Life Begins At.....
Issue link: http://ebook.aprs.com.au/i/25630
BOOK REVIEWS Elderly and in poor health, Mary fulfils her wish to herself to live out her last days on Bruny Island with only her regrets and memories for company. A long time ago, her late husband was the lighthousekeeper on Bruny, and she’d raised a family on the wild windswept island, until terrible circumstances forced them back to civilisation. The long-buried secret that has haunted her for decades now threatens to break free and she is hoping to banish it once and for all before her time is up. But secrets have a life of their own, and as Mary relives the events that led up to the shattering revelation, she realises she needs to trust a later generation to put things right. The Lightkeeper’s Wife Author: Karen Viggers Publisher: Allen & Unwin RRP: $29.95 Mary’s adult children are respectively outraged, non-committal and sympathetic, but no amount of coaxing, pleading or threats will shake her resolve. Her youngest son Tom loves Bruny as much as his mother does, and can understand her primal Fans of popular historical fiction will be interested by Paul Christopher’s latest, The Sword of the Templars, with its protagonist, Ranger John Holliday, taking readers on a journey wrapped in mystery and conspiracy. The Sword of the Templars Author: Paul Christopher Publisher: Penguin RRP: $29.95 After a lifetime on the front lines, Ranger Holliday had resigned himself to ending his career teaching at West Point Military Academy. But when his uncle passes away, Holliday discovers a medieval sword amongst his things – sinisterly wrapped in Adolf Hitler’s personal battle standard. Then someone viciously burns down his uncle’s house and Holliday’s secret fears about the mysterious sword ring alarmingly true. Holliday must delve into the past and piece together the puzzle that was his uncle’s life - his involvement with the enigmatic warrior’s known as the Knight’s Templar. But his search for answers soon becomes a race against a THE RETIREE AUTUMN 137 connection to that wild island, a place of solitude, healing and redemption for them both. Years before Tom had spent a winter working on a base in Antarctica and had returned from that empty loneliness to find his marriage over and his life destroyed. Not for nothing do Antarctic regulars call that gruelling experience The Division of Broken Marriages and Shattered Lives. Still wounded, Tom lives a simple life in Hobart, unable and unwilling to make real connections with people in case he gets hurt again. As Mary’s time winds down, both she and Tom must face their pasts in ways they cannot even begin to imagine. And Mary finds that the script she’s written to the end of her life has taken on a few twists of its own. The Lightkeeper’s Wife is a moving and redemptive story of love, loss and family, and what we have to do to live the best kind of life. ruthless and cunning opponent, willing to die for their cause. Paul Christopher is the pseudonym of a bestselling novelist who lives in the United States.