Tess

by Kirsten McDougall

"In the silence she could hear the oncoming hum, like a large flock approaching. She didn’t want to hear his story; she’d had enough of them."


Tess is on the run when she’s picked up from the side of the road by lonely middle-aged father Lewis Rose. With reluctance, she’s drawn into his family troubles and comes to know a life she never had.

Set in Masterton at the turn of the millennium, Tess is a gothic love story about the ties that bind and tear a family apart.

Cover by Keely O'Shannessy

Genres: Thriller, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2017

Reviews

[Arie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another step in my attempt to stop giving in to the "cultural cringe" and actually read books by Aotearoa New Zealand authors.

Each and every book I have read for this reason has utterly proven why these authors should be read for reasons in their own right - this in particular is a stunningly crafted little tale and highly recommended. Will review further.

[royaevereads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wow. This novel is incredibly dark and so unexpected. These characters both have grim pasts that are slowly uncovered. There are some very tense and suspenseful moments, and some gut-wrenching/heartbreaking ones. It’s going to haunt me for a long time. A masterpiece.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was unexpectedly magnificent. Tess is a true New Zealand Gothic love story. It is a novel about people who don't quite fit. Each of the characters is caught in an intensely conflicted; trapped by circumstance and wounded by each other. The relationships are complicated and the world McDougall constructs is a dark and hopeless one. Nevertheless, I thought this novel was expertly crafted. The writing is stark and measured, and the internal lives of the characters are vivid and deep. I loved it.

[lucy black · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly great. Beautiful twists and turns in a short and well paced novel. The heat, the grass, the dog and the misery thrum off the page.
A story of a working class country kid being pulled into middle class Masterton in 1999 and into one family’s pain and drama. Gothic, intriguing, mystical, funny, relatable. This is going to be on my recommendations for people who want to read a New Zealand novel.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a review but a quick personal response. I loved this book and couldn't put it down. Kirsten is such a talented writer - her prose is true and wise and sharp. One of my top (perhaps even the top) reads of the year. I think she writes beautifully, and by that I don't mean ornately. There is lyricism in plain language arranged just so, and Tess has it in spades.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A psychological suspense novel with touches of paranormal, TESS is a beautifully balanced, chilling, claustrophobic and clever novel. 

Set in small town New Zealand, at the turn of the millennium, TESS is, as the blurb puts it "a gothic love story about the ties that bind and tear a family apart." It's also a story of how rewarding an unlikely friendship can be, and about the power of connecting with the other. It's about reaching out to somebody for the sake of kindness, contact and being a human being in a world that sometimes seems committed to the other direction.

The writing in TESS is excellent, the flashbacks, the special powers / paranormal elements all flow into the rest of the story in a manner that never makes them seamless, and all the more believable because of that. The strength of TESS is not in overt messaging, but the nuance of depiction. There's violence and hate and plenty of threat here, but it's skilfully portrayed, never contrived, never manipulative. The threat is implied, the violence explored by consequence rather than actuality.

TESS is stark vivid, deep, contemplative, different and extremely rewarding reading.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...

[Always Becominging · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a good book. It would have been great if it gave its queer characters a hopeful ending.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy to pick up and quite hard to put down, which is what you want. Tess takes you straight into an intriguing world and for that alone is a compelling read. Very skillfully handled, immaculate pacing.

[Susan Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

So well crafted - depth, beauty, truth - I couldn't stop. My family thought me rude... I loved it. And it's so great to have that NZ from a female POV. Very tight & economical but also, in its lyricism, sumptuous & evocative.

[Craig Sisterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

McDougall artfully keeps readers off balance as events unfold, threading together plenty of drama with strands of crime, romance, and the supernatural. There’s a subtlety to McDougall’s slim novel, which is deceptive and disturbing. Sparkling prose is cut with staccato bursts of violence. Tess offers tangled relationships with plenty of tensions

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always very pleasurable to read a novel where you are not certain what is going to happen, where the conclusion isn’t obvious.

I really enjoyed Tess, for its simplicity and its elegance. Nothing too complex, certainly nothing unbelievable, all very plausible, gritty and Kiwi.

Tess is a young woman, hitchhiking alone on a backroad. Lewis is a man who stops to give her a lift. Behind both of them they have secrets, pain and something they are running away from. Those stories will gradually emerge, tugged from the blackness, painfully revealed.

I also like the conceit that Tess can see into people’s past, that their secrets can be revealed through their eyes. Like visions and premonitions, she can see something about the person, the things that they are hiding, and in some cases, what might be about to happen. It forces people to open up, to say the things they have been hiding, but also to face up to themselves.

It’s a great novel and I thoroughly recommend it.

[Emma McCleary · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely enjoyable read - a story that is compelling, tight and compulsive... if it wasn't for the need to look after my toddler I would have read and read and read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, the scene setting and the plot. All were totally believable and real. These were people I cared about and I know for a long time after I'll be thinking about Tess and where she is as if she was someone I knew.

[Gavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A middling novella that showed great potential to be a very good novel. I really liked the ideas, characters & story line, but thought it was wasted potential - it could have been fleshed out more & edited more cleanly into a very good 300 page book.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as dark and foreboding as I expected, but an easy, quick read with an ending that led the reader to believe there was much more to the story than had been given. Although we saw into the minds of the key players, there were some questionable actions. Would like to know what happened next.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, amazing descriptive writing. A pleasure to read.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the writing. Interesting characters. Disappointing ending - it seemed like a bit of a cop out.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. I need to read more New Zealand fiction. It always feels familiar in a really comforting way.

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wairarapa Noir. Convincing characters, fats moving plot. Sad ending.

[Samantha Aspinall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't want this to end. Spectacular.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning: this story does not have a happy ending.

[Sharon N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story but too slight. Could have been more.

[Adrienne Flitcroft · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an unusual story, yet I loved it!
Super easy quick read that was hard to put down!

[Veronica Huntington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book, although wish there had been more!!

[Aaliyah Heta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unexpected

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this but would have liked it to be more substantial. A full length book with more character details and a continued ending would have been 5 stars for me.

[Lucie Mckenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this as I was reading it, it would have been 4 stars, but was bitterly let down by the end.

[Tamsin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't even remember reading this so was obviously mind blowing. Think Alice recommended.