting and missing children - as well as degrees of wifedom - loving, negligent and possessive. They are also women of creative and artistic talents - glassworking, painting, textiles. As each storyline unfolds, vivid portraits of each woman's resilience are framed, and the times they live in are carefully woven around the dramas and traumas - and ultimate triumphs - of these women who discover their own power and strengths. At times poignant, but always beautifully presented. Lindy
