A terrible accident burns down a family’s life on the same day a murder is committed. From the ashes of these acts comes revelation, darkness, and the truth.
1975, Ballarat: Alice is happy in her world and in return for her happiness the world is good to her. She has everything she needs – a lovely house and children, and a devoted husband. Even though her journalism job doesn’t pay much, she doesn’t have to worry about the bills. All is well with her world until a terrible accident rips a child from her, a profound betrayal is uncovered, and things fall apart.
On the same day Alice’s world collapses, a man is found brutally murdered on respected teacher Ellery’s farm. Ellery can’t remember what happened but there is blood on his clothes, and he is arrested.
Neither Alice nor Ellery realise that their paths in life are about to intertwine and a desperate bargain is about to be made. A bargain that could save or destroy them in their quest to draw some light and fathom the darkness that surrounds them.
Robbi Neal is an author and painter who has spent most of her life living in regional Victoria where she currently calls Ballarat home. Her second novel, The Secret World of Connie Starr, was a BR favourite. Now, Neal brings readers With Winter Comes Darkness, a tender, unique, Australian novel. I was hooked from the get-go and devoured its 351 pages in two sittings.
As with The Secret World of Connie Starr, Neal really has a knack for placing the reader in the novel’s setting. Set in 1975 in Ballarat, I felt completely immersed in this small-town community. Meticulously researched, you gather a foreboding sense of what was going on in this period: the drinking and drug usage of the 70s, with the strain of the Vietnam War pending in the background. Reeled in, readers are introduced to journalist Alice, and her idyllic life with her lawyer husband Liam, and their two children. But all of that tranquillity is destroyed when her three family members are involved in a tragic car accident.
Intertwining with Alice’s story is Ellery’s – a math teacher who happens upon a terrible incident where a brutally murdered man is found on her farm. As the two separate stories begin to merge, we see how connected these two women are, and how much more connected they become as a result. Will they find love in their shared darkness?
Psychological suspense and profound family drama meet in this heartrending novel. Through a complex yet compelling cast of characters and perspectives, Neal weaves in important themes of grief, gender roles and finding light in darkness. There are twists you won’t see coming in this. I was enamoured from beginning to end. This is the kind of novel that sweeps you up and doesn’t let go. A read worth savouring.
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