(Reviewed by JD Jung)
When I travel to a new city, I love to pop into independent bookstores. So, when I ran across Hard To Find Bookshop, a second-hand bookstore in Auckland, New Zealand, I just had to enter this unusual building. This book cover caught my attention,so I bought Lives on Fire, a short novel published in 1993. Unfortunately, I now wish I would have picked up more titles from this author, the late Rosie Scott.
“In the clarity of those early mornings I knew that the burdens of being a mother, a deserted wife, a successful actor, a person who always did the expected however unexpected, had become pointlessly heavy, a Sisyphean task that would eventually grid me into the dust before my time. I could feel my recklessness, an urgency, an older, wilder self stirring that hadn’t seen the light of day for years. It was an acute instinct that was telling me what I had to do to really save myself, not out of revenge or escape but because I couldn’t survive just dragging out my days.”
Forty- year-old Belle left her life in Sydney to accompany her husband, Tyler on a construction job in Brisbane. She finds her days there to be lonely, slow and hot. All she looks forward to is her husband coming home from a long day on the job. This even makes up for her unappreciative adult children who take her for granted. Though this may be saddening for the reader, Belle seems to take it all in stride.
Suddenly, a person from Belle’s past appears on her doorstep. This will change her life forever.
Don’t let the familiar plot turn you off. The unfolding of events make Lives on Fire such a captivating read. It is so well written, deep in realistic emotions and reflections of the multiple characters, that I was hooked from the beginning and couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended.
