Layla Byrnes is exhausted. She’s juggling a demanding job as an anaesthetist, a disintegrating marriage, her young kids and a needy lover. And most particularly she’s managing her histrionically unstable mother, who repeatedly threatens to kill herself.
But this year, it’s different. When her mother rings just before Christmas, she doesn’t follow the usual script. Instead, she tells Layla that there’s something she needs to tell her about her much-loved father. In response, Layla drops everything to rush to her childhood home on the wild west coast of Tasmania. She’s determined to finally confront her mother – and find out what really happened to her father – and lay some demons to rest.
The Heart is a Star is an engrossing, lyrical and powerfully absorbing novel about the complicated and beautiful messiness of midlife; about the ways in which we navigate an intricate, complicated world; and about how we can uncover our true selves when we are forced to face the myths that make us.
The Heart is A Star is a stunning debut, and a superb novel to-boot. Megan Rogers is one of those writers from whom each sentence is a precious gift. Vivid and compulsively readable, this novel is perfect for fans of Holly Ringland, Jacqueline Maley and Hannah Richell.
Rogers’ protagonist Layla Burns is brilliantly flawed and the level of intimacy Rogers allows her to share with her readers is both electrifying and deeply touching. There is a humanity in Rogers’ writing, and a masterful level of craft and precision that makes for truly exquisite storytelling – I read Layla’s story in one sitting. Rogers’ rhythm is lyrical, her descriptions profound and her dialogue heart-achingly realistic.
The Heart is A Star is equal parts beautiful, heartbreaking and life affirming. It shines a light on the fragility and brokenness of families, the lies we upkeep to protect ourselves and the hurts and hopes we feel towards the ones we love most. There’s a courage in the vulnerability that Rogers shares with us that elevates this novel to sublime.
At its heart, this is a novel about courage, and possessing enough of it to face the past, deal with the present and move freely into the future. I highly recommend it, as does the hugely talented Nikki Gemmell who describes it as ‘tense, heartbreaking and crackling with vivid honesty – all those tiny, telling details that have you nodding with recognition and wanting to gulp the book in one rush of a sitting. I could not put this book down. A new star is born in the writing firmament.’
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