Talina in the Tower by Michelle Lovric

First published in 2012

Michelle Lovric is one of my favourite children’s authors working today.  I have been a big fan since I read her first children’s novel The Undrowned Child – her story-telling skills are top notch. Talina in the Tower, like Lovric’s two books before it, is written with imagination, intelligence, humour that snaps and loving attention to Venice and its history. If you truly want to escape, her books are your means to.

Talina in the Tower is set in late nineteenth-century Venice. It is described with gothic flare; on the brink of disaster and inhabited by frightened people and even more frightening creatures. I really enjoy Lovric’s cast lists. Talina is populated with vultures, sarcastic rats, cat gangs, Ravageurs (think evil, malformed wolves) and human characters even more quirky and strange than the creatures roaming about all around them. All Lovric’s characters have this gorgeous pantomimic quality this is endearing rather than over-the-top. I am actually jealous of some of the amazing character creations she comes up with. She obviously takes great joy in crafting their dialogue and it is fantastic stuff.

Talina is along the Teo mould from The Undrowned Child: wilful; clever; impudent, temperamental and brave. She has a huge heart and is wonderfully resourceful. I love girl characters like this. She is the perfect character to go on this adventure with. I also love how Lovric can so easily make ‘evil’ characters multi-faceted with just a few paragraphs.

The story is plot-heavy and full of twists and turns. It is dark and doesn’t shy away from barbaric or mature themes. But this is where Lovric’s wonderful humour kicks in. She has a great knack for capturing peripheral action, and there are some brilliant asides and observations from characters who are observing the main action (the story is told in third person). She also makes Venice and its history alive and interesting, and manages the perfect balance of fact and fiction. It took me a while to open up the book, because I knew how dense Lovric’s books can be (in a good way). But once I started reading Talina I was hooked.

If it sounds like I’m raving it’s because I am. Lovric has some of the best children’s writing out there. I only wish my own books reach the same imaginative highs as hers.

The Mourning Emporium, by Michelle Lovric

This edition published in hardcover, by Orion, 2010.

STORY:

Barely a year has passed and Venice is once again in peril. Bajamonte Tiepolo is back, and his baddened magic with him. This time his reach has spread from the canals of Venice to Australia and England, where the imminent death of Queen Victoria has left London vulnerable. Teo, the Undrowned Child, and Renzo, the Studious Son, embark on another set of perilous adventures. Among their encounters: the beautiful but brazen Venetian mermaids and their slightly less vivacious English counterparts; a ragtag bunch of street urchins operating under the guidance of Turtledove the Bulldog, exploits at high seas under the cruel decree of the evil Miss Uish, and Bajamonte Tiepolo’s usual bunch of miscreant minions. Can Teo and Renzo save their beloved Venice in time?

BACKGROUND:

This is the sequel to one of my favs – if not favourite – children’s books last year. These books have all the makings of classics – they are so imaginative and intelligent and immersive, and at their hearts is such a celebration of story-telling. They are certainly literary. I do not think they are easy books to read, but advanced readers will be rewarded. That said, The Mourning Emporium did not quite reach the dizzying heights of The Undrowned Child. I think maybe the formula was a bit off. All the elements were there but sometimes just didn’t gel, or were a little forced. I also found myself quite sceptical at times over how the narrative panned out. A few times scenes ended too abruptly or easily. Also, some of the sparkling wit of Teo and the narrative voice was lacking. But overall, The Mourning Emporium is a winner. The detail, the intelligence, the ambition – I am quite jealous of Lovric’s creative talent.

CHARACTERS:

Many familiar faces are back. Some lovely interplay between the feisty Venetian mermaids and the withering hypochondriac tendencies of the English ones. These scenes are where Lovric’s wit is at its best. The urchin-like street children are a welcome addition, although there are perhaps too many for any one individual to make any impact. Likewise with the Scilla’s orphan crew of young boys. Teo and Renzo are back, but I miss their snippy, sparky exchanges of the first book. There are some nice moments, though, with Teo and Renzo and Sibella, competitor to Renzo’s affections. Very cute. The bad guys are back, and they are the usual mixed bag of wonderful evil absurdity (although I did find the stereotyped Aussie crims a little too obvious, even if it was meant to be like this). Miss Uish is deliciously evil – a great character, fascinating and easy to hate. Once again, most of the characters speak with their own dialects, which is quite brilliant to decipher and read.

STYLE:

Lovric’s writing is high on dense description, but it is all very absorbing and worked in discreetly, adding insight and depth to the story. The writing is exciting and loaded with tension. I particularly loved the scene where Teo is trapped in a melting iceberg along with two vampire eels. What I particularly enjoyed, about the last book too, was that Lovric’s writing is not censored or dumbed down – there is cruelty here, and unfairness, and characters dying, but she doesn’t shy away from the darkness and I appreciate this. A couple of scenes I was left disappointed by – it felt like they were cut short or lacked satisfactory logic: swimming hundred of metre in arctic waters and then wandering around dank dungeons with only a passing thought to the cold? And the final scene, the climatic fight and resolution, felt a little abrupt. But as I said, there is still so much good stuff here, and so much fun to be had.

