A Place Near Eden

By: Nell Pierce

Narrated by: Kimie Tsukakoshi

Winner of the prestigious The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award.

How can we know the truth of our own lives? This question troubles Matilda, as she looks back on her time with her foster brother, Sem. Matilda remembers long hours at the swimming pool. Celeste, a girl who lived downstairs with her artist mother. Sem disappearing for hours, then days. Her father yelling in the driveway. A car coming to take Sem away.

Five years later, Sem is now a memory she has locked away. Until, at a party, she reconnects with Celeste and then Sem and the three of them move out to the coast near Eden to house-sit. As the summer drags on, the atmosphere in the house becomes claustrophobic and when Sem starts disappearing again, Matilda finds herself on unsteady ground, haunted by their past.

Then one morning, Matilda wakes up scratched and hungover, with no memory of the previous night. Sem is once again gone. This time, for good. Matilda becomes consumed by an obsession to know if she is responsible for Sem's disappearance. But the truth struggles to fit into a neat story.

©2022 Nell Pierce (P)2022 W F Howes

Critic reviews

"Lyrical, gritty and compelling...a story of haunted truth-seeking." (Caroline Overington, The Australian)