Better Reading Preview: The Secret World of Connie Starr by Robbi Neal.


A stunning evocation of Australian life through the war to the 1950s, this novel is intimate and sweeping, immediate and dreamlike – a magical rendering of darkness and joy, and the beauty inherent in difference. For readers of Sarah Winman’s Still Life, Trent Dalton’s All Our Shimmering Skies and Rosalie Ham’s The Dressmaker.

Connie Starr was always a difficult child. Her mother knew as soon as Connie entered the world that day in Ballarat in 1934 and opened her lungs to scream, there was more chaos in the world than before and it wouldn’t leave until Connie did. From the safety of a branch high in her lemon tree where she speaks to angels, she sees the world for what it is – a swirling mass of beauty and darkness, of trauma and family, of love and war and truth and lies – lies that might just undo her and drive her to a desperate act.

This ambitious, complex and insightful novel intertwines numerous stories of lives from before World War II and beyond, recreating with intimacy and breadth a world that is now lost to us. This book is a brightly coloured patchwork quilt of everything from shoes to polio, lemon trees to rivers, death to life that melds into one beautiful, luminous work of art.

We have 100 copies of this book to give away. For your chance to Preview this book, click on the link and fill in the registration form.

OUR FORM DOES NOT GO LIVE UNTIL 1:30PM – IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT AFTER 1:30PM, PLEASE REFRESH YOUR PAGE. THERE IS NO NEED TO EMAIL BETTER READING – IT IS A SIMPLE REFRESH ISSUE.

Registrations will open Wednesday 20th April.

https://www.betterreading.com.au/review/preview/better-reading-preview-the-secret-world-of-connie-starr-by-robbi-neal/