Book set in New South Wales – Stone Yard Devotional

Submitted: 4th March 2024

Stone Yard Devotional – Charlotte Wood

Burnt out and in need of retreat, a woman leaves the city to return to the place she grew up.

She takes refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback in New South Wales.

I was intrigued by this novel and felt compelled to travel there. To this place.

Book set in New South Wales - Stone Yard Devotional

Map of locations in Stone Yard Devotional

BOARDING PASS INFORMATION

Destination : New South Wales

Author guide: Charlotte Wood

Genre: fiction

Food and drink to accompany: beer and pasta

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A novel to transport you to a small religious community in NSW

Map of locations in Stone Yard Devotional

This is a slow and thoughtful novel. A seemingly simple premise of a woman who returns to her hometown in southern NSW to live with nuns. It was great to explore the Monaro Plains as I have never been here in fiction before. Neither have I been in real life when I think about it.

I enjoyed the style of the whole story. The woman is documenting her life and experiences so I felt like a confidante reading someone’s diary or listening to her innermost thoughts. There are a lot of issues for her to deal with – COVID and a horrific mouse plague. There’s plenty of time for reflections and contemplations and this gave the novel a sedate and insightful feel.

This is an author I am keen to read more about and from. She clearly takes the Australian landscape an cultural worlds to full effect and it was a wonderful reading experience.

The main character is never named yet she floats through the novel letting us into her innermost thoughts. This is a story with no real beginning and no real end – this is a reading moment, a series of moments wrapped up between the two covers of a book.

The cover of the book reflected very well the conditions of the world within.