Publisher: Wild Dingo Press
Review by Carol Woeltjes
Revelation Beach is one of the most vivid and intense books I have read in a long time. I’m not saying this to scare you off, but to ensure you go in informed. The first few pages make a powerful statement that the rest of the book more than measures up, they also make it personal.
We met Eleanor when she is trying to outrun her fears and not succeeding. Only days before her stepmother Ida died in a suspicious house fire and now that suspicion is falling squarely on Eleanor’s shoulders. As Ida’s sole beneficiary Eleanor is set to receive a fortune, but is this motivation enough to kill the only mother she has ever known or is the motive something murkier, something powerful people might want to keep hidden.
Before I go any further, I want to ask you a question. How much do you known about Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975 and what the Australian Government did or didn’t know in advance? I knew very little. Not being born at the time probably plays a role, but I know about World War Two and Tudor England, so not really an excuse.
Susan Francis has helped fix my knowledge gap by elegantly wrapping Revelation Beach around the real events of 1975 East Timor and beyond. She uses the characters to ask all the questions I had and more, resulting in a compulsive and informative read. There is no shying away from the brutality of what took place, but it is portrayed with honesty and integrity. I have found myself thinking about the characters who reveal the horrors days after finishing the book. I have also researched the events outlined because I just cannot turn away from something so close to home.
The scenes set in Indonesia and East Timor are filled with so many intriguing details it was not a surprise to find out that Francis had spent time in Indonesia as an exchange student in 1980. I could almost smell the cloves and feel the wiltingly oppressive heat, which only added to the tension of the story.
Publisher’s blurb
When Eleanor Freeman’s enigmatic stepmother, Ida, dies in a suspicious fire, a lifetime of secrets begins to unravel. Was Ida an Indonesian spy entangled in the murders of the Balibo Five and unspeakable war crimes?
Haunted by the past and pursued by those who would prefer the truth to remain buried, Eleanor flees to a crumbling lighthouse on the mid-north coast of NSW. There, amid salt-lashed cliffs and gathering shadows, she unearths a decades-old conspiracy of betrayal, silence and bloodshed – one that stretches from the halls of Canberra to the ravaged villages of Timor-Leste.
Revelation Beach dares to expose one of Australia’s most shameful cover-ups, where lives were sacrificed for oil, gas and political expediency. At once a literary page-turner and a powerful reckoning, this novel asks the question: How far would you go to uncover the truth?