More Raves for Jem Poster's RIFLING PARADISE

Trine D. Paulson of Bookspot Central offers a lengthy review of Jem Poster's acclaimed novel Rifling Paradise: "Rifling Paradise is the second novel of the critically acclaimed novelist and poet Jem Poster. The praise is indeed well-deserved – Rifling Paradise is a very well-crafted piece of literary fiction; it is intense, vivid and thoughtful in its exploration of the hidden passions, forbidden desires and the unspoken social codes of Victorian society, all of which is subtly mirrored in and filtered through the more fundamental relationship between man and the natural world. . . . Rifling Paradise is a very well-written novel – subtle, vivid and intense. It is a book about man and nature, and the secrets we keep from others and from ourselves. One of its strengths is the fact that the narrative never directly addresses the secrets and omissions that structure the story and the characters – rather it lets the reader get a glimpse and the elegantly redirects the focus, leaving the reader to form his or her own opinions as to what really happened. . . Though “technically” a piece of historical fiction (though the historical setting is always silently implied), Rifling Paradise will most likely appeal better to those whose tastes have a more literary bent."

More Praise for Jem Poster's RIFLING PARADISE

Jem Poster's new novel Rifling Paradise continues to draw wonderful attention, most recently from the popular Curled Up with a Good Book blog: "Peopled with unlikable, morally bankrupt and desperate characters, Redbourne’s journey, rifling paradise along with his own broken psyche, is a disturbing rout of Victorian mores and pretensions, the past once more imprisoned in a foolish union that bodes ill for the future."

Jem Poster is currently Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University and the author of Courting Shadows, now available in paperback.

RIFLING PARADISE by Jem Poster Receives Rave Kirkus Review

Rifling Paradise, the new historical fiction novel by master storyteller and author of Courting Shadows Jem Poster, just received a lovely review from Kirkus:

A dubious character experiences a shattering change of heart during his specimen-collecting expedition to Australia, in a vivid historical novel by a renowned British poet.

Blamed for the suicide of a young boy and hounded out of his home by a mob, Charles Redbourne, the well-born but spendthrift hero of Poster's second work of fiction (Courting Shadows, 2008), is something of a lost soul in search of redemption. And he will find it at the end of the nightmarish trip he makes to the Antipodes, escaping his past while pursuing his inclination to become a naturalist. Although his host in Sydney, Edward Vane, offers hospitality, he too is a questionable figure, whose relationship with his headstrong, artistic daughter Eleanor seems violent, possibly abusive. Despite his earlier interest in boys, Redbourne is drawn to Eleanor, whose attunement to the land, its spirit and wildlife argues for a sustainable, noninterventionist relationship, unlike Redbourne's, whose specimen-hunting is done with a gun. Matters become more polarized when Redbourne leaves on his expedition into the hinterland, in the company of brutal Bullen and a half-aboriginal boy, Billy. Trapped between Bullen's cruelty and Billy's ancestral sensitivity, Redbourne barely survives and returns a different man. Poster's storytelling is notably fresh and pacey, and his characters have definition, even if they are often emblematic. Redbourne and Eleanor will leave Australia together, but their future is far from certain. Edgy, intense and engrossing work that delivers lessons astutely."

Jem Poster's RIFLING SHADOWS is "Pitch Perfect"

January Magazine has kind words for Jem Poster's Rifling Shadows, now on sale in bookstores everywhere: "It sounds like hyperbole but I don’t care: Jem Poster’s sophomore effort, Rifling Paradise (Overlook) is as near perfect a book as I have encountered in a very long time. It is a work of historical fiction and the history here -- Australia in the Victorian era -- is pitch perfect. Rifling Paradise looks like a book, but it is not: it’s really a time machine.The story finds minor English landowner, Charles Redbourne, heading to Australia to make an impression as a naturalist, at a time when that was a weirdly competitive field. If Rifling Paradise was just Redbourne’s story, it would be interesting enough: it would be a good book. But when Redbourne’s specimen collecting takes a terrifying turn, we find ourselves with a page turner on our hands.So what is Rifling Paradise? Is it historical fiction? Literary fiction? Is it a psychological thriller? Or the portrait of an age? Well, actually, it’s all of those things. And more. A wonderful book."

Jem Poster's RIFLING SHADOWS in Publishers Weekly

Jem Poster's new novel Rifling Paradise gets a positive nod in next week's Publishers Weekly: "Destitution and scandal drive 19th century British gentleman Charles Redbourne on a voyage to Australia in Poster’s atmospheric second novel. Charles hopes to collect specimens of rare wildlife, but his trip soon goes literally and figuratively offtrack. His stay with a family friend is unsettled by his host’s daughter, a volatile artist with a troubled past. Bullen, his expedition manager, clashes violently with their porter, Billy Preece, deriding the servant’s guidance, even though Billy’s Aboriginal heritage provides their only authentic connection to the untamed land they traverse. As the journey devolves toward danger and even death, Poster (Courting Shadows) evokes complex Victorian attitudes toward nature, culture, progress and science. Charles is a compelling portrait of a man moving uneasily among conflicting possibilities of his time."

