A tense and moving psychological thriller about choices, power and magic...
All her life, Rose Lovell has moved from town to town with her alcoholic father. When they wash up in an Australian coastal sugarcane town, Rose wonders if maybe, finally, things will be different this time. On her first day at school, Rose meets Pearl Kelly, a popular, pretty and lively girl intent on tracking down her long-lost Russian father. She convinces Rose to join in with the town's annual Harvest Parade, and Rose agrees, despite thinking the whole thing is embarrassingly yokel. She has to find a truly special dress - one that will make it clear she is different to the rest of the girls in this town. And who better to help her than the local eccentric, Edie Baker, who knows all the town's secrets and whose own family is a rich tapestry of stories, including whispers of witchcraft and murder. Edie agrees on the condition that Rose will create the dress with her - a dress woven from scraps and secrets and stories.
But when the girl wearing the midnight blue dress goes missing, the town will find it has secrets of its own to tell, and nothing can ever be the same again. THE MIDNIGHT DRESS weaves a mesmerising story of love, loss and longing to the very last page.
ABOUT THE AUTHORKaren Foxlee was born in Mount Isa, Queensland, in 1971. After training and working as a nurse for most of her adult life, she graduated from the University of the Sunshine Coast with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2005, in creative writing. Her first novel, THE ANATOMY OF WINGS, was originally published in 2008, by the University of Queensland Press, and has since been published in the U.S.A., the United Kingdom and Canada. She lives in Gympie, Australia.
REVIEWSSometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished, just to stay near it. The Anatomy of Wings is one of those books.', Markus Zusak, author of THE BOOK THIEF (review for THE ANATOMY OF WINGS)
'This is, in the end, a story about the tensions of love and anger, between parents and children, between boys and girls and men and women, and about the tension between being alone and being accepted. Fans of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie mysteries will be delighted to find similarly smart, intricate storytelling loaded with genuinely teen concerns. Atmospheric, lyric and unexpected.', Kirkus Reviews
'The casual beauty of the language and the complex storytelling style create a haunting, atmospheric novel about friendship, betrayal, and loss', Publishers Weekly
'Though the layers are many, they coalesce into a dreamlike, eerie whole told in mesmerizing, sensuous prose.', The Horn Book
'With rich, evocative language, Foxlee threads together a complex tale of friendship, murder and betrayal. The Midnight Dress is compelling, heartbreaking and, most of all, impossible to put down.', Book Page
