Red Reflection

by Phil McNamara

How can modest living, art and respect for nature address global threats like habitat loss and climate change?

In the last woodland on the city fringe, Ellin is dying.

She remembers the Red, when trees stretched across the land - a time before the wildfire, before the Blue and its uncertain inheritance.

Ellin weaves these reflections into a letter for her newborn daughter.

Could she be the one to lead a transformation?

Red Reflection is a contemporary parable about how quickly we changed the world.

In fact, it's more than that - it's a call to action.

291 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

As a young man, Phil McNamara was often lost in the works of Charles Darwin - a passion that fused language with a love for the natural world. Red Reflection is his first novel. Phil is writing its sequel from the modest home he shares with his wife and daughter in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
(author: Phil McNamara)
(book: Red Reflection)
https://thirdfuse.com.au/media/

Reviews

[Kate Hester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Red Reflection is written in the first person. Ellin tells the story to her baby daughter, Little El, about the change from Red to Blue, from living with nature to fighting against it. I could really relate to the impacts that the people have on the world that's created (which could be anywhere) but I'd never really thought about how fast it has happened. The author squeezes these changes into the life of Ellin (no doubt to highlight the speed of the changes). I particularly loved the sections where Ellin is talking in real time. There is a lot of reflecting on past events and there could have been more of the current day but I can forgive that because I also loved this book's treatment of death and big picture thinking about how we react to hardship. There is lots of turning things upside down about what's good and bad (hence the Red, which you'd think is the bad times and are not, and the blue, which you'd think are the good times, which are not necessarily so). Lots to think about in this novel.

[Jo]

Thought provoking and moving. Very well written and I just wanted to keep reading to the end.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought-provoking.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the paperback then went audiobook. Both awesome. Probably prefer the audio. Sad story. Great narration by Chloe Schwank. Book for the ages.