What Katie Read: Books by Belinda Murrell, Maggie O’Farrell and more!

by |October 18, 2022

Kate Forsyth is one of Australia’s most treasured storytellers. On today’s edition of What Katie Read, she gives us the rundown on all of the best books she’s been reading lately …


The Silver Sea – Belinda Murrell

The Book of Wondrous Possibilities – Deb Abela 

I had a very happy week reading the latest works of two of Australia’s most popular children’s authors, and then I got to have the pleasure of launching them in the stratosphere! Belinda Murrell is, of course, my darling sister, and Deb Abela is one of my dearest friends, and both their books are crammed full of magic, adventure, mystery, danger, and amazement. They are exactly the kind of books I loved reading when I was eleven. Perfect Christmas presents for the bookworm in your family. 


To the River – Olivia Laing

Sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing walked its length from the source to the sea. A slow, deep, poetic meditation on landscape, memory, and literary ghosts, with moments of sharp beauty.


The Hand That First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell

Having just discovered Maggie O’Farrell last year, I am now reading my way through her backlist. This is my fourth of her work, and although I do not love it with the evangelistic passion that I hold towards Hamnet and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, ithas all the stylistic playfulness and bravura that I love about her writing. A story about love, loss, memory, and motherhood, it’s astonishingly good.


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The Coast – Eleanor Limprecht

‘The Coast’ is a lazaret in Sydney where lepers were banished in the early 20th century to live out their lives in solitude before they died. It is a fascinating aspect of my home town’s history that I never knew, and Eleanor Limprecht brings it to life with great sensitivity. Her protagonist Alice is only nine when she is sent there, and she grows up surrounded by the knowledge that her condition causes only horror and disgust in those that learn of it. Her friendship with the gentle lazaret doctor and growing intimacy with Guy, a Yuwaalaraay man who was badly wounded in World War I, brings some comfort, but Alice knows that her happiness is all too precarious.  


Venus & Aphrodite: History of a Goddess – Brittany Hughes

I’m writing a reimagining of the ‘Eros and Psyche’ myth, and so am deep in research books about ancient Rome, the Etruscans, and Graeco-Roman myths. Many are quite mind-numbingly boring, but not this one. Venus & Aphrodite: History of a Goddess by Brittany Hughes is fresh, clever, funny, and full of interesting insights.I enjoyed it immensely. 


Enigma – Charlee Lovett

I read this fast-paced, clever and cinematic contemporary thriller on the long flight from Sydney to Perth, and it was a perfect reading choice. The pages just whizzed past by themselves. Set in modern times, it tells the story of a feisty librarian and a mysterious assassin who join forces in a race against time to solve a German secret code from the last days of the war. With flashbacks to the creepy wartime activities by Heinrich Himmler and his minions, and a cast of sinister and eccentric characters, this book is crying out for a Hollywood remake. 


Kate Forsyth

About Kate

Dr Kate Forsyth is an award-winning author, poet, and storyteller. Her most recent novel is The Crimson Thread, a reimagining of ‘The Minotaur in the Labyrinth’ myth set in Crete during the Nazi invasion and occupation of World War II.

Other historical novels include The Blue Rose, set during the French Revolution and the first British embassy to Imperial China; Beauty in Thorns, a reimagining of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ told in the voices of four women of the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists and poets; The Wild Girl, the story of the forbidden romance behind the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales which was named Most Memorable Love Story of 2013; and Bitter Greens, a retelling of ‘Rapunzel’ which won the 2015 American Library Association award for Best Historical Fiction.

Kate’s non-fiction books include Searching for Charlotte: The Fascinating Story of Australia’s First Children’s Author, co-written by her sister Belinda Murrell, with the assistance of the Nancy Keesing Fellowship. It was longlisted for the 2021 Readings Non-Fiction Prize. Her collection of essays, The Rebirth of Rapunzel: A Mythic Biography of the Maiden in the Tower, won the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism in 2017.

Books for children include the Long-Lost Fairy-Tales collection, illustrated by Lorena Carrington. The first in the series, Vasilisa the Wise & Other Tales of Brave Young Women, won a silver medal in the 2018 US Readers Favorite Book awards. Other titles in the series are The Buried Moon & Other Tales of Bright Young Women; Snow White, Rose Red & Other Tales of Kind Young Women; and The Gardener’s Son & the Golden Bird & Other Tales of Gentle Young Men.

Kate has a Doctorate of Creative Arts in fairy tale studies, and is also an accredited master storyteller with the Australian Guild of Storytellers. She has taught writing retreats in Australia, Fiji, Greece, and the United Kingdom.

Discover Kate Forsyth’s Author Page here

The Crimson Threadby Kate Forsyth

The Crimson Thread

by Kate Forsyth

May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka a young Greek woman saves the lives of two Australian soldiers.

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