Tidetown

$29.95

Out of stock

ISBN: 978-1-921924-91-0 Format: Trade PB 336p Rights: All rights: Transit Lounge Release / Publication Date: 01 /11 /2015
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Description

Nestled on a windswept coastline, life in Tidetown is quiet and assured. But after a galleon is shipwrecked on its shores a plague appears from nowhere to challenge and threaten time-honoured traditions and ways of being.

‘Something is shifting in Tidetown. The children walk freely in the streets, unencumbered. The adults stay indoors, fearful of mixing. Wary of each other, in terror of something deadly in the breath and wake of their words.’

As the plague seeps through the air, creeping under doors and into bedrooms, events unravel in this town on the edge of the world. The unfinished business of the barbaric Fishcutter murder comes back to haunt the townsfolk as the mercurial twins, Perch and Carp, return.

In the wider world, rumours of wars, disease and corruption endanger the livelihood and the very existence of Tidetown. Will Mayor Bruin, abhorred for his deceit and pride, provide a vision for the future? Can the monks on the Island of Good Hope offer salvation in a time when faith is tested? Can Judge Omega keep evil at bay? And will the children of Tidetown, under the cultish control of Perch and Carp, create a new order out of the ravages of the pandemic?

Praise for Robert Power’s writing
‘An assured storyteller.’ Australian Book Review

‘Psychologically astute, original and whimsical.’ Felicity Plunkett, Canberra Times

‘Dark and beautiful.’ Claire Kennedy, Herald Sun

Robert Power is the author of In Search of the Blue Tiger, The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy and Meatloaf in Manhattan.

He has worked in HIV prevention for many years, travelling to all continents and appearing in all media, both here and abroad.

Born in Dublin, Robert now lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and his youngest son.

 

This is the sequel to Robert Power’s novel In Search of the Blue Tiger, whose child hero, Oscar Flowers, has become a seagoing pilgrim after his part in the violent death of the fishmonger, whose murderous twin daughters Carp and Perch are now languishing in jail for their crime. But they are about to be sprung by Angelica, the spoilt daughter of the Tidetown mayor. Mayhem ensues as various other characters and complications come and go, culminating in the arrival of the plague. What with its coastal setting and its small community, there’s a strong sense of place in this book, but it has no real-world correspondence either in setting or in time. We could be in any country, in any year. Various words and names suggest people and places from all over the world, and the story reads like a fairy tale. Realism this is not.

Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 14,2016

As always with Robert Power’s works, the journey is incredible, the shift in time, place and moment is confrontational and breaks the forces of life down into simple components  of good, bad, pure, evil, portraying the ebb and flow of life  in a whimsical and yet dark manner.

Blue Wolf Reviews, February 2016

http://bluewolf-reviews.com/books/fiction/tidetown/