Sophie Green (1)

Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society is a gentle and charming character driven novel about friendship and fresh starts from bestselling Australian author, Sophie Green.

Having finally extricated herself from her abusive second marriage in LA, Cynthia has returned to her hometown of Noosa Heads in the hope of restoring her relationship with her pregnant daughter, Odette. In attempting to reconcile with her past, Cynthia also reconnects with her former best friend, harried wife and show more mother Lorraine, and the pair become involved in the Sunshine Gardening Society, a group who volunteer their services to renew the gardens of those in need. Their first mission introduces them to Elizabeth, a young widow whose garden has suffered while she nursed her dying husband, and soon after Kathy, who has moved to Queensland from Melbourne in the wake of heartbreak.

As the women work together in the Sunshine Gardening Society, under the guidance of the indomitable Shirl and Barb, they find support, purpose and direction. I enjoyed getting to know the well crafted, distinct personalities of Cynthia, Lorraine, Elizabeth and Kathy, each of whom have relatable strengths and flaws.

While focusing largely on the themes of motherhood, identity, and friendship, Green touches on a number of issues including grief, domestic violence, gambling, alcoholism, mental health, and marital breakdown. These topics are explored with compassion and thoughtful insight as the women grapple with disappointment, joy, and change.

And you don’t need to be a gardener to enjoy Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society. Though I personally have a ‘black thumb’, I appreciated Green’s use of thoughtful gardening metaphors that speak to life lessons, and Shirl’s championing of Australian native flora.

Written with warmth, heart and wisdom, Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society is an engaging and uplifting read.

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The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle by Sophie Green is an inspirational and heartwarming testament to female friendship.

In need of some time for herself, busy wife and mother Theresa Howard opts for a daily dawn swim at Shelly Bay Beach. It’s there that she meets the widowed Marie, who has swum from Shelly Bay to Little Beach, and back again, almost every morning of her long life. The two women are soon joined by Elaine Schaeffer, the British wife of an Australian heart surgeon, who is show more struggling with homesickness, and somewhat reluctantly, Leeane, a young pediatric nurse with a painful past. Little more than strangers to one another, these four women soon become the closest of friends.

Beginning in the summer of 1982, the companionship that Theresa, Marie, Elaine and Leeane find in the water, slowly moves beyond the shore of Shelley Bay Beach, and as each woman encounters a myriad of life changes over the next two years, they reach out to one another in friendship. Getting to know these four authentically written characters is gratifying journey as we share their journeys through happiness and sorrow.

While Green sensitively explores difficult, but not uncommon, challenges faced by women such as infidelity, divorce, grief, loneliness, ageing, alcoholism, family estrangement, sexual assault and illness, her characters share moments of joy and laughter too. They find within themselves, and each other, the strength and courage, to love, and live, their lives fully.

“They’re all women she loves, and she knows they love her in return. It’s been enough to get her through some days, and she knows what Marie would say: it never ends. Love is eternal...”

Written with heart, humour and compassion, The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle is a wonderful read. show less

Books set in Australia’s Northern Territory are few and far between, so I was really entranced by the premise of Sophie Green’s The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club. Not only is it set in the NT, but it’s set in the late 1970s/early 1980s which is a whole world away thanks to advances in technology. Back then, stations (aka ranches) were truly isolated – no internet, no satellite with only a party line phone (great for spreading intimate details about your family) show more and the mail. But in the wet (monsoon) season, you can be completely isolated from even that for months. Sybil is used to all that, as she’s lived on Fairvale station for years. But when her son Ben brings home a new English bride, it’s time for things to change. Sybil knows that Kate won’t be used to the isolation or weather, so decides to start a book club. To it, she invites old friend Rita (now working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service out of Alice Springs), station hand Della from America and housewife Sallyanne. All the women bring their own problems to the book club, but through friendship they can work through them all.

And boy, do a lot of things happen to the women in this book. None of them are spared heartache and major events! If anyone thought that living in the outback was boring, think again… It’s a harsh environment which Sophie Green clearly shows but the women have personal dramas to add on top of that. Kate has her own worries about falling pregnant and Sallyanne tries to hide an abusive husband – and that’s just what we find out at the start! Ever the matriarch, Sybil tries to help them all through it by enabling meetings, offers of work and support. And when she needs help herself, it’s the other members of the book club who help her out. The theme of friendship is exceptionally strong in this novel, particularly as the isolated setting is stressed. The Territory kind of feels like another main character is this novel, the one who decides on the fates of all the characters…

Speaking of the characters, I bet it’s not an accident that all the main characters are women, and strong ones at that. Sybil is clearly a strong character, but she helps the quieter women like Kate and Sallyanne find their inner strength to accept, speak up and move on. Most of the male characters are supporting, blending into the background somewhat. We see the full range of male characters, from supportive and modern (Ben and Joe, Kate and Sybil’s husbands) to downright sexist and piggish (Sallyanne’s husband). This is a novel that celebrates the strength of the female spirit…truly ‘womanning up’ as the hashtag says through thick and thin!

The plot of the novel is crammed with events, and nobody is spared. One subplot I would have liked to have explored a little more is why Sybil’s son Lachlan hated the rest of his family so much. What made him spurn his family and home? Why couldn’t he talk about it? I would have loved to know a little more about this enigma and why he chose to distance himself from his Territory life. I did enjoy the book club subplot and was pleasantly surprised to see that I’d read most of their book choices (especially as I wasn’t even born then). As happens with all good book clubs, there was less of a focus on the book as time went on which I did miss. I found the different takes on The Thorn Birds fascinating, so would have loved to have read more. But we can’t have everything and I need to seek out The Far Pavilions now.

Overall, The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club is a light, fascinating read with engaging characters and a non-stop plot. A great experience of women getting things done!

Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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"The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle" is a fabulous story of a friendship that forms between four very different women who start off as strangers but, over two years, form a strong bond as they swim daily in the ocean together.

Gradually the women realise they provide more than just company to each other as they slowly start to share their secrets, hopes and heartaches. They learn that the others are there for them both physically and emotionally when life becomes a challenge. Marie, show more Theresa, Elaine and Leanne also discover that their friendship is just as important to them as their own families.

I loved how each woman's story progressed and I adored each one of them. In fact, the only character I disliked was Theresa's husband, Andrew. He was obnoxious!

"The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle" ended up being a lot deeper than I was expecting. It was also emotional, heartwarming and uplifting. Set in the early 1980s I had a feeling of nostalgia as I read this book as I could connect with references to "The Paul Hogan Show", "The Man From Snowy River", Lisa Curry at the Moscow Olympics and society's expectations of a woman's role in the family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and will be looking for other books by Sophie Green. Overall, a charming, feel-good read. show less