Heartsease

WINNER OF THE TASMANIAN LITERARY AWARDS PREMIER'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NSW LITERARY AWARDS FOR THE 2025 CHRISTINA STEAD PRIZE FOR FICTION


I saw my mother for a long time after she died. I would see her out windows, or in the corner of my eye. Always in the periphery, always a dim blur, but unmistakably my mother, the herness skating through every line and flicker.

Charlotte ('Lot') and Ellen ('Nelly') are sisters who were once so close a Venn diagram of the two would have formed a circle. But a great deal has changed since their mother's death, years before. Clever, beautiful, gentle Lot has been unfailingly dutiful - basically a disaster of an older sister for much younger Nelly, still haunted by their mother in her early thirties.

When the pair meet at a silent retreat in a strange old house in the Tasmanian countryside, the spectres of memory are unleashed.

Heartsease is a sad, sly and darkly comic story about the weight of grief and the ways in which family cleave to us, for better and for worse. It's an account of love and ghosts so sharp it will leave you with paper cuts.

Praise for Heartsease

'Sharp, gorgeous and unforgettable.' Robbie Arnott

'Heartsease will make you gasp - from heartbreak, hilarity and the sheer beauty of life.' Jane Rawson

'Brimming with grief, humour and love ... I could not put it down.' Erin Hortle

'Piercing, tender, insightful.' Emily Brugman