Joanne Van OsBesprekingen

In 1916, twin brothers Denny and Connor Ronan are eager to prove themselves in the theatre of war, and at eighteen find themselves in the front line trenches in Fromelles, France, having left behind the flame haired beauty Bridie O’Malley, they both love. Sadly, only one survives the horrors of war and returns home to the arms of his beloved, but he is not the same man who left.
Nearly a century later, forensic anthropologist Catriona Kelso’s curiosity is roused when she learns her next assignment will be the exhumation and identification of the hundreds of World War 1 soldiers buried en masse on the French battleground, and that her great grandfather’s twin brother may be among them. Excited by the possibility, Cat begins to ask questions about her family, but uncovers more than one long buried secret.

A poignant tale of war, love and family secrets, Ronans Echo is a wonderful story from Australian author Joanne Van Os. Set largely in Manly, New South Wales, the narrative shifts between the present and the past, revealing the tragic legacy of war that blights the lives of four generations.

Dual timelines are often tricky for authors to negotiate but Van Os does so masterfully, developing two equally interesting storylines that converge to tell the tale of the descendants of the Ronan brothers. The wartime experiences of the returned Ronan brother at the Battle of Fromelles, echos through the family tree, sparking a legacy of violence after the symptoms of PTSD overwhelm him. Though the twist to the story of the Ronan twins is heavily foreshadowed, it takes little away from the intrigue of the novel, or its heartfelt sentiment.

The scenes that depict the Ronan brothers experience of war are particularly heartbreaking. The battle at Fromelles is believed to have led to the greatest loss of life by a single division in 24 hours during the entire First World War with over 5,500 Australians killed or wounded. Until recent years, 1,335 Australian soldiers remained ‘missing’ from the Fromelles battle, having no known grave but thanks to the efforts of a retired history teacher, the remains of 452 soldiers were discovered, identified and re-interred with full military honours. This is the project Cat lends her expertise to, and where she discovers a twist in her family history.

Cat knows few details of her lineage when she begins to ask her elderly Aunt Hattie and mother, Fiona, questions about the family’s past nearly a century later. She is shocked to learn of the tragedies that ended the lives of her great grandfather and his twin, and how these secrets have affected her own life, particularly in regards to her strained relationship with her mother, and her own aversion to commitment. For Cat, unraveling the mystery of her ancestry answers questions she didn’t realise she had.

A moving exploration of the legacy of war and family secrets, Ronan’s Echo is a well crafted and eloquent novel. I found it to be an absorbing and thought provoking story which I’d recommend to readers of both historical and contemporary fiction.

*Statistics sourced from the Australian War Memorial website

A few years after Bridie’s mother dies, Bridie along with her father, Eamonn, and brothers, Donal, Rory and Aidan move from Connemara Ireland to Australia in search of a better life. They are well off in Australia buying a large home which they name after their beloved Connemara and life is pleasant. Bridie befriends twins, Denny and Connor, and the three are soon inseparable. WW1 erupts and Bridie’s three brothers, along with the Ronan twins, enlist and are soon sent to fight for their country.
Almost a century on Fiona and her daughter Kat (Catriona), descendants of Bridie, are now living at Connemara. Kat is a forensic anthropologist and is on the team to go to France and identify the recovered bodies of lost Australian soldiers. However, after identifying one of the bodies as one of her ancestors long held family secrets come to the surface.

This is a remarkable and moving story full of intrigue, family skeletons, the horrors of war and how PTSD can damage generation after generation. However, above all this Ronan’s Echo is a story about family.
I am fascinated by genealogy and family trees so I loved the family tree at the front of the book and would often go back and just look at the names, birth years, who married who and connecting it back with the story.
The side story of forensics was captivating. How cool is it that modern day science can unravel the mysteries of the past?
The battle scene had me mesmerized and the characters were all so real I felt I could almost go online search the WW1 records and see the O’Malley and Ronan names there.
Being from Sydney myself, it was easy to picture the scenes around Manly and Circular Quay.

If you like stories about love or war or family they were all rolled into one here and perfectly executed. This is one of the few books I could read again and again.

