Torched
Kimberley Starr
Panterra Press
ISBN: 9780648571537
Description:
An explosive, haunting and utterly compelling crime novel about mothers and sons and the ties that bind them.
A small Yarra Valley town has been devastated by a bushfire, and Reefton Primary School Principal Phoebe Warton can’t sleep. She’s the single mother of Caleb who is accused of starting the fire – on purpose. Twelve people are dead, students from her school among them; only a monster would cause such carnage. But where was her son that day? No one knows but Caleb, and he’s not talking.
Against mounting community rage, Phoebe sets out to clear her son. But every avenue leads back to Caleb. Why did he vanish from his Country Fire Authority shift? Who else was at the abandoned goldmine that day? Why is Caleb refusing to speak?
Phoebe will be forced to confront the nature of guilt and redemption, and decide what boundaries she is willing to cross to save the son she loves.
My View:
The publishing date for this read was changed a few times due to COVID- 19 issues of restrictions and the coincidental major bush fires in Australia- how difficult it must have been to be planning to release a book whose central character is a fatal bush fires and then an actual fire ravishes huge parts of Eastern Australia, devastating for the author and for the areas affected by the fires.
And so, I read this book, was fascinated, loved the tension packed pages, loved the family story and if you have ever wondered how it felt to actually be in the midst of a bush fires – well this read is so believable, so visual…I was “there”, smelling the fire, heat burning my nostrils… And then everything halted. The release was postponed and the book languished on my desk, pretty soon covered in various notes, other books to review…
This book is fabulous! It is on my list of “best reads of 2020” and I hope it will soon be on yours.
Reading, Writing and Riesling 
I can imagine they’d think twice about publishing this one at the time of the fires, Carol. But it sounds fantastic. I really like the exploration of parent/child relations, and it sounds like a real sense of the Yarra Valley setting, too. I can see how you found this so powerful.
I can imagine they’d think twice about publishing this one at the time of the fires, Carol. But it sounds fantastic. I really like the exploration of parent/child relations, and it sounds like a real sense of the Yarra Valley setting, too. I can see how you found this so powerful.
The settings were very visual but the fires / made me appreciate the difference between a scrub, low intensity fire, and the “ cyclonic “ like devastation of an out of control bush fire.
I hope I never experience it
Great review XpCarol, I was hoping to get a review copy of this but I’ll have to put it on my buy list instead.
I think you will enjoy🙂it’s a shame circumstances were against this one – it deserves more attention