Author: Glenna Thomson
Publisher: Penguin books Australia
Genre: Modern & Contemporary Fiction
Year of release: 2018
Release Date: 2/02/18
Rating 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Synopsis
Stella and her mother-in-law Margie are two very different women.
Stella is kind, compassionate and just a little chaotic. Margie is prickly, demanding and a stickler for convention. Stella has exciting dreams for the future. Margie has only bitter memories of the past.
When Margie needs help recovering from a major operation, Stella offers her a place to stay. With no other options, Margie returns to the family farm where for decades, until Stella’s arrival, she was the one in charge.
Margie has never made life easy for her daughter-in-law, and that’s not going to change now she’s been made a guest in her former home.
But as the dry summer turns to a beautiful autumn, the two women gradually form an unlikely bond, as the ambitions, secrets, and tragedies that have shaped their lives are slowly uncovered…
Review
Margie Ballentine is currently spending her 80th birthday in Hospital awaiting visiting hours to begin, after suffering a nasty fall requiring a hip replacement Margie knows if she was at home in Bishop Street, she would be at home tending to her garden, seeing to her flower beds and keeping a close eye on the birdlife, but she has no choice but to wait for the outside world to come to her. Not one for sharing her emotional side; she knows the family mean well but they all have their own lives to get on with, Margie feels she’s an inconvenience to these people, but what can she do?
Her time in hospital is coming to an end with no beds currently available in rehabilitation, Margie must take her daughter-in-law up on her offer of returning to the family farm Maryhill not far from Benalla. Maryhill is the farm where Margie was once matriarch, Margie is not looking forward to taking a trip back down memory lane but with a body that’s becoming more stubborn by the day she knows to argue would be pointless.
Margie has decided the best option she has right now is to grin and bear it given recent developments she can no longer stay cooped up in this room she must leave the hospital; it’s only temporary right and don’t they say the past can’t hurt you forever?
Stella is a farmer’s wife and mother doing her best to keep all those hats in the air, she is currently in the process of trying to launch a production she’s written with her theatre group. Margie’s recent fall and need for temporary accommodation isn’t ideal but Stella knows that Margie is in no condition to fend for herself, she has the sense that her mother-in-law is looking for companionship if only Margie would let her walls down. Can stella get close to this woman before it’s too late?Â
The promise of a growing female friendship was the selling point for me.
The author has done a great job in crafting strong heroines to tell this story, this is the reason I’ll remember reading this book for a long time after I’ve closed the book. Both Stella and Margie are three-dimensional characters each reminding me of women in my own life. Stella and Margie have the rare ability to highlight reality in a way this reader didn’t want to escape from.
Whilst I found Stella likeable, I found myself connected to Margie most of all, some might have found her to be a little prickly around the edges, but I found her honestly refreshing and her reasons understandable.
Whilst I appreciate this book has a country feel to it, I found the Ballentine family tree a little confusing to follow along with and I believe this detail was unnecessary but doesn’t dampen my love of this book in the slightest. I personally struggled to place the need for Margie’s daughter in this book at all.
Stella and Margie were a book this reader powered through in four days, I honestly cannot remember the last time I read a book that fast, I was rather delighted, and I believe it’s one of the reasons I enjoy the occasional General Fiction book.