First Lines Friday

Welcome to First Lines Friday, originally hosted by Reading is my Superpower.

Instead of judging a book by its cover, here are the first few lines which I hope will make you want to read this book.

These lines are from a library book I am going to start reading over the weekend.

<i>The morning sky was its usual muted dry season blue as Sybil paused to gaze out of the kitchen window. Before she’d moved to the Northern Territory she thought it would be a land of perpetual brilliance: blood red dirt, sapphire skies and emerald trees, ad a luminous, pendulous sun reigning over the land. All of that was true – just not at the same time.

The palette of the place changed with the seasons. The light of the dry season was pallid at dawn and dusk, and during the wet the sky was often so heavy with cloud that it was hard to say what sort of blue it was. When it rained – and rained and rained – the trees turned so bright and the earth, even the rocks, became so alive with new growth that it was like living in a greenhouse; but during the dry season the colours of the trees seemed subdued, almost as if the persistent foliage felt like it didn’t have permission to be any more vibrant. The wet season was the star up here: it had the power to turn the Katherine River into a swollen force, waterfalls cascading down the sides of the gorges; it made the air leaden with moisture and turned people into molasses. And it could kill.</i>

So, what do you think?

Do you like what you’ve just read?

Does it make you want to read more?

These are the opening lines of <i>The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club</i> by Sophie Green.

In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.

Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe’s designated successor but he has left the Territory – for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother’s place. But that doesn’t stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child. With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben’s English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.

Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick. Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.

@waitomodistrictlibrary