When a book starts out with the ‘happy ever after’ and it’s titled The Accident you know that something big and awful is about to happen.
Hannah is looking forward to her wedding to Jamie with final preparations underway and she can’t wait for her dream honeymoon in Tahiti. The final rehearsal is scheduled that evening, and she is waiting for the love of her life to arrive home.
Hannah’s best friend, Freya, is excited and relieved that her partner, Ryan’s best mate, Jamie, is getting married at last. She is helping with putting the finishing touches to the decorations for the wedding ceremony for the following day.
Ryan, a paramedic, receives a call just as sirens can be heard in the distance. He needs to come into work immediately as there has been a car accident, a person trapped in an overturned vehicle.
From this moment on, four lives are forever changed. A dreadful tragedy, the loss of a fiancé, a life-long friend, a much loved son and pillar to the community. Although it isn’t long before something about the accident doesn’t add up for Hannah and no-one seems to be paying attention.
The Accident is a puzzle of a book where things are not as they seem. Most of it centres around Hannah and her grief, as she tries to get through the days that follow and find a pathway to move forward. It’s also about the freedom to choose without judgement of fundamental life choices, particularly around women’s fertility.
At times a tough read, particularly if you have experienced recent grief, but the multiple themes keep you interested and thinking.
Reviewed by Teresa Lewis
Read an interview with Fiona Lower about The Accident
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fiona Lowe has been a midwife, a sexual health counsellor and a family support worker; an ideal career for an author who writes novels about family and relationships. She spent her early years in Papua New Guinea, where without television, reading was the entertainment and it set up a lifelong love of books. One of her first teenage rebellions was refusing to go on a hike with her parents because she was half way through Gone With the Wind. As an adult, Fiona read her way around the world always trying to read a book that related to where she was at the time; the Brontes in Yorkshire, Jane Austen in Bath, The Godfather in Italy, Michener in Hawaii … and so the list goes on.
Although she often re-wrote the endings of books in her head, it was the birth of her first child that prompted her to write her first novel. A recipient of the prestigious USA RITA® award and the Australian RuBY award, Fiona’s books are set in small country towns and feature real people facing tough choices and explore how family ties impact on their decisions.
When she’s not writing stories, she’s a distracted wife, mother of two ‘ginger’ sons, a volunteer in her community, guardian of 80 rose bushes, slave to a cat and is often found collapsed on the couch with wine.
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