Review: Season of Shadow and Light by Jenn J McLeod

Season of Shadow and Light by Australian author Jenn J McLeod is almost certain to delight fans and new readers alike. Featuring a cast of strong female characters this novel examines the concept of nature versus nurture and questions under what circumstances is it acceptable to break a promise.

The novel opens with Paige, a wife and mother who has lived a seemingly privileged life in a wealthy, upper-middle class suburb of Sydney. She has a wealthy husband, a wonderful daughter and her much-loved stepmother, Alice, lives in the house next door. However, there has been some dark moments in Paige's life of late--her son was stillborn and she has suffered a stroke, which has robbed her of her sense of taste and smell. Added to that is the discovery of a betrayal by her husband and it is completely understandable while Paige may not be feeling the best. She decided that a break is needed and with Alice and Paige's daughter, Matilda, in tow, she takes a road trip that leads to Coolabah Tree Gully, which in turn leads them to some surprising people, one of whom seems quite different on the surface, but who may be closer to Paige than she first realises ...

Season of Shadow and Light was an enjoyable read, one that kept me up well into the evening as I wondered how the terrible secret that Alice had been trusted with would be resolved. Although Paige was a strong and likeable character and it was wonderful to read about her blossoming relationship with Aiden, for me it Alice who I truly admired throughout the story. An exceptionally strong woman, Alice has suffered and sacrificed much, yet she has a lot of love for the people around her. Alice's reasons for her actions are something best left to be discovered by the reader, so I will not describe them in detail, but I will say that I was impressed by the character and how she handles a difficult set of circumstances. Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed is the way each character and relationship is treated with respect and sensitivity. There is also a bit of fun with wordplay, as readers will discover in the first few pages.

Highly recommended.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Australia for my ARC.

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled for the Season of Shadow and Light blog tour:




Comments

Unknown said…
Loved this book so much - Jenn just gets better and better by the looks of things! Alice created a bit of angst in me and I got annoyed with her at times but eventually I came to my senses with Jenn's deft hand. Great review.
2 May 2015 at 16:20
Kathryn White said…
Thank you, Marcia!

I'll admit, I got annoyed with Alice a couple of times too, but the way the story came together and the way that Alice resolved things was absolutely commendable and I ended up loving the character and re-reading a number of her scenes. I love the scene where Alice and Rory are talking and we get to see a read glimpse of these two, strong women trying to do the best they know how.

I think Jenn's real brilliance as an author is her ability to show what it is like to walk in another persons shoes and how people can be shaped by their experiences.
2 May 2015 at 16:28
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more