An Academic Affair

Finished November 10

An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister

This is a romance novel with its own special setting and the details are so well done. Sadie Shaw and Jonah Fisher have been academic rivals since first year university where they argued interpretations during an English seminar. They have also lived in the same large shared house with several other roommates in Sydney since Jonah's master degree time when Sadie was working to save up money. They ended up graduating with their English literature Ph.Ds. at the same time and have both been working at whatever teaching jobs they could since then. I really liked how this novel showed academia for what it truly is, underpaid, lots of unrecognized time spent in prep and marking, and few opportunities for permanent positions. 

When a permanent position is announced at the university in Hobart, both are aware the other will be applying. For Sadie, who specialized in popular fiction, the job mentions this as one of the specialties they are looking for, something that is rare indeed. For Jonah, the permanent position also mentions his specialty as one of the three they are looking for. Plus he has strong motivation to move close to his sister Fiona, who is dealing with the end of her marriage. 

When Sadie is going over the contract, she notes that their is an option for partner hire. This is an interesting detail of academic that definitely shows possibilities, the idea that one's life partner could also get a position, making the move more appealing to couples. 

Sadie approaches Jonah with the idea of getting married so that they both get the job, after all they are already living in the same house, which works to make it look that they've been together for a while.

The personal side of their lives was also something that added to their character. Sadie is very close to her older sister who pretty much raised her. Jonah grew up with a professor father who encouraged debate among his children and pushed them toward academia, something that only Fiona rebelled against. But Jonah knows that this advantage isn't always something he likes in his life, and makes choices about his own wants when he can. 

There is also a storyline around wine, with Sadie's sister having a passion for the national wine industry, and Fiona being close to two brothers who run a winery and restaurant. With Jonah's older brother having his own competitive rival, I can see possibilities for more books involving these characters.

This a read with believable characters with depth, interesting career and personal situations, and both fun banter and serious conversations. A definite winner for me. 

Gravity Is the Thing

Finished August 14 

Gravity Is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty

This book, set mostly in Australia, with a short section set in Montreal, is the story of thirty-six-year-old single mom Abigail Sorensen. The book opens just before her thirty-sixth birthday, where she is on a small island off Tasmania in response to an invitation she received for a big reveal. Starting twenty years ago, when she was sixteen, she began getting random chapters to something called The Guidebook in the mail. She has faithfully sent in address changes and responded most of the time to an annual reflection prompt and is interested to find out what is behind the mailings. However, another part of her associates these mailings with her missing brother, as that also happened when she turned sixteen, just after her first mailed chapter. Despite have a good police liaison and following up every lead, they still don't know what happened to her brother, so part of her hopes for that truth as well. 

She finds a group of people near her age, all of whom had kept getting the chapters from The Guidebook, just as she had. The getaway is run by a man named Wilbur, who is the son of the couple who sent out the chapters. After a couple days spent doing a variety of activities,  a select group of those attending are let in on the secret behind the chapters, and the reaction is underwhelming. Some are disappointed, some upset.

After she goes back home, Abigail is invited again to continue with follow-up sessions and something in the universe seems to be telling her to attend. 

There is a lot going on here. We gradually learn Abigail's story, about what happened when her brother Robert disappeared and how her family dealt with the situation. We know that her mom has a new partner Xuang, who Abigail likes, and we learn about her ex-husband Finnegan. Abigail's son Oscar, four years old as the book begins is a large presence in the book too. Abigail trained as a lawyer, but now she runs her own cafe, one called the Happiness Cafe, in north Sydney. 

We see a selection of the chapters that she received, and they are pretty off the wall, and quite short. As I said, they arrive in a completely random order, and she didn't read all of them, or follow all the instructions that they gave her, although she did some, and they did have an effect on her life as she thinks back. 

As we see her relate to the various people in her life: employees, friends, family, and the new people she meets at Wilbur's sessions, we begin to learn about Abigail. I liked her. I think she'd be fun to know. We see her worries and her daily life. We see some of her thoughts as she goes through her days. This is a book about a woman's life, as she considers it and makes the decisions that will determine where it goes next. I really enjoyed this book. It is hard to classify. There are elements of romance in it at times, but mostly not. There is the mystery of her brother's disappearance, which continues throughout, but is just one of the plot lines. It is really just about life.