LIT
by Anna Woods
Anna Woods’ first novel keeps you on the edge of your seat and keeps you reading way past bedtime to find out what will happen next.
LIT is the name of an architectural firm. Three initials for the three founders, except one of them has disappeared. Or has Billy Lovelace disappeared? Anna keeps you guessing right the way through the book. Billy may have reappeared. Or is Virginia Ishak (Gin) hallucinating about what scares her most?
Clarissa Taylor (Clary) is the third member of the firm. Clary and Gin are lovers, or barely lovers at the point you enter the book given they spend more time turning their backs on each other than in an embrace. Clary is depicted as mentally unstable having been sent into a deep spiral when Billy, with whom she was in a relationship, suddenly vanished. Gin, Clary and Billy are a tight knit circle of damaged people, all of whom have a vicious streak.
Anna’s descriptions and depictions are vivid and novel. She draws pictures of spaces, appropriate to a novel about architects, and of people, using strong imagery in her words and phrases. She evokes a very real Auckland as a place, and as a society where class distinctions are a growing evil.
Gin as narrator is convincing as she unravels over her obsession with Clary, her mounting debts, and an all too likely manipulation of construction documents to mask an error which could result in a group of LIT’s buildings catastrophically failing. Buildings and humans, all prone to flaws and disaster.
I look forward to seeing what Anna will write next and whether she can follow this unusual novel with something else as skilled and immersive.
by Anna Woods
Anna Woods’ first novel keeps you on the edge of your seat and keeps you reading way past bedtime to find out what will happen next.
LIT is the name of an architectural firm. Three initials for the three founders, except one of them has disappeared. Or has Billy Lovelace disappeared? Anna keeps you guessing right the way through the book. Billy may have reappeared. Or is Virginia Ishak (Gin) hallucinating about what scares her most?
Clarissa Taylor (Clary) is the third member of the firm. Clary and Gin are lovers, or barely lovers at the point you enter the book given they spend more time turning their backs on each other than in an embrace. Clary is depicted as mentally unstable having been sent into a deep spiral when Billy, with whom she was in a relationship, suddenly vanished. Gin, Clary and Billy are a tight knit circle of damaged people, all of whom have a vicious streak.
Anna’s descriptions and depictions are vivid and novel. She draws pictures of spaces, appropriate to a novel about architects, and of people, using strong imagery in her words and phrases. She evokes a very real Auckland as a place, and as a society where class distinctions are a growing evil.
Gin as narrator is convincing as she unravels over her obsession with Clary, her mounting debts, and an all too likely manipulation of construction documents to mask an error which could result in a group of LIT’s buildings catastrophically failing. Buildings and humans, all prone to flaws and disaster.
I look forward to seeing what Anna will write next and whether she can follow this unusual novel with something else as skilled and immersive.
Review by Jane Shearer
Title: LIT
Author: Anna Woods
Publisher: Echo Publishing
ISBN: 9781786588265
RRP: $37.99
Available: bookshops
Author: Anna Woods
Publisher: Echo Publishing
ISBN: 9781786588265
RRP: $37.99
Available: bookshops
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