Joanne van Os is a great story teller. This novel spans over a hundred years and four generations starting with the emigration of Eamonn O'Malley, his three handsome sons and his beautiful little daughter Bridie from Ireland to Manly in Sydney.
Eamonn, owner of a drapery business in Ireland, sets up shop in Manly and with his sons to help is soon able to buy a big house and property overlooking the sea and open two other shops. The start of 1914 finds the family very well off, with Bridie now fully grown and running the house trying to decide which of her childhood friends, the Ronan twins Denny and Connor, she wants to marry. When world war breaks out later that year Bridie's brothers join up, followed a year later by the twins and nothing is ever the same again for the O'Malley family.
Nearly a century later Kat Kelso, a forensic anthropologist and Bridie's great-granddaughter is sent out to Fromelles to help with the exhumation and identification of Australian soldiers still buried there. Kat makes some surprising discoveries about her family and uncovers a long kept secret that echoes down the generations and explains much of her family history.
In this novel, the author manages to convey the horror of war and the effects of post war trauma on the families of returning soldiers who can never return to the peaceful and normal lives they had before. Until recently, the loss of ANZAC lives in France had not been as well publicised as the slaughter at Gallipoli. However, it was every bit as drastic and devastating and the stories of the young men who died on French battlefields deserves to be told. Great story.½

The second in the exciting ‘Brumby Plains’ series finds Sam and his younger brother rescuing an illegal immigrant child who is the only survivor from a boat wreck. The two boys have to fight racism and the Australian Governments policy to prevent a little girl from being imprisoned. Another very good yarn from Australian author Joanne Van Os with a very topical subject of what to do with boat people and how they should be treated.

Have had a long weekend away and spent every spare moment glued to this story - I remember the events in the book and I confess to shedding a tear at the end.

Jem's father has had a disabling accident and the family is feeling the impact of this in various destructive ways. When it all becomes too much Great Aunt Ella arrives along with her yacht to give everyone a break. The children are drawn into her search for treasure but are unaware of forces at work that may threaten their safety. A great yarn set in the modern day, on the Northern Australian coastline. This would be a neat read for eight year olds to teens.

13 year old Sam is a worrier, he takes life seriously and expects the worse at all times; his younger brother George is much more laid back and gets excited about all the things that Sam worries about. On the whole though life is great for the two boys, they live on a buffalo station, Brumby Plains, in the Northern Territory of Australia and get to ride horses, muster the cattle and drive the station vehicles.

As BRUMBY PLAINS opens Christmas is coming, the wet season is on the way and the boy’s cousins are coming to spend the holidays with them. With the arrival of Tess and Darcy comes adventure, exploring forbidden caves, seeing a mystery plane land in the night while camping and a mysterious man who they meet in Darwin who asks a lot of questions about the station.

An edge of the seat exciting adventure story, the kids soon find themselves in danger as they uncover the mystery of the strange goings on in the area. Author, Joanne Van Os, knows this country well having spent much time there. The ’crime’ that the children uncover is a common one here in the Territory, and is one of a few scenarios she could have chosen, and one that is close to my heart. She portrays the lives of station kids very well, and touches on the beliefs of the local Aboriginal people sensitively with a very interesting back story. I have the sequel to this book, Castaway, on my TBR pile and am looking forwards to meeting up with Sam and George again real soon.

Opening Sentence: “…The daggiest house in the Bay, that was how people talked about Isherwood House…”

Jem Isherwood is a thirteen year old boy who lives with his family in Darwin in the north of Australia. They use to live on a farm, but when his dad lost a leg in a mining accident they moved to Darwin to live with Jem’s grandmother. Now with six people living in one house, tempers flair and everyone seems to be yelling at everyone else. Into the middle of this arrives great-aunt Ella. Ella has spent years sailing solo all over the world, and now she has come to Darwin to follow up the fate of a group of people who are believed to have secretly set up a colony somewhere along the north Australian coast. Ella invites Jem, his older sister Maddy, younger brother Tyler and Jem’s best friend Zac to sail with her and to give the family a break. The intrepid adventurers set out on the hunt following clues in old letters. This is a voyage that takes them to remote islands, through a whirlpool and the gradual realisation that strangers seem to be following them for some reason.

I love sailing at sunset with a glass of wine in hand, but anything more energetic than that sounds scary. THE SECRET OF THE LONELY ISLES is a rollicking good read – an adventure that had me flicking the pages, anxious to see what will happen next and I really enjoyed going along for the ride when someone else was having the adventure. It is a quick read, and if I was going to criticise it would be that I wanted more!!! I felt that just I was settling in with my new friends they had packed up their boat and gone home.

From the blurb I learnt that the author, Joanne Van Os, is an Australian writer who lives in Darwin where the story is set. She and her husband own a yacht and sail through the waters that the story is set.