📖 Blog Tour~The Newcomer by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

  

Delighted to join this blog tour today

Scribe
9 December 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book
and the invitation to the blog tour

When her 29-year-old daughter Paulina goes missing on a sleepy pacific island, Judy Novak suspects the worst. Her fears are soon realised as Paulina’s body is discovered, murdered.

Every man on the island is a suspect, yet none are as maligned as Paulina herself, the captivating newcomer known for her hard drinking, disastrous relationships, and a habit for walking alone. But even death won’t stop Judy Novak from fighting for her daughter’s life.

A scintillating new thriller, inspired by real events, that puts the victim at the centre, by the author of The Love of a Bad Man.

📖 My thoughts...

Judy Novak is visiting the remote Fairfolk Island in the Pacific to meet up with her somewhat troubled daughter. Judy's relationship with Paulina hasn't been easy and so when Paulina fails to show up for her mother's arrival, Judy merely puts this down to her daughter's usual erratic behaviour. However, as time goes by it becomes apparent that something serious has happened to Paulina and with the discovery of her body, it would seem that the secrets about Paulina's life are about to be revealed. Despite their many differences Judy is a loving mother and fights to find out what has happened to her daughter and what has led to her death.

The Newcomer is an intriguing murder mystery which takes as its focus the somewhat stifled atmosphere of an isolated place which doesn't take too kindly to strangers. The author writes well and builds up an evocative tension throughout the whole of the story and even though Paulina is a difficult person to like, she's sharp and mercurial, and lacking in any sort of empathy, I couldn't help but be moved by her darkly disturbing story. Add into the narrative the seemingly destructive way that Paulina lived her life, the drinking, the belligerence, and the casual and, at times, quite brutal violence she experienced at the hands of men and you have all the necessary ingredients for a complex and, at times, quite challenging story.

Inspired by real events, The Newcomer is a thought provoking and complex murder mystery.

About the Author

Laura Elizabeth Woollett is the author of a short story collection, The Love of a Bad Man (Scribe, 2016), and two novels, Beautiful Revolutionary (Scribe, 2018) and The Newcomer (forthcoming Scribe, 2021). The Love of a Bad Man was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. Beautiful Revolutionary was shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and the Kathleen Mitchell Award. Laura is the City of Melbourne’s 2020 Boyd Garret writer-in-residence and is a 2020-22 Marten Bequest scholar for prose.

Twitter @lewoollett #TheNewcomerBlogTour

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