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Title: Ember Island
Author: Kimberley Freeman
Narrator: Jennifer Vuletic
Format: Unabridged
Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-24-18
Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
A compelling tale of two women separated by a century who discover long-buried secrets in an Australian manor house.
In 1891, Tilly Kirkland is reeling with shock and guilt after her tempestuous marriage ends in horrific circumstances. Fleeing to the farthest place she knows, Tilly takes a job on Ember Island in Moreton Bay, Australia, where she becomes the governess to the prison superintendent's precocious young daughter, Nell. Tilly knows she must keep the past hidden in order to start a new life, but she doesn't know that Nell is watching her every move and writing it all down, hiding tiny journals all over their rambling manor home.
More than 100 years later, best-selling novelist Nina Jones is struggling to complete her next book. A reporter asking questions about her great-grandmother sends Nina retreating to her family's home on Ember Island, where she hopes to find her lost inspiration somewhere in the crumbling walls. Though they are separated by years, both Tilly and Nina must learn that some secrets never stay buried, but what matters most is learning to trust your heart.
Members Reviews:
Wonderful escapism
Needing a great story to slip into and escape for a while, I was delighted to see that Kimberley Freeman's latest, Ember Island had downloaded on my Kindle. Loving Freeman's previous books, I couldn't wait to snuggle down with this one. Cup of tea: check; cushions to rest against: check; silence and no interruptions: check. Big sigh of contentment... open book... And....
Immediately, I was transported to Ember Island, a fictional place in Brisbane's Moreton Bay, and the struggles of internationally renown but reluctant writer, Nina, who, discovering her property on the island (once owned by her grandmother) has been damaged in a storm, arrives to oversee repairs. Only, the house isn't the only thing needing fixing. Nina is nursing a wounded heart and suffering from terrible writers' block and, as the story unfolds, readers learn she is burdened from carrying a guilty secret as well.
The story shifts gear back to the late 1800s and the life of orphaned Matilda Kirkland who, after her beloved grandfather dies, follows her new husband, Jasper, to Guernsey in the Channel Islands to take up life as a wife and all that entails. Only, when Tilly (as she is known) arrives, nothing is as it seems and her dream future with the dashing Jasper soon becomes a nightmare from which she must wake or perish.
Segueing between the two stories of two very different women, the connecting thread being Nina's grandmother, Eleanor or Nell, and the diaries she has left of her childhood on Ember Island, the reader is immersed in their separate travails and quest to find both love and peace, a place to settle their restless souls, but without sacrificing their sense of self.
While Freeman segues between the narratives and times, she doesn't compromise pace or plot and the reader is allowed the time to not only get to know the characters, but to enjoy the unfolding tale as well. At first, I confess, I found Nina a bit whiny, though I did appreciate the descriptions of the crippling doubt even a famous author experiences and her inability to shake these demons.