Author Archives: S.C. Karakaltsas

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About S.C. Karakaltsas

I am a published author of historical fiction and short stories.

Book Review: Question 7 by Richard Flanagan

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I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this memoir about Flanagan’s family interspersed with their connection to war, Tasmania, colonialism and the birth of the atom bomb, but I liked it.

Flanagan takes us back in history to when his father was a POW arguing that if the atomic bomb hadn’t been dropped on Hiroshima he would never have been born.

It’s an interesting proposition as he takes us down the rabbit hole of the atom bomb’s invention due to an affair between the writer H G Wells with Rebecca West. Confused? He makes a compelling argument that Wells wrote a futuristic novel called The World Set free where he imagined the splitting of the atom, forecasting its impact as a weapon which would be used to kill hundreds of thousands. And that much is true.

Flanagan’s father was indeed a POW in Japan.  However, on a visit there Flanagan found little acknowledgment of that fact in Japanese history. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the war ended allowing Flanagan senior to be released.

Interestingly there were a further series of events:  physicist Leo Szilard discovered the nuclear chain reaction, a concept created because the man had read HG Wells’ novel The World Set Free.

Flanagan’s study of HG Wells’ writing correlates a link to the attempted genocide of Tasmanian aborigines, and of course we know the deep connection he has to Tasmania.

I loved the chain of events and was enthralled with the possibilities. I also deeply appreciated Flanagan’s own love  and grief for his father. Indeed he’s the man today because of his family and also because he has faced his own mortality after nearly drowning when he was young. If you’ve read any of Flanagan’s books you will know he has mined his own experiences and that of his family often into fictional narrative. This book will be all the more richer if you have read any of his works.

Likewise, this book has so much in it, I don’t think it’s possible to absorb it all in one reading because the themes are deep and thought provoking. I wondered about my own interesting family history and it certainly gets you thinking about who you might be because of where you’ve come from.

Loved this one.

LIMITED TIME OFFER: Dive into the Enigmatic World of Sugar Creek by S.C. Karakaltsas

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A missing man, a stolen baby, and a plot of land where nothing grows. Are they connected? One person knows.

1948: In the seemingly idyllic town of Sugar Creek, Ellen is eager to share the joyous news of her pregnancy with her fiancé Billy. Billy takes on extra work at a local military base, Ellen’s fears grow when he mysteriously vanishes. Her desperate search for answers turns the town against her, placing her life in jeopardy.

2000: Dana, a GP whose career has hit a dead end due to a mistake, finds a lifeline in an unexpected offer from the desperate mayor of Sugar Creek. Upon her arrival, she encounters unexplained health issues among the locals. Her investigation reveals a decades-long conspiracy leading to an environmental disaster, pulling her deeper into the town’s dark history.

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Critical Acclaim for Sugar Creek:

“The story will grab your attention within the first pages and won’t let go until you turn the last page. It will have your heart beating fast with suspense and you may even find yourself wiping tears from your eyes.” Teresa Collins

“Sugar Creek by S.C. Karakaltsas was one of the best books I’ve read in 2023! When you pick up this book to read, which I highly recommend you all do, set aside a few hours or an afternoon to do so because you will not be able to put it down.” Kymm

“Excellent historical fiction that brings the past and future together, highlighting the wrongs of the past.” Katrina

Book Review: Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

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This story was first written as a play which I unfortunately missed last year when it was on in Melbourne. When the novel from which the play was based was selected by our book group I was looking forward to reading it.

The novel is about Tessa, a young brilliant barrister in London. She’s worked hard to get there having come from a working-class background where her mother is a cleaner and her brother is trying to stay out of jail having been there for a short time when he was younger. She has clawed her way through the class system to be the best at her job as a criminal defense barrister. But she also knows she works in the hallowed turf of London establishment where her colleagues come from privileged and entitled backgrounds.

She loves the law and believes in it.  Then one night she finds herself in a position, like one in three women, where she is raped by a colleague.  She won’t be silent and takes it to court with all the consequences that you can imagine.

This is an emotional and raw story and the author doesn’t hold anything back as she explores the price that victims play not just from the crime but from the process of seeking justice.

The first half of the novel gives insights into Tessa’s life from her family background of domestic violence and poverty, to her climb to  Cambridge where she’s told one in three will never make it in Law. Through dogged determination she is the one who does make it but the feeling of being inadequate and of being of the wrong class is emphasised over and over again. For me that was a little too repetitious. The second half of the novel was all about the court case which was cleverly interspersed with the events immediately after the crime occurred.

Tessa does have full faith in the law and I did wonder as a criminal barrister why she was naïve enough to believe that the law could protect her in this case when the law itself works against sexual abuse cases. But like others who have gone before her, to make a stand and have a voice is what ends up being as important.

It’s a powerful story and one that everyone should read. Although it was set in London, the issues around misogynistic law applies equally in Australia and reminds me of Louise Milligan’s book called Witness where she deals with the factual inadequacies in our own legal system when it comes to sexual abuse crimes.

Highly recommend this one.

Book Review: Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

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You can never go wrong with a Sally Hepworth book and I’ve read most of them now. Darling Girls is no exception.

Three foster sisters,  Norah, Jessica and Alicia have come from diverse traumatic backgrounds to meet in a new foster home run by Miss Fairchild who shows the outside world a different persona to the one behind closed doors.

