Orange-based Kelly Rimmer is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and as you fall into the world she has conjured in The Midnight Estate, you will very quickly understand why. Kelly knows how to tell a gripping story.
We begin with Fiona Winslow, a heritage architect who has fled her Sydney life and her failed marriage to channel her emotions into an all-consuming passion project: restoring the large, rural estate owned by her beloved late Uncle Tad. She is returning to the sprawling house, where she grew up with her single mother. Her eccentric author uncle helped raise her, and thanks to his imagination, every nook of the estate has a story attached to it.
Wurimbirra’s many rooms, red walls, wainscoting, and stained-glass windows exist vividly within the pages. The creaking, fictional home sits in the real NSW town of Forbes. (“Like the magazine”, observe some of the American characters.) This is Kelly’s country. It’s where she grew up, and under her loving hand, the community hums with life.
The tone quickly shifts, however, as the hidden history of the neglected estate emerges. Locals think Wurimbirra house is haunted. Even Fiona’s practical mother Ginny is concerned, so much so that she becomes irrational. Tad’s will stipulated the estate was not to be sold until after both he and Ginny had died. Fiona does not believe in ghosts but as she gets to work strange things start to happen.
As she cleans, she finds a box of books, The Midnight Estate. She cracks the spine and is immediately engrossed in the story. We learn of American Silas, who fell in love with an Australian and left his family behind. His sister feels betrayed and cannot forgive him. Kelly expertly employs the book-within-a-book device.
Kelly is a gifted writer, but perhaps her most compelling skill is her ability to breathe life into her characters. Through their relationships with those around them, all the heartbreak, regret, longing, and earnest goodwill vibrates through the story. We feel Fiona’s deep attachment to her deceased uncle, and her struggle with the distance that exists between herself and Ginny. Silas is weighed down with regret and is driven by it to act in surprising ways.
Family relationships are at the heart of The Midnight Estate. There is a playful flirtation laced through the chapters. Fiona’s first crush has returned to town as a capable and kind vet, providing some relief to the tension that builds as the mystery deepens. But Kelly’s chief object is family dynamics. Siblings, cousins, and parent-child relationships. She asks, what do we owe to each other, and how do we repair the damage when we disappoint the ones we love? The story is at its most moving on the theme of atonement.
The Midnight Estate memorably interrogates domestic violence, and in particular coercive control. Kelly creates the slow-build pressure cooker, expertly demonstrating how a noose can tighten around a victim’s neck without them realising it. The narrative examines the role and responsibility of a community in the face of criminal control, and what can happen when it shirks that duty.
The fictionalised Forbes acts as a foil for the American story, and in doing show forces the reader to examine the role we all must play in the scourge of violence that continues to stalk mothers, wives, girlfriends and daughters all across Australia. To drive home this message, Kelly is donating a portion of the royalties from the first six months of The Midnight Estate’s Australian sales to domestic violence charity Birds in the Bush, adding real purpose to this already meaningful story.
We seek out the best stories. We nurture them. Then we share them. Hachette Australia is a team of expert publishers and passionate readers dedicated to discovering and supporting talented writers and working with them to craft exceptional stories.Â
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