There Should Be More Dancing

I'd been trying to get my hands on Rosalie Ham's first novel, The Dressmaker, for some time and finally picked it up secondhand bookshop just before Christmas. A quote on the back by a Sydney Morning Herald reviewer states: "...a feral version of SeaChange", which I think sums it up perfectly. Crazy, tender, sad and surprising, this isn't a sweet story about making clothes but rather about one woman's return to the country town of her past.

The Dressmaker led me to Ham's latest novel There Should Be More Dancing, full of skillfully written laugh-out loud lines that entwine with characterisations full of depth and beauty that unfold and grow until the very last page. I was riveted.

Here's the beginning of the book as extracted by the Herald Sun, if you'd like a taste.

It'd never occurred to me that cross stitch could be used as a weapon...