Years later, Miss Fairchild’s old house is demolished to make way for a new building and human bones are discovered under the house. Police call on the three women to help them with their investigation and the three who have remained close into their adulthood, reluctantly go back to Port Agatha where the house was and back in time to their ugly childhood.

Each of the sisters, has their own difficulties in adulthood and the narrative takes us into each of their points of view with a shock twist at the end.

Hepworth tackles the world of foster carers, vulnerability of children as well as mental health from trauma. At times I found it quite confronting but Hepworth gently leads the reader out of the tension, providing relief in all the right places. It’s also a novel about love and friendship.

The chapters are short and it’s an enjoyable and easy read.

Book Review: That Bligh Girl by Sue Williams

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 I really enjoyed, Elizabeth and Elizabeth by Sue Williams and was eager to read another of her books. which is steeped in historical detail putting the reader in the centre of early colonial life.

That Bligh Girl, steeped in historical detail putting the reader in the centre of early colonial life, is a fantastic novel about the daughter of Governor Bligh, Mary Putland. She’s a feisty woman forced to accompany her domineering father on a horrific voyage to Australia where she comes face to face with numerous challenges of a new colony.

I’d heard of Bligh from mutiny on the bounty fame, but little else. He was an autocratic, pig-headed, and dogmatic man and despite what she thinks Mary had some of those very qualities. She needed them to stand up not only to her father but to the soldiers of the rum rebellion led by none other than John McArthur, whose wife Elizabeth was featured in Williams earlier novel, Elizabeth and Elizabeth (see my review https://sckarakaltsas.com/2021/07/16/book-review-elizabeth-elizabeth-by-sue-williams/.)

Williams is deft at portraying the strength of women, not only of Mary but her convict maid, Meg Hill.  The historical narrative is rich in detail and whilst life was hard for everyone, it was more so for women.  This is not just about the privileged however, as Williams delves into the difficulties of life for convict women.

We learn more though about Mary’s life, her marriage to her great love, John Putland, his heart-wrenching death and her second marriage.

If you don’t know a lot about early colonial life in Sydney then this might just be the book for you. I’d highly recommend it.  

Book Review: Lessons by Ian McEwan

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This book could have been very good, brilliant even.

Roland Baines wife walks out leaving him with his two-month-old baby. He reflects on his life starting with the trauma of being left at boarding school, far from his mother and military father. His vulnerability and talent is noticed by his piano teacher whose influence is long lasting and life changing.

The reader is taken on a journey through Roland’s life, his missed opportunities, his restlessness and  failed relationships. World events also make an impact on him too. There is detailed analysis of Roland’s parents, their marriage as well as their history which Roland pieces together. He is shocked to learn their secrets and how World War Two affected the course of their life as well as his.

The story is a fascinating one around the disappearance of Roland’s wife and the impact of the piano teacher on him. However, after the first quarter of the novel, the story fell away beneath the telling style of narrative, the dumps of historical information and the remoteness of the characters. No-one was particularly endearing and Roland did not provide any empathy or relatability. In fact I grew terribly bored with him and his life story as it droned on and on.

The women in the story from his mother, his wife and the piano teacher were not painted in a good light either. His wife’s total abandonment of her son was difficult to fathom and her relationship with her own mother and her desire to write was barely believable to be convincing. Sorry, I just didn’t buy it. The piano teacher’s motivation and behaviour was puzzling and I found it hard to take the leap of belief about her motivation despite the author’s slant about her mental instability. Yes, it probably does happen but I couldn’t help wonder if this was mere wishful thinking from a man’s point of view? Alternatively, perhaps Roland was just an unreliable narrator which would indeed be more plausible. However this doesn’t make me like Roland any better.

The writing as always is wonderful where it’s not buried under a telling scenario. And while I did appreciate the historical events particularly the Berlin Wall coming down, the historical asides served to constantly remove me from the actual story. I lost interest particularly in the second half of the book and it was a chore to finish it despite the interesting twists about his family towards the end. But at that stage I’d had enough.

Sorry but this one was not for me.

Book Review: The Women by Kristin Hannah

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This is the first of Kristin Hannah’s books I’ve read and I certainly got a taste for her work.

The Women tells the story of twenty-one-year-old nurse, Frankie who follows her brother to Vietnam. It’s early in the war and her family has a wall of hero’s depicting photos of all the men in the family who have gone to war and fought. Frankie wants to feel useful and to win her father’s approval enlists once her nursing training ends.

Arriving in Vietnam is a baptism of horror for a young woman from a privileged background who was raised to be a future wife and mother. Frankie is thrown into the chaos of death and injury in trying conditions. Once her tour ends and she’s back home her expectations are dashed by a very different America from the one she left. She is thrust into the midst of family disapproval and community disgust about America’s involvement in the war.

I’ve never read anything set during the Vietnam war and certainly nothing about the brave women who were there. Hannah has certainly done her research and puts the reader into the horror of everyday life, of blood and dirt and rain and heat. There is also romance and love and friendship as well.

There are also themes of post-traumatic stress, loss and trauma and while it is a tough one to read at times, there are moments of light and shade. There’s a lot packed into this novel and sometimes the romance angles were a little too predictable particularly in the last quarter.

Otherwise, it’s a solid read which I enjoyed.