In 1841, on the eve of her departure from London, Bridie’s mother demands she forget her dead father and prepare for a sensible, adult life in Port Phillip. Desperate to save her childhood, fifteen-year-old Bridie is determined to smuggle a notebook filled with her father’s fairy tales to the far side of the world.When Rhys Bevan, a soft-voiced young storyteller and fellow traveller realises … Bridie is hiding something, a magical friendship is born. But Rhys has his own secrets and the words written in Bridie’s notebook carry a dark double meaning.As they inch towards their destination, Rhys’s past returns to haunt him. Bridie grapples with the implications of her dad’s final message. The pair take refuge in fairy tales, little expecting the trouble it will cause.
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Between the Tides is an engaging historical fiction with relatable characters and an intriguing set-up. Perfectly pitched for the YA or adult reader of historical fiction, the story follows our heroine Bridie who is grieving for her recently deceased father as well as navigating the rocky road between childhood and adulthood. Her mother has married again, and well-meaning but bumbling Alf serves as the epitome of the good man saddled with his new wife’s child: he’d be a nice enough dad-joke bloke if he wasn’t hampered with the ghost of the beloved father. Bridie’s mother is expecting Alf’s baby to be delivered on the voyage, and is anxious to put her former life behind her. She has no sympathy with Bridie’s perhaps delusional fondness for her departed father.
The plot is thickened with emigration to Australia, so Bridie has a great deal of loss and change to deal with.
The journey is populated with other hopeful emigrants, a matter-of-fact crew, and a ship’s doctor of doubtful background. Among the passengers is a Welsh couple, also expecting a baby on the journey.
Relationships billow and surge along with the waves, and the conditions aboard the transport are very well realised. Bridie’s friendship with the Welsh couple is pivotal to the outcome.
The end is very well-managed, with enough teasers that this reader would very much like to hear more about what happened to Bridie in Port Phillip, and what the eventual fate of her family may be. Will the wicked doctor make life difficult for Rhys the Welshman? Will Bridie’s mother rise to the challenge of the new child? What about Annie, Bridie’s bunkmate on the voyage?
No spoilers from me.
Corbett’s writing is elegant and emotionally mature, her characters very real. Read and enjoy her insightful portrayal of life on an emigrant transport. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to reading more from this author as soon as it appears.
Told from three viewpoints, Elizabeth Jane Corbett’s debut novel is a fearless yet endearing exploration of the day-to-day existence of a small cast of characters, each with their troubles, who are incarcerated along with numerous families in the steerage deck of a ship bound for Australia. The Tides Between is an ironic tale in some ways, for the duration of a voyage that spans half the globe, the epic journey that unfolds is one situated at the hearth of human existence.
Corbett writes with a deft pen. The author is unafraid to expose the reality of life for working class migrants making the treacherous voyage to Australia. In true literary fashion, the narrative presses forward through the unfolding realisations of its characters, the backstory interwoven in fragments.
The Tides Between opens with fifteen-year old Bridie clutching a notebook of fairy stories she was forbidden to keep as she boards a ship bound for Port Phillip. What unfolds is in part a coming of age story, as Bridie learns to handle the grief she feels at the loss of her father, and accept the benevolent affections of her stepfather, Alf. Yet The Tides Between is less a story of one girl’s entry into adulthood and more a meditation on trauma and its consequences, and on identity and the power of myth.
These themes are strikingly played out through Rhys, a young Welshman and miner’s son crippled by claustrophobia. His wife, Sian, is pregnant, as is Bridie’s mother. Will either woman manage to safely birth her child before the ship pulls in at its destination? Will Rhys transcend his anguish? Will Bridie shake off her adolescent ill humour? Can Alf, a man strangled by his sense of duty and obedience, find the courage to confront the ship’s surgeon?
Corbett carries her plot forward with intricate attention to emotional detail. The heaving waters of the various oceans traversed a powerful metaphor for those heaving in the hearts of protagonists Bridie, Rhys and Alf.
Corbett’s writing is visual, metaphoric and intelligent.
“The night air fell like a chill shawl on her shoulders. Turning back towards the hatchway, she heard an eerie drawn out sound from beyond the deckhouse. She halted, nerves feathering her spine.”
It is in this fashion that dramatic tension is maintained, the reader treated page after page to Corbett’s elegant prose.
The theme of fairy tales is prominent, but these are not the stories of children’s books. They are powerful myths rich with significance. Bridie strives to make sense of the world and relationships through the lens of fairy tales, questioning, comparing, speculating. Corbett juxtaposes Bridie’s musings with the reality of her situation, conveyed through the harsh, albeit sensible worlds of her mother. Meanwhile, Rhys grapples with his own demons. The only time he can cope with being in steerage is when he is on stage, telling Welsh fairy tales to a captive audience. Through the friendship that grows between Bridie and Rhys, Corbett explores the healing power of fairy tales, a release as much for the teller as the listener.
In one respect, The Tides Between is a vivid portrayal of life in steerage. The reader is there with the stench and the lice and the privy buckets. Just as she is unflinching when it comes to portraying the physical hardships onboard, Corbett casts a microscopic eye over the complexities of grief and shame, taboos and social rejection.
Despite its heartrending moments, The Tides Between is ultimately a story of redemption, transformation and hope.
“She had begun to treasure their moments together, like bright beads, slipping through her fingers and puddling at the bottom of memory’s purse.”
The Tides Between pulls the reader in two directions, the desire to continue turning the pages at odds with an equally a strong wish to pause and reflect on its various intricacies, its depth. The only difficulty faced in reviewing a book of this quality is putting it down long enough to scribe reflections. A work I would describe as literary historical fiction, The Tides Between, is a captivating and immersive read.