A single human life turned into an epic story, a hugely readable book that traverses the darkest territory and fulfils fiction’s promise to immerse us in the realities of another identity.
BODIES OF LIGHT
by Jennifer Down
Text Publishing Australia, October 2021
BODIES OF LIGHT tracks the life of Maggie: from her childhood shuttled from one abusive care home to another; to domestic happiness that ends in tragedy; to the arms of a passionate woman in New Zealand; and to a new existence in the USA—only for her to find that she can’t leave her old self behind so easily. This is the story of a life in full, detailed, wrenching, sensuous and compelling. It’s about trauma and heartbreak, memory and loss, the refusal to do anything but survive, no matter the odds.
Jennifer Down is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in publications including the Age, Saturday Paper, Australian Book Review and Literary Hub. She was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year in both 2017 and 2018. Our Magic Hour, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, the 2017 Voss Literary Prize and a 2017 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. Her second book, Pulse Points, was the winner of the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, and was shortlisted for a 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Award and a 2018 Queensland Literary Award. She lives in Melbourne.
Hesse lives in a small coastal town, where a coalmine and power station are a part of the scenery, and a part of the ever-growing problem of climate change. His mother is a member of a local environmental group campaigning to close the mine and shut down the power station. It’s a no-brainer, of course, but Hesse is more interested in surfing—and in Fenna, the new exchange student from the Netherlands. But when someone seems to be trying to derail the campaign, and his friends’ families face losing their jobs, Hesse begins to realise that things are complex. Even though he’s reluctant to step into the spotlight, with Fenna’s encouragement he decides it’s time to make a stand. Because some things are too important to leave to everyone else. And even one small, nervous voice can make a difference. When Hesse agrees to speak at a protest meeting he has no idea of the storm he is about to unleash.
After thwarting the violent, international, fascist syndicate known as Nemesis, Evan Ryder returns to Washington, D.C., to find her secret division of the DOD shut down and her deceased sister’s children missing. Now the target of a cabal of American billionaires who were among Nemesis’s supporters, Evan and her former boss, Ben Butler, must learn to work together as partners – and navigate their intricate past. Their search will take them from Istanbul to Odessa to an ancient church deep within the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. And all along the way, an unimaginable enemy stalks in the shadows, an adversary whose secretive past will upend Evan’s entire world and everything she holds dear.
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Struggling with single parenting and treated as bit of a joke, Cisco isn’t really in the Christmas spirit like everyone else. A fact that’s made worse by the tendrils of the pirate’s powers creeping back into our world and people beginning to die in bizarre ways. With the help of a talking fox, an enchanted forest, a long-lost friend haunting his dreams, and some 80s video game consoles turned into weapons, Cisco must now convince his friends to once again help him save the day. Yet they quickly discover that being a ghostbusting hero is so much easier when you don’t have schools runs, parent evenings, and nativity plays to attend. And even in the middle of a supernatural battle, you always need to bring snacks and wipes…