A Charm of Powerful Trouble

by Joanne Horniman

The secrets that color the tangled relationships between sisters, lovers, and children and their parents are explored in this sensuous novel. Growing up, Laura and Lizzie are fascinated by their mother's secrets and their parents' relationship and the unusually close sisters spend endless, blissful hours contemplating the possibilities of their mother's romantic past. But, as they grow older and develop their own secrets, the web becomes more complicated and the stories of generations of passionate women intricately intertwine. This rich story delves into themes of love, guilt, and growing older.

Genres: Family

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Joanne Horniman grew up in a country town in northern NSW. She read books, rode her bicycle around the countryside, and had a glove puppet theatre company with her best friend. They 'toured' their show to all the classes in the school. On leaving school, Joanne went to Sydney, completed an arts degree and worked as an editor after a stint washing dishes in a pub. Since then she has worked as a teacher at TAFE and university, and she now lives with her family on a small acreage in the bush, where she plants rainforest trees and looks after a trio of chooks and a duo of ducks.

When did you start writing?
'When I was about six, I think. I had a collection of notebooks I wrote in. I gave up for a while in primary school, because I didn't like the topics the teachers set, but in high school I wrote short stories at home and sent them away to magazines.'

If you weren't a writer, what would you be?
'Very bored. Nothing else interests me. Except, perhaps, being a puppeteer, or Dr Who.'

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the rich descriptions and intertwined female relationships. It was a quiet, meandering story but a quick and easy read. I bought it while on holiday in Byron Bay, which seems fitting given it’s set in and around there. I’d recommend it.

[Penni Russon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was published over ten years ago as an adult novel. I wonder if it might have been a YA novel (new adult?) in today's market. It feels YA to me, in a deep, resonant, redolent way - a rich, porous reading experience that inscribes the body.

A beautifully female book about what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a sister, a lover, a friend, an aunt, an 'other' woman...and how all these identities are in fact slippery, fluid. Fluids semiotically bubble and drain and prick and pour through the novel's landscapes and bodyscapes. Stories tangle and intertwine; the young narrator is both unreliable and beguilingly all-seeing and all-knowing, dipping in and out of other people's stories.

To me it's her adolescence that makes her body open, receptive to all signals, picking up the static electricity of story as it crackles with energy through matrilineal lines and that's what makes this (to me) a YA novel.

I'll be giving this to my daughters in a few years.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book - a real pleasure to read. At first I was intolerant of the hoping around between narrators and times but eventually went with the flow and worked it out as I went just as all the people involved seemed to have. It felt in a way to be a memoir of Emma but bringing in ancestors and descendants and all the people related in some way - a truly extended family. The descriptions of the 70s and the changes in way of ife especially regarding relationships which some fell into without any problems (Claudio) while others weren't quite sure how to handle this (Emma). The sense of the fluidity of time and relationships. Only didn't get a 5 because of my problems following it. Gave me lots of ideas for memoir writing.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. It's a book to read with tea, perhaps a slice of dense not-too-sweet cake, in the winter when you want to be reminded of summer. It's another of the "plotless" genre, meaning that if you're waiting for something to happen, stop. Focus on the women's stories, on the beauty of the words, the choice phrases that you should savor like pieces of stolen candy. It's deep scarlet and passionate in its' phrasing. The language style is reminiscent of Francesca Lia Block, though Horniman's prose are more grounded and flesh out her characters more thoroughly.

[Gloria · Rating 5 out of 5]

The depth Joanne Horniman goes into with the emotions of the family members is quite magnificent. I adore all her characters and feel that I now know them intimately. I also live not far from Mullumbimby so the location is quite familiar I have had this book on my shelf to read for several years and don't know why I am only just reading it because I have absolutely loved all of her other books.

[Wendy Orr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensuous, evocattive, wise and exquisitely written, Joanne Horniman's novel explores different types of love and ways of growing up

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yay for ebooks... And bring able to download them at all hours.