Home & away

Three Australian authors explore themes of love, loss, escape and rebuilding.

- GILL SOUTH

THE SEVEN SKINS OF ESTHER WILDING, by Holly Ringland (HarperCollins, $34.99)

The new novel from Australian Holly Ringland, author of the international bestseller The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, concerns Esther (Starry) Wilding a year after her beloved older sister, Aura, apparently walked into the ocean.

Aura and Esther had a happy childhood in Tasmania, but since Aura's disappearance, Esther's life has gone off the rails: she's a dishwasher working at a holiday resort who's getting a reputation for drinking too much and sleeping around, a far cry from the promising science student she once was.

Her parents' discovery of her sister's journal leads Esther to retrace Aura's steps during her time spent studying in Denmark, her mission to find out what happened to turn the once bright-eyed girl into a sad recluse when she came home. As well as the journal, Esther looks into the lines from seven stories Aura had tattooed on her body, inspired by feminist tales of selkies, swans and women, of seduction, entrapment and transformation, their lives forever changed by water.

Esther also meets a number of strong women in her quest, and finds Copenhagen to be a city of stories. She then travels to the remote Faroe Islands, the last place her sister was happy and found love, which becomes a place Esther looks to find acceptance and love, too. The book also explores the culture around tattoos, and their use by women to give themselves courage to talk about things they've kept inside.