The Other Side Of The Season

The Other Side of The Season is the second book I have read by Jenn J McLeod and I have to say, that I am now officially a fan.  Jenn lives out on the Australian road, and it really shows with her detailed settings of small towns, placing you right in the thick of a family story and in a setting so detailed, you feel like you live there as a local.

The Other Side of The Season is a family tale full of secrets, regrets, redemption and a twist that even I didn’t see coming.  The book flicks between 1979 and 2005.  A generation of ‘sliding doors’ moments.  A tragedy occurs at a Coffs Coast Banana Plantation, triggering choices made for the right reasons and some for incredibly selfish ones, which all have a fallout leaving scars, heartbreak and opportunity.

The book centres around a mother and daughter.  Tilly, a headstrong girl with a difficult past, who wants nothing more than to escape the small town she feels trapped in; and Sidney (named after the Australian artist Sidney Nolan), just as headstrong, who leaves a bad relationship and a cold Blue Mountains winter by taking her younger brother on a road trip to Byron Bay.  She just doesn’t tell him that there will be a small detour to solve a family secret. With each conversation, the secrets rise ever closer to the surface and what was once buried, resurfaces at Watercolour Cove.

Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan – Ned Kelly Series

Jenn writes in a style that takes you down hillsides, beaches and coves, into warm kitchens and art galleries, where you pick up threads of a story and weave them together as you turn the pages.  Just when you think you have it all mapped out, bang! Jenn surprises you and takes you on another journey.

I felt real rage and dislike for one of the characters, real empathy and heartbreak for another, and one I wanted to shake a bit! I think a book that can stir up emotion towards it’s characters is the sign of a bloody good one!

All in all another great Australian read from Jenn J McLeod.  Look out for a cracking guest post from Jenn tomorrow!

Buy The Other Side Of The Season Here

The Book Jacket

When offering to drive her brother to Byron Bay to escape the bitter Blue Mountains winter, Sidney neglects to mention her planned detour to the small coastal town of Watercolour Cove.

Thirty-five years earlier, Watercolour Cove is a very different place. Two brothers are working the steep, snake-infested slopes of a Coffs Coast banana plantation. Seventeen-year-old David does his share, but he spends too much time daydreaming about becoming a famous artist and skiving off with Tilly, the pretty girl from the neighbouring property. His older brother, Matthew, has no time for such infatuations. His future is on the land and he plans to take over the Greenhill plantation from his father.

Life is simple on top of the mountain for David, Matthew and Tilly until the winter of 1979 when tragedy strikes, starting a chain reaction that will ruin lives for years to come. Those who can, escape the Greenhill plantation. One stays—trapped on the mountain and haunted by memories and lost dreams.

That is, until the arrival of a curious young woman, named Sidney, whose love of family shows everyone the truth can heal, what’s wrong can be righted, the lost can be found, and . . . there’s another side to every story.
– See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com.au/The-Other-Side-of-the-Season-Seasons-Collection/Jenn-J-McLeod/9781925030310#sthash.7dBS7G3c.dpuf