A small-town mystery where a homecoming lifts the veil on a time when a community failed to stand up for its girls.
Port Kingerton: the insular cray-fishing town at the wrong end of South Australia, where everyone knows everyone. And everyone knows too that when Abigail Fancy left town at seventeen, she hung out the window of her boyfriend’s Corolla, middle fingers held high, swearing she’d never come back. And she hasn’t, until now. When she returns to the town her family have ruled for decades, Abigail is fresh from her second stint in prison and utterly out of time
At her parents’ house, Abigail finds a party (read town meeting) in full swing over something iffy found on the beach. And although iffy things aren’t uncommon in Port Kingerton, Abigail’s surprise arrival forces a family – and an entire town – to wake up to a twenty-four-year-old secret that rocked this tiny place to its core: that time they found something much iffier…
Through Abigail, her grandfather Old Dick Fancy’s unreliable memories and the collective voices of the town itself, Port Kingerton unravels as old wounds are picked open, skeletons fall from closets and unlikely bonds are forged. But will Abigail finally change the past…?
Kim Lock’s stunning break-out debut was The Other Side of Beautiful, a Better Reading favourite that was voted onto the 2022 Top 100. She set the bar high for herself, with readers eagerly awaiting this follow-up novel, a wonderful story of reconciliation and comeuppance with bite.
The Fancies is told from three distinct points of view. Abigail Fancy, the protagonist and catalyst of this beautifully written homecoming story, had me at hello. She is a compelling character and easy to love as Lock writes her with an exuberant, gutsy and honest voice.
Abigail’s grandad, Old Dick, is living with dementia, which Lock has captured with heart and humour. Her insights into a wandering mind and her ability to capture the desperation to reclaim a thought thread are exceptional.
And finally, ‘Them’, being the Fancy family and the other inhabitants of this small town’s secretive community where crimes, cover-ups and secrets lay as low as craypots. Abigail’s return hauls them up on deck, for better and worse.
The Fancies is a-page turner; its voice is truly unabashedly Australian. It’s delightful in its rhythm, pace, sense of irony and dry humour and total lack of pretension. There are some stellar descriptions of the townsfolk and excellent dialogue that’ll have you laughing out loud. This is a refreshing read, playful and delightful, and establishes Kim Lock as an author to watch.
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