Blog Tour Review: The Inaugural Metting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Grren

Published: 1st March 2018

Publisher: Sphere

Pages: 432

Available on Kindle

Pre-Order now from Amazon

Rating: 4/5

Blurb

In 1978 in Australia's Northern Territory, life is hard and people are isolated. Telephones are not yet a common fixture. But five women find a way to connect.

Sybil, the matriarch of Fairvale Station, misses her eldest son and is looking for a distraction, while Kate, Sybil's daughter-in-law, is thousands of miles away from home and finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale.

Sallyanne, mother of three, dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town where she lives with her difficult husband.

Rita, Sybil's oldest friend, is living far away in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

And Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land, needs some purpose in her life.

Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship: they all love to read, and she starts a book club. As these five women bond over their love of books, they form friendships that will last a lifetime.

Review

The idea of the “book club” was what drew me to The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club as I love reading books about people reading books, so I was a little disappointed that the book club theme was only a very small part of this book. What I did find on reading it though was a very enjoyable read about five women who are initially brought together through their love of books but become much closer.

This book is set between 1978 and 1981 on the Fairvale cattle station in the northern Territories of Australia. This is a place which is in the remote outback where the nearest town is over an hour away and the whole way of life is split into two seasons. Governed by the two seasons of wet and dry, life on Fairvale is isolated and hard and this is the main reason Sybil decides to start o book club.

Sybil is married to Joe and is the one who makes sure everything runs smoothly on the station. Grieving for eldest son Lachie who has left Fairvale and doesn’t want to be found, Sybil decides she needs a distraction and daughter-in-law Kate needs some new friends.

Kate, recently married to Sybil’s younger son Ben is finding life at Fairvale hard and very different from her life in England. She feels disconnected from her new life and is longing for a baby to make her feel part of the family and give her purpose.

Sallyanne, married to Mick and a mother of three longs to escape her everyday life and longs for a life like the romance novels she adores.

Della has recently left Texas and is looking for an adventure, she finds work at Ghost River a neighbouring cattle station, but is drawn to Fairvale and its head stockman Stan.

Rita is Sybil’s oldest friend and has joined the Flying Doctor team in Alice Springs, here she finds something she’s been searching for her whole life.

These five women may have all met anyway despite the book club, especially as two are related and one is Sybil’s life-long friend but through the book club they become even closer and form a close bond which despite the miles between them keeps them together. I found this book to be more about the relationship the women had with each other than the books they were reading. Each woman has to face a kind of heartache in this novel and this has been written about so tenderly and with real compassion from the author.

I found this a beautifully written novel, one which explores friendships, love, death and racism and family loyalty in a sensitive and intriguing way. It’s not a big punchy book but its one which will leave you thankful for the people who’ve been by your side through the rough stuff and one which will make you appreciate the little things in life.

Thank you so much to Sphere for sending me a copy to review honestly and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.