Evergreen Falls - Kimberley Freeman

Evergreen Falls

Kimberley Freeman

Touchstone, Aug 4 2015, $16.00

ISBN: 9781476799902

In 2014 in Australia’s Blue Mountains, thirty year old virgin Lauren Beck muses that if she had been sexually active, less protected by her dominating Mum in Tasmania, or even held a job before this one; she would be able to talk with handsome Danish architect Tomas Lindegaard.  Instead the coffee shop waitress knows she sounds like an idiot when she speaks to Tomas who leads the renovation of Evergreen Spa.  Still Tomas escorts Lauren though the rundown hotel where she finds a package of old letters and begins to read them.

In 1926 SHB sends love letters to a woman the author obviously loves.  Wanting to know more about the mysterious young lady and envious of how much SHB cherishes her especially since she wishes Tomas would equally covet her; Lauren seeks the identity of such adulation.  Having lost her position in Sydney, but needing money to care for her sick mom, Violet Armstrong ecstatically accepts a waitress job at the exclusive Evergreen Spa.  There she meets affluent siblings Sam and Flora Honeychurch-Blacks.

Rotating perspective between two similar women over eight decades apart, Evergreen Falls is a fascinating character study that looks deeply at forbidden love caused by social class differences.  Each lead female chooses a path, but also shares in common looking back and wondering about “The Road Not Taken” (Frost).  Although the dual subplots follow the anticipated respective courses, Kimberley Freeman writes an intense Australian drama.

Harriet Klausner