Historical Fiction

My Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Description:

Inspired by the story of Svalbard’s first female trapper, Cold Coast is a gripping portrayal of survival within the stark beauty and perilous wilderness of the high Arctic

In 1932, Wanny Woldstad, a young widow, travels to Svalbard, daring to enter the Norwegian trappers’ fiercely guarded male domain. She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream.

Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter

My Review:

What an incredible book. Again, another historical fiction – which is not usually my jam – but I picked this one up because…well, Robyn Mundy.

Robyn is a Tasmanian author (whom I’ve only recently met), and everything imagined her to be –  poised, articulate, generous, and gracious. Just like her novels. I love her books. They’re pure works of art.

Cold Coast is an award-winning novel and, after reading it in one sitting, I can see why. I was speechless when I put the book down, and the only words that came to mind were stark and endearing.

Through incredible storytelling, you feel every emotion, every heart-stopping moment, and, with tears streaming in the end, just how amazing this woman’s life truly was.

Robyn Mundy brings the cold, the vastness, and the danger to the reader through every word she writes. An adventurous read. And a must read, which I would hope would be a given, because…. Robyn Mundy.

In July 2023, I met Robyn at a book launch in Hobart and I was delighted when she agreed to do an interview with me. You can find the interview here: https://www.thecrackpotwriter.com/interview-with-an-author-robyn-mundy/

You can find more about the book here:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58690308

Amazon: https://amzn.to/448RO5x

PLEASE NOTE: Affiliate links were used in this post. I do not promote anything I have not used or experienced myself. All opinions are my own. Please follow our advice at your own risk. By clicking these links allows me to receive a small commission, which in turn keeps the website running – and me writing! For that, I thank you. 

My Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Description:

In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen.

The stranger’s arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock—conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice—she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city.

As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.

A powerful story about circumstances, culture, and distance, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond of family.

My Review:

I loved Lisa’s See’s “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” as well as “The Island of Sea Women”, so I was curious about this one.

To be honest, it took me a little while to get into this book’s storyline, but after reading it in it’s entirety, I recognise that the author needed to lay the foundation of the character’s past, to move the story into what it becomes.

And once I was into the the story, I was hooked.

The research that must go into this kind of novel blows my mind. I always do some research of my own when I’m done and find it incredible to think that these remote villages still existed well into the late eighties and nineties, untouched by modern times or thinking. And seeing what happens when the modern world reaches the old ways… well, it’s shame really.

This was another powerful novel by Lisa See. I’ll keep reading her books as long as she writes them.

You can find more about the book here:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58690308

Amazon: https://amzn.to/448RO5x

PLEASE NOTE: Affiliate links were used in this post. I do not promote anything I have not used or experienced myself. All opinions are my own. Please follow our advice at your own risk. By clicking these links allows me to receive a small commission, which in turn keeps the website running – and me writing! For that, I thank you.