Book Review: Season of Shadow and Light

Click to rate this book!
[Total: 0 Average: 0]

Author: Jenn J McLeod
ISBN: 9781925030280
RRP: $29.99

I have only heard good things about the Seasons Collection and Jenn’s debut House of all Seasons was one of our book club reads, one I unfortunately didn’t read but have got on my towering TBR to get to. After having read Season of Shadow and Light I am even more determined to go back and read the first two in the collection.

Season of Shadow and Light is a complex story filled with secrets which make for some intense mystery that kept me guessing, some of those guesses made room for some hairy situations had they come to pass. It is a story of family, of trust, of betrayal and most of all of healing. I loved it from the very first page to the very last.

We have multiple story tellers, three for the most part but then an extra joins the ranks late in the piece, for a broad perspective and a much more insightful story. This method allowed us to see deep inside the story, and understand motivations that we may not have otherwise while driving the mystery and sustaining suspense. Yes, there were some predictable outcomes but there were some that took quite a bit of working out and many is it or isn’t it moments all the while ensuring that not all the questions were answered.

Paige Turner has given herself a time out from her life and packed up her 6 year old daughter Matilda for a road trip. Perhaps a little rash, not completely thought out, but something she felt she had to do and when Alice couldn’t talk her out of it she decided to tag along. The plan was to head to small town Saddleton with some half baked idea to find out a little more about her history because she knows very little about her mothers roots.

The dynamics in Season of Shadow and Light are not so much new but not often explored, it is becoming much more common now but this was a family dynamic that I was new to in literature. Paige grew up with two mothers in a time that it was far from common, and even further from socially acceptable so the fact that her history goes back no further than her birth is not that hard to understand. Nancy was Paige’s birth mother, who passed away when she was a child, and Alice was her partner. After Nancy’s death Alice took on the role as Paige’s mother and that made life a little simpler.

The timeline jumps around a little which I did have trouble following at times because the characters seemed to wander off into their memories without notice, totally sidetracking a scene and there were times I wasn’t quite sure if we ended up getting to the end of the scene in the present because we got so caught up in the past. Except for the fact that it confused me at times this helped to drive the story because so much was rooted in the history of these characters.

season-of-shadow-and-light-9781925030280_hr

The last couple of years haven’t been kind to Paige; after marrying her first love and thinking she had it all they pursued their career goals and then started working on their family. Robert Turner dotes on his darling Matilda but not so much on his wife anymore. Paige suffered the loss of a baby and then a post partum stroke which stole her sense of taste and smell, which in turn robbed her of her dream job as a professional food reviewer. The relationship between Paige and Robert is already strained but then news of a major betrayal comes to light and Paige’s wobbly personal life starts to topple.  The perfect excuse to set off in search of Saddleton and information about a young Nancy.

Circumstance sees them land in Coolabah Tree Gully, not far from Saddleton but a world away from the life she’s always known. A place she finds a sense of peace, an affinity for horses she was previously unaware of and a simple country life experience for Matilda.

McLeod deftly explores same sex unions in a time when ‘that sort of lifestyle choice needs to be hidden for the benefit of the family’s reputation’. There are other things I would like to mention but in the interest of keeping this spoiler free I’m not sure what I should or shouldn’t say.

Trust and betrayal are huge themes in Season of Shadow and Light and they are portrayed from all angles, highlighting the shades of grey and absence of black and white. There are many forms of betrayal and a million ways for a trust to be broken. Where do you draw the line between betrayal and protecting your loved ones?

Season of Shadow and Light captures the head, the heart and the soul with it’s exploration of the importance in contrast. There can be no shadow without light, every yin needs its yang, and the choice is always there to love and heal, to grow and forgive as it is to fester in hate and bitterness. A fantastic introduction to Jenn J McLeod for me and a reading relationship I intend to fully explore.

Season of Shadow and Light is book #22 for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge.

You can find Season of Shadow and Light in all good bookstores now, and at Simon & Schuster.

Jenn J McLeod can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and her Website.

67 thoughts on “Book Review: Season of Shadow and Light

  1. Loved it!!!!! I give this book 5. Family secrets and lies make for a wonderful book. It has deals with some real life issues and I loved reading it, picturing people and places. This book is full of emotion, happy, angry and disbelief… I cried. I’m recommending it to all my friends. Thank you Michelle for letting me be part of this reading experience, it was amazing

  2. I absolutely adored House for all Seasons, so I was very keen to read Jenns latest delivery. I found it a little tricky to adapt to at first – placing who everyone was and how they all fit in, but once I did I was taken on a wonderful journey with the characters.
    I love that like with her previous novels, Jenn is able to draw us in and make us feel emotional and relate to the characters, and if not the characters, the situation. I loved the twists and turns and related to small town life well. Some tricky issues and relationships are tackled in this book and it is all written so well I found it hard to put down!
    Thank you for letting me review this book, and congratulations Jenn on another wonderful book!

  3. Sorry a bit late with my review but been busy ibn process of moving and we all know how stressful that is. The book was excellent i give it a big 5 out of 5, it was very up and down emotionally with all its twists and turns which i love in a book , Thank you for letting mre enjoy and read i have now passed the book on to my mum ,sister and her friends who are also enjoying the book 🙂

Leave a Reply to Courtney Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *