A new nail-biting thriller by award-winning Australian author Catherine Jinks.
SHELTER
by Catherine Jinks
Text Publishing, October 2020
Meg lives alone: a little place in the bush outside town. A perfect place to hide. That’s one of the reasons she offers to shelter Nerine, who’s escaping a violent ex. The other is that Meg knows what it’s like to live with an abusive partner. When Nerine arrives she’s jumpy and her two little girls are frightened. It tells Meg all she needs to know about where they’ve come from, so she’s not that surprised when Nerine asks her to get hold of a gun. But she knows it’s unnecessary. They’re safe now. Then she starts to wonder about some little things. A disturbed flyscreen. A tune playing on her windchimes. Has Nerine’s ex tracked them down? Has Meg’s husband turned up to torment her some more? By the time she finds out it’ll be too late to do anything but run for her life. SHELTER is for fans of Jane Harper, Dervla McTiernan and Garry Disher.
Catherine Jinks’ books for adults, young adults and children have been published in a dozen countries and have won numerous awards, including a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the CBCA Book of the Year Award (four times). In 2001 she was presented with a Centenary Medal for her contribution to Australian Children’s Literature. She lives in the Blue Mountains.
MARGREETE’S HARBOR begins with a fire: a fiercely-independent, thrice-widowed woman living on her own in a rambling house near the Maine coast forgets a hot pan on the stovetop, and nearly burns her place down. When Margreete Bright calls her daughter Liddie to confess, Liddie realizes that her mother can no longer live alone. She, her husband Harry, and their children Eva and Bernie move from a settled life in Michigan across the country to Margreete’s isolated home, and begin a new life. MARGREETE’S HARBOR tells the story of ten years in the history of a family: a novel of small moments, intimate betrayals, arrivals and disappearances. Liddie, a professional cellist, struggles to find space for her music in a marriage that increasingly confines her; Harry’s critical approach to the growing war in Vietnam endangers his new position as a high school history teacher; Bernie and Eva begin to find their own identities as young adults; and Margreete slowly descends into a private world of memories, even as she comes to find a larger purpose in them. This beautiful novel—attuned to the seasons of nature, the internal dynamics of a family, and a nation torn by its contradicting ideals—reveals the largest meanings in the smallest and most secret moments of life.
Anyone who has ever been told “You should speak up!” during a presentation at the office, a group project at school, or even a conversation among friends can attest to the misunderstanding at the heart of that demand. For those of us—women, people of color, immigrants, outsiders—who find it hard to speak up, the issue is not just about willpower. Many of us have internalized the same messages since birth: that because of the pitch of our voice, the accent we possess, or the slang we use, we will not be taken seriously. Power, we’re told, sounds like the mostly white, straight, wealthy men who wield it.
Jane Quinn is a street-smart, young, blonde with music in her blood: raised a stone’s throw from the beachfront Bayleen Island Folk Fest, Jane’s mother was a songwriter who was tragically robbed of proper credit for her work. Jane writes the music and fronts the small time local rock band Harpoon, while her guitarist writes the lyrics. It’s 1969, and this year’s Folk Fest is rabid for the appearance of Jesse Reid, the tall, soft-spoken singer with a baritone voice that’s made him the heir apparent of folk rock. When Jesse crashes his motorcycle en route to the concert, Harpoon takes the stage in his place, and Jane’s confident soaring vocals steal the show. As Jane prepares to settle back into Island life with her cousin, aunt, and grandmother, her work as a caregiver soon thrusts her into the path of none other than Jesse Reid, in town recovering from the near-fatal crash. Romance blossoms between Jane and Jesse just as Jane embarks on her recording career, with Jesse acting as a guardian angel as she contends with the rampant sexism in the industry. With Jesse’s encouragement, Jane begins to write her own lyrics, and the world begins to take notice when Harpoon go on tour as Jesse’s opener. Just as Jane is beginning to carve out a legacy for herself in the shadow of Jesse’s fame, she realizes that Jesse is battling heroin addiction and overnight everything she is building unravels. Jane wants honesty from Jesse, but she’s keeping a secret of her own and the resulting turmoil ultimately adds fodder to her confessional groundbreaking album Songs in Ursa Major.