BURNT OUT
How do you start again when your life is a smoking ruin?
She lost everything in a bushfire and became the celebrity face of climate change. But is fame and living with a billionaire all it's cracked up to be? A warm and witty story for our times.
'Here's to rising from the ashes ...'
Calida Lyons is having a very bad week. She's long past deadline for her still unwritten second novel; her husband has just left her; and her Blue Mountains community is being threatened by bushfires. Just as she hits rock bottom, she's forced to shelter with neighbours while a fire incinerates everything she owns.
Devastated and emotional in front of news cameras, Cali delivers a blistering, unfiltered rebuke to the nation's rich to do something.
Her rant goes viral, and she quickly becomes the latest celebrity face of the climate movement. Soon she's offered a harbourside refuge by handsome tech billionaire Arlo Richard, her publisher is delighted with the new novel she's writing, and she's the darling of high society.
But things aren't as they seem. It's all built on lies, and Cali's pretty sure that the precarious house of cards she's built is about to come tumbling down.
When disaster meets fraud meets greed meets frivolity . . . Victoria Brookman’s debut novel BURNT OUT is a real mixed bag of characters and diverse themes that includes climate disaster, manipulation by media, friendship and community, romance and personal growth. And it all somehow comes together cohesively to bring readers not only an entertaining read, but an enlightening one.
The book’s protagonist, Cali Lyons, becomes the unintentional face of the climate movement when her frustrated and angry response is filmed and broadcast in the immediate aftermath of a devastating bushfire whose widespread destruction resulted in the loss of her home, her cat and her work. With no savings, income or worldly goods, Cali accepts the generosity offered to her as a result of her newfound celebrity to restart her life.
This book kept me off-kilter in a good way. When we meet Cali, she’s an odd combination of lost, selfish, and self-absorbed. Importantly, she is a lot of us. Wondering whether she do “the right thing” or take advantage of her current good fortune, irrespective of the consequences, drives the story nicely towards a conclusion.
Another bonus for me is reading books that take place where I live – in this case, Sydney. I am always curious how an author will portray the place I live.
Well paced, well written and engaging. I am keen to see what Brookman writes next.
Review copy courtesy of Netgalley and Harper Collins Australia.
Victoria Brookman is an author, activist and academic. She lives with her family in the Blue Mountains, on Darug and Gundungurra country. Victoria worked for a number of years as a political staffer and was the Labor candidate for the seat of Bradfield in the Kevin 07 Federal Election. Victoria was one of the early founding members of Destroy the Joint, the founder and spokesperson of Lactivists Australia, and from 2012-15 she organised and emceed the Sydney International Women's Day March. She studied English and creative writing at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University, and is currently a doctoral candidate at Western Sydney University. She enjoys writing, bushwalking, and watching the footy.
https://victoriabrookman.com/
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