CONCLUSION:

I hear that there is a possible third book, and The Mourning Emporium makes me excited to see this series continue. Best read if you’re familiar with what’s gone before. One of the best written series out there at the moment.

I AM SO EXCITED FOR ...

A quick post about all these AMAZING titles coming out soon or just released that I am very much looking forward to finally reading. I always feel like I am about one hundred steps behind with my reading – there is a pile of books beside my bed and just when I think I am getting somewhere along come a few more titles just released or brought to my attention that I know I simply cannot ignore.

It is very rare now that I have a spare few hours or an afternoon to just sloth around and read, and I really miss that! Reading a bit here and a bit there in-between other stuff I have to do is just not the same experience. That being said, I now know that I have cracked onto a real winner these days when I end up reading well into the night – I love this feeling, of just wanting more more more! And hopefully there might just be a bit of that going on with the titles below.

First, is The Mourning Emporium, sequel to Michelle Lovric’s The Undrowned Child, a book that I just loved to bits last year. If you want completely immersive worlds and quirktastic characters, these books are it.

 I saw a few days ago that Jon Mayhew has a new book out, The Demon Collector, next month. Really enjoyed Mortlock last year so keen to see what he can do with this one.

 Winter’s Shadow is an Aussie para-romance that's really got me interested, seeing that it is both Aussie and written by a male author and I’ve read some good advance reviews.

 The Last Werewolf is a title that keeps coming up in my workplace and whose seeming mishmash of genres has got me really intrigued.

 I loved the prose, style and voice of Ananda Braxton Smith’s Merrow, so can’t wait to step back into a similar world in her next book Tantony, released in May.

And even though it’s not released until July, I am so excited for Lost Voices, by Sarah Porter. Yes, of course it’s something to do with the mermaids. But I just love the sound of it and have been hanging out for months to get my hands on this.

Will be reviewing all these in the coming months, so hopefully they live up to my grand expectations!

The Undrowned Child, by Michelle Lovric

First published in hardback by Orion Children's Books, (Hachette) 2009.



The Undrowned Child is a book that makes me excited about books – about the art of story-telling, about imagination, about the cleverness and beauty of the English language, about great characters and about the ability of a story to transport you someplace else. It was the best kids book I read last year, and I only happened onto it because I was searching for kids/YA books that had mermaids in them, and this one came up. It is a shame it doesn’t seem to be well-known (as far as I can tell, in Australia). Maybe the release of the second in the series, The Mourning Emporium, will change that – I hope so, because The Undrowned Child has all the qualities that made Harry Potter so popular and successful – wit, humour, adventure, genuine chills, complex, appealing characters and story-telling that is completely immersive.

We have our lead, Teo, a girl who, although she is supposedly Napoletana, feels a strong attraction to Venice. There is Renzo, a charming Venetian boy who seems determined to upstage her at every turn. There is Maria, Teo’s snooty arch-nemesis. Then we throw in the grand, mysterious canals and architecture of Venice; beautiful mermaids (yes!) with hearts of gold but mouths on them like rough-as-guts sailors; a Kraken-like creature who is poisoning the water that surrounds the city; a variety of ghosts, some wishing to redeem themselves, some hopelessly given up, some looking to wreak a little more havoc; an array of fantastic and mythical creatures (including winged lions and vampire eels); scientists racing against time to save their beloved Venice; and a mystery which Teo, with Renzo’s help, must figure out – how to stop the malignant spirit of Bajamonte Tiepolo from coming to power again and bringing about a repeat of one of the most tragic days in Venetian history.

The Undrowned Child is a fantastic mix of real Venetian history, fascinating mythology/fairy-tale and a subtle coming-of-age story concerning Teo, our heroine. The sub-plot involving her feelings for the infuriating Renzo is touching and beautifully done, her attitude towards their whole relationship spot-on for the no-longer-child but not-quite-teen. Teo is flawed and she and Renzo make mistakes in their mission to save Venice, but this makes their endearing characters realistic and us empathetic to their many dilemmas.

I was enthralled by just about every character in The Undrowned Child, whether they play a big part or small. Lovric has a way with characterisation and their encounters with each other are a joy to read. I loved Lovric’s take on mermaids, and her hierarchy of ghosts. Her ‘evil’ characters are genuinely scary and she creates some awesome atmosphere with many of her set-pieces.

Where The Undrowned Child really sucked me in was that it is genuinely witty and sharp, thanks in part to Teo’s way of seeing the world. Her dialogue is some of the best I’ve read in a children’s book, and her characters come out with such funny and interesting ways of expressing themselves. I did notice that she seems to have a disregard for using the word said – all her characters exclaim, or talk despondently, or sob, or exclaim snootily, and so on. This goes against just about everything I’ve been taught about writing, but you know what? For this book, I think it works. It’s all part of the book’s quirky charm.

Love, love, loved The Undrowned Child. Maybe not suitable for younger readers – but this in intelligent, amusing, captivating story-telling, and I only hope Lovric gets the recognition she deserves.