'On the cusp of thirty, Coral learns that a thing is growing inside her body. It is not necessarily a complete disaster, she tells herself. I’m okay, she tells herself.
'Soon the thing inside her is the size of a plum. ‘Little Plum,’ she says, ‘Little Plum, I love you.’
'And she wants to love it, the little plum. It’s just that she can’t yet think of it as what it is becoming: a baby, and not just a fruity morsel.
'Coral is tapping and shrugging more than usual. She is trying to stop the creature in her head from taking hold.
'Coral might not be okay—or she might be seeing more clearly than anyone.
'Bold, dark and sensuous, Little Plum is the stunning follow-up to the award-winning debut Cherry Beach. With skill and sensitivity, Laura McPhee-Browne takes us inside the mind of an expectant mother.' (Publication summary)
'Little Plum conveys the emotional essence of changeable states with nuanced insight.'
'When reading books on motherhood, it’s difficult not to connect them to your own experiences. Laura McPhee-Browne’s Little Plum demonstrates the power of fiction to slice open the quotidian to reveal the viscera of what it means to bear children.' (Introduction)
'In popular music a common trope is the “difficult second album”. An act may have honed their songs for a debut, with less time for the equally important follow-up. It applies to literature as well, where novelty has its charms, less so more of the same.'
'In her compassionate second novel, McPhee-Browne deftly articulates the experience of becoming a parent'
'In her compassionate second novel, McPhee-Browne deftly articulates the experience of becoming a parent'
'In popular music a common trope is the “difficult second album”. An act may have honed their songs for a debut, with less time for the equally important follow-up. It applies to literature as well, where novelty has its charms, less so more of the same.'
'When reading books on motherhood, it’s difficult not to connect them to your own experiences. Laura McPhee-Browne’s Little Plum demonstrates the power of fiction to slice open the quotidian to reveal the viscera of what it means to bear children.' (Introduction)
'Little Plum conveys the emotional essence of changeable states with nuanced insight.'