Overlook Preview: Jem Poster's RIFLING PARADISE

Coming in February 2009 is a new novel from Jem Poster: Rifling Paradise. Poster, director of creative writing at the University of Wales and author of the critically acclaimed Courting Shadows, has written a atmospheric thriller set in wilds of nineteenth-century Australia. (Neither Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman appear in the book). Recently published in the UK, Rifling Paradise tells the tale of Charles Redbourne, a Victorian naturalist in Australia who heads into the outback to collect specimens. The expedition takes a dramatic and terrifying turn, and Redbourne is forced to confront the uneasy relationship between humankind and the natural world. TLS has called Rifling Paradise "immediately gripping . . .an epic tale whose figures in a landscape encapsulate a turning point in history."

Bookseller's Choice: Jem Poster's COURTING SHADOWS

From Booknotes, the newsletter of the fabulous Elliott Bay Book Co. in downtown Seattle: "The year is 1881: Young architect John Stannard is sent from London to a rural part of England to make repairs on the village church. Tearing down walls, burning the pews, and unearthing the dead, Stannard pays no heed to the voices of protest that surround him. While not at work he devotes himself to emotionally tormenting a beautiful young local girl by the name of Ann Rosewell. Jem Poster presents a scathing look at the battleground between the sacred and profane. Thought provoking, coolly elegant, and rich in detail, this novel is sure to be a success." -J. Ditzel

COURTING SHADOWS in Entertainment Weekly

Courting Shadows in reviewed on Entertainment Weekly online: "John Stannard, the narrator of Jem Poster's debut novel, Courting Shadows, is an insufferable snob. Hired to oversee repairs on a medieval church in a remote British village in the 19th century, the class-conscious Stannard treats his unrefined workers with arrogance. He's insensitive to the church's cleric and cruel to a seductive lass with whom he shared a flash of uncharacteristic bliss. It's risky placing such an unsympathetic, humorless character front and center. Poster keeps us engaged with prose that captures suffocating Victorian restraint, and a finale that doesn’t let the disagreeable prig off the hook." B - By Tim Purtell

Jem Poster's COURTING SHADOWS Reviewed in Booklist

Booklist takes a look at Jem Poster's mesmerizing new novel Courting Shadows, coming out in February 2008: "In a bleak English village in the late nineteenth century, John Stannard is a young architect chartered from the city to repair the parish church. Arrogant, self-righteous, and impervious to local sensitivities, Stannard narrates this claustrophobic story of modernity at odds with primitivism. His introduction to the villagers at Sunday service offers a brief glimpse of Ann Rosewell, a striking young woman who appears at odds with the sullen congregation around her. Discovering more about her through the nervous, well-meaning rector, Stannard pieces together a lofty ideal of the girl's background. A random meeting with her serves only to disappoint, and leering input from his team of construction workers further deters him, yet he remains curiously drawn to her. As their relationship tentatively progresses, his work at the church is marked with unsettling episodes that begin to wreak an effect on his mental and physical health, and the well-being of those around him. Written in lavishly beautiful prose, this is a consistently tense tale of rationality, self-delusion, and epidemic superstition."

Starred PW: Jem Poster's COURTING SHADOWS

Check out the starred PW review of Jem Poster's Courting Shadows, due out in early 2008.

"In Poster’s dazzling debut, set amid the Victorian gloom of 1881, snobbish John Stannard leads the restoration of a small,architecturally undistinguished church in a remote British village. It’s unglamorous work that the young architect thinks beneath him, what with having to disinter corpses, fend off enraged townsfolk and dole out 19th-century workers comp to injured laborers. Further complicating Stannard’s effort is the church’s curate, Mr. Banks, who seeks to preserve all of what Stannard aims to modernize and improve, no matter how rotten or broken. The debate between the two men escalates when, stripping plaster from a wall, one of Stannard’s employees uncovers a Doom Painting—a folk mural blending Christian and pagan influences dating from medieval times. At the same time, the buttoned-up Stannard begins to experience previously unknown passion, falling for the beautiful 19-year-old Ann Rosewell, an enigmatic local woman. The variously grotesque characters are spot-on, as is the static, lugubrious setting. Poster, who has worked as an archeologist, is formidable in his command of Victorian architecture and restoration, and uses his skills to construct an unlikely, subtext-ridden conflict—over the possibility of restoration to some original state of grace—that is wholly involving from start to finish. (Feb.)"