author event: allee richards
thursday 14 september || 6.30pm
In store | Tickets $15 | Bookings essential
We are delighted to welcome author Allee Richards to discuss her new novel, A Light in the Dark, which is set on the Mornington Peninsula.
Tickets $15 – bookings essential
6.15pm arrival for a 6.30pm start.
A Light in the Dark
Available now
Iris doesn’t remember the first time she met Nina. But she remembers the first time she paid attention to her. It was when he did.
The first year of high school brought Iris into a type of privilege she’d never felt part of. But then she found her place. The magic of performing in school musicals and the freedom of the stage opened her up to a new world. Her drama teacher gave her a glimpse of the adult she wanted to be. But, just like in the theatre, when the spotlight is off you, it can be a lonely and neglected existence. For Iris, jealousy and bitterness will grow. For Nina, something more dangerous. Reckless anger and rumours will come to a head. And, years later, there is a reckoning for them all.
A Light in the Dark is a compelling novel that distils the magic of theatre as the backdrop for an unforgettable examination of friendship, vulnerability, power and abuse.
Small Joys of Real Life
Available now
The night Eva shared a smile with Pat, something started. Two weeks later, lying together in her bed, Pat said, ‘You can’t live your life saying you’ll get around to doing something you know will make you happy. You just have to do it.’
Eva didn’t know how devastating those words would turn out to be. Pat dies and the aftershock leaves Eva on unsteady ground. She is pregnant. And she has to make a choice.
Suddenly, the world that she at times already questioned, her career, her roommates and friends, and life in the inner-city are all even harder to navigate. Her best friends, Sarah and Annie, are also dealing with the shifts and changes of their late twenties, and each of them will at times let the others down.
Small Joys of Real Life is a poignant and unpredictable novel from an exciting new literary talent about how the life you have can change in an instant. It’s about friendship, desire, loss and growing up to accept that all you can do is be in the moment and look to find the joys in between.
about the author
Allee Richards’ short fiction has been published widely in Australian literary magazines and anthologies, including Kill Your Darlings, The Best Australian Stories, New Australian Fiction, Best Summer Stories, The Lifted Brow, Voiceworks and Australian Book Review.
Her debut novel, Small Joys of Real Life, was shortlisted for the 2019 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers and the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. A Light in the Dark is her second novel.
Allee lives in Melbourne and works as a theatre lighting technician.