The Lindsay Daily Post, Dec. 13,
2005
by Theresa Kelly, Bobcaygeon News Columnist
(condensed
version)
I read a book that I just loved so much
that I read it a second time and have had very interesting e-mail chats with
the author. Gabriele Wills wrote A Place To Call Home, an historical
novel of early Irish immigrants covering five decades and two generations, set
in her home town of Lindsay. This would be a wonderful Christmas present for
anyone with any interest in local roots.
She followed this with another book
entitled Moon Hall, set in the Ottawa Valley, and is currently
researching and writing another set in Muskoka in the summer of 1914.
While A Place To Call Home is
geographically oriented, it is more incidental that the setting for Moon
Hall is the Ottawa Valley.
A Toronto girl, a writer of popular
fiction, moves to an old stone mansion, "Moon Hall," to get away from it all,
but her illusions about idyllic country life are soon challenged by reality.
Life is certainly different in a rural community of farmers, especially when
you toss in a few hippies and some yuppies. A 100 year old diary found in Moon
Hall sets the scene for a haunting tale of relationships in crisis.
Again, it was a book I couldn’t put
down once I’d started it. The pair would be a really nice Christmas gift.
I asked Gabriele, "How do you enforce the
discipline on yourself to get through writing a book?"
"The research stimulates ideas and
characters," she said. " I find that I never end up with what I had originally
envisioned, as my characters start to take over the tale and dictate the
conflicts and interactions. It’s great fun, for I’m never quite sure
where they will take me. So it’s an adventure for me as well!"
For Theresa Kelly's full review of A
Place To Call Home, click here.
See Readers'
Comments
Order your copy today!
