The Albatross, by Nina Wan (Macmillan, $37.99)
Meet the deadpan, intelligent Primrose Li, a woman obviously in crisis. We first encounter her at a dying urban golf course in Melbourne. Why a 36-year-old mother of a young daughter, with a husband recovering from cancer, would want to visit this place is puzzling until you find out this is where she went with her golf-mad high-school boyfriend Peter before he left for college in the US. He now lives across the road from Primrose with his glamorous wife, Louisa, who likes to think she’s Primrose’s friend. Primrose is married to lecturer Adrian, who still prefers the liquid meals of his cancer treatment and only goes to his job when he feels like it.
Primrose’s therapist is pleased to hear about her sudden interest in golf, because she has a compulsion to clean that has got out of hand. Primrose is partnered with the redoubtable Harriet, a regular at the golf course, who must be nudging 80 and is the very opposite of a therapist.
This is all conveyed in the witty and unfussy prose of Wan, who used to work at the Australian Financial Review. Harriet, for example, has eyes like diamonds set in old jewellery, while Primrose, a former hard-hitting business journalist, wishes she could just write people letters rather than speak to them.
Two events occur that get Primrose exercised. Adrian’s older brother, Terence, is coming to stay and she doesn’t like him for reasons the reader will discover. Louisa, meanwhile, has invited Primrose’s family to their holiday house in Flinders, south of Melbourne, for a party to celebrate Peter’s birthday. Primrose and Peter, by mutual unspoken agreement, have never let on to their spouses that they knew each other before, but at the birthday, she and Peter are thrown back into each other’s company. Primrose, however, has some issues with Peter’s easy life. He runs his family bank and moves in high circles, while Primrose still feels the challenges of being a newish arrival in Australia from Shanghai. She resents that in order to be acceptable Asians there, they have to be just like other Australians.
The Albatross, Wan’s debut, is a delight, delivering some serious issues under the surface, and you’ll learn about golf and golfers to boot.
Violet Kelly and The Jade Owl, by Fiona Britton (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
Set in the tough but colourful world of Sydney in the 1930s, this novel revolves around the characters at a high-end brothel, La Maison des Fleurs, in Paddington, where the Madame of the house has created a safe, cosy environment for her girls. The star of La Maison is beautiful, leggy Violet Kelly, who came straight from the nearby Catholic St Michael’s orphanage as soon as she was of age.
Violet wants to emulate Madame (real name Peggy O’Sheehan) and be a rich and powerful woman, but things are about to change. Madame is in bad health and an old contact from the crime world, Xiao, has called on her for a favour she can’t refuse. Shen, a favourite prostitute of the Chinese emperor-in-exile, has been brought to Sydney as a gift for a crime head, who has evil plans for her, and she’s to be kept at the brothel until he’s ready. When Violet discovers this, she acts to find a refuge for Shen, which brings all kinds of hell down on this home she loves.
Britton creates wonderful characters, from Doc Flanagan, husband and wife housekeepers Li Ling and Charlie Han, and 13-year-old Bunny, Madame’s niece and the house darling. Soon, Violet falls for a new client at La Maison des Fleurs, a witty British diplomat, and a long-lost sibling re-enters her life. When Xiao discovers that Violet has interfered, the consequences are dire and it takes her village of friends to rescue a fraught kidnap situation.
Violet Kelly, also a debut, is an entertaining, ultimately heartwarming novel set at an intriguing time in Sydney’s history. Britton is a talented storyteller and leaves the door open for more from these characters.
The Ghost Ship, by Kate Mosse (Macmillan, $37.99)
The third book in the Joubert family chronicles set in Europe in the 1500s and 1600s, The Ghost Ship takes the reader to the Canary Islands, the Barbary Coast and beyond.
We follow the life of Louise Reydon-Joubert, the granddaughter of Marguerite (Minou) Reydon-Joubert and Piet Reydon. This family are part of the diaspora of French Huguenot Protestants forced by the powerful Catholic regime in Paris into exile.
At 35, Louise, the owner of a ship, the Half Moon, is a well-respected businesswoman living in the last Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. But her life changes when she meets Gilles, a young wine merchant. Gilles is actually a young woman, forced to take on her twin brother’s identity at the age of 10 by her abusive mother so she will learn her uncle’s business. When Gilles’ uncle is murdered, Gilles and Louise leave for Amsterdam to the safety of her family. In this fast-paced novel, they’re then caught up in another murder and, with the threat that a claimant is after some of Louise’s inherited wealth, they join the Half Moon on a trade trip to the Canary Islands.
En route, the lascivious ship’s captain is murdered by an unknown crew member. Soon after, they come across a pirate ship, and learn from a captive on board of the tyranny being waged on the island communities, pirates turning villagers into slaves for years.
Louise turns the tables on them, adding fire power and some clever use of chemicals to her vessel to become the Ghost Ship, the scourge of the pirates. As La Capitana of her ship, with Gilles her able assistant, they can be themselves aboard their ship, though their freedom is cut short. The authoritarian regime enforced by the Spanish inquisitors in Las Palmas accuses Louise of the murder of the Half Moon’s captain. Who will rescue her from a rigged trial and hanging?
The Ghost Ship is an enjoyable, action-packed read, with Mosse, who has sold millions of copies in dozens of languages, clearly revelling in writing about women from this time with resources. And it’s handy that when things really go south, our heroines have a ship to get away in.
