Alphareader - Danielle Binks

How do you ruin someone's childhood?

Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.

Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late.

When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and at last comes to understand her family's legacy.

There is a reason the word 'belonging' has a synonym for 'want' at its centre: it is the human condition.

'Vanishing Acts' by Jodi Picoult

I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you---then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest." His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. "Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.

'Outlander' by Diana Gabaldon

We would have babies and get fat and quit drinking and not spend every waking moment together. We would turn up to events for which we had accepted invitations without texting absurd excuses. We had grown up. It was an essential part of letting go, deciding which ribbons of the past we wanted to tie around our fingers and which were best left on the maypole. I could weep for the unfairness of it all now. For the necessity in closing the door on the travelling salesman of youth. I could weep with such fondness for us all.

- 'You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead' by Marieke Hardy 

Life was a too-tall stack of books that had started to lean to one side, and each new day was another book on top.

‘Goodbye Stranger’ by Rebecca Stead

What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare