#1 Children's Book Reading Notes
The Hotel Witch by Jessica Miller
A confession: there are one or two children’s books from the Australian middle-grade and young adult crop each year that I refuse to read. It’s difficult to find common patterns in these books but the reason I refuse to read them is simple: self-protection. Some books only have to glance at me once and I just know. Hopefully, other writers will understand what I mean: sometimes a book comes along that I fear may hurt my ability to keep going. This is a business that lifts us up or drops us in a second so we learn a few small, random, sometimes nonsensical, often temporary, defence mechanisms.
In 2016 one of those books was Elizabeth and Zenobia, the debut novel by Jessica Miller. What was it about that book in particular? The cover, first of all: I adored it. Two girls in a mirror against a background of creeping, come-to-life wallpaper; I could feel my envy-antennae vibrating. Then the blurb: a manor house (perfect, tell me more), strange things occurring (how I love strange things occurring), a tantalising mystery (writers who can pull off a good mystery are my heroes / mortal enemies), one timid girl and the other fearless (STOP, THIS IS SO UP MY STREET I NEED TO MOVE TO A NEW NEIGHBOURHOOD).
I’d had a novel published in the same year so I was extra raw, hellbent on literary self-care. I bought Elizabeth and Zenobia, looked at the cover for a very long time, and then shelved it.
By the time Jessica’s second book was published, I’d regained my senses somewhat. Again, the cover of The Republic of Birds was divine but this time the book didn’t rattle me, it begged me to read it. I went to the launch, eager to make amends for ignoring Elizabeth and Zenobia, and quickly got stuck in to the most elegantly written fantasy, told with humour, compassion and fine language. It was vivid and rich but remained light on its feet.
By now I’d also discovered that Jessica, who is from Brisbane, had been living abroad for some time. It briefly crossed my mind that while she is an Australian writer living away from home, I am a foreign writer living in Australia, but I didn’t give it very much thought until . . .
Jessica’s third novel, The Hotel Witch. I was invited by Text to read an advanced copy with a view to providing a cover blurb, and now that the cover has been revealed on social media I want to tell you all how much I loved this book and how much I admire the unique space Jessica has carved out as an Australian writer exploring Europe.
Sibyl loved early mornings at the Grand Mirror Hotel. When all the guests were asleep. When sunlight streamed into the lobby, and cast crisp long shadows on the parquet floor. When the hotel corridors were so still and so quiet that, even from the topmost twenty-seventh floor, if Sibyl listened closely she could almost hear curls of steam rising from the coffee pots in the first-floor dining room.
Similar to her 2020 novel, The Republic of Birds, The Hotel Witch offers page after page of the most delicious, read-aloudable prose. It is a funny, imaginative, moving story about the heartsickness of missing your mum, the nourishing relationships children have with extended family – a grandmother in this case – and the unbridled joy of discovering that you (in this case, main character Sibyl) are also very capable when you’re managing on your own. As I say in the cover blurb, this story ‘crackles with clever magic and page-turning escapades, but it also contains an artful wisdom about self-belief.’
I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between Jessica’s situation and work and my own. In The Goodbye Year, I removed (temporarily) both of Harper’s parents and sent her to live with her grandmother – in The Hotel Witch, Sibyl is in the same scenario but in a fantasy setting, that of a magic-infused hotel. She longs for letters from her intrepid mother and even more so for a reunion. Our grandmother characters seem to have grown from the same pot, too: warm and fun at times, a little blunt at others, offering a real closeness but also a tantalising sense of distance and mystery.
Jessica was inspired to create the setting for this novel while walking through Riga, Latvia, on a rainy day and seeing a beautiful hotel reflected in a puddle on the footpath. This made me think about the landscape and culture that has influenced Jessica since she’s been living in Europe, and how richly that comes through in The Republic of Birds and now The Hotel Witch. In turn it made me ponder how much living in Australia for the past fifteen years has so emphatically influenced my writing. We’re both working in a place that isn’t exactly home. We both write about separation from family, because we know that intimately, and we understand how the anxiety of separation as well as a longing for independence are such strong hallmarks of the middle-grade readership.
My hope is to interview Jessica in the next few weeks for the podcast and to explore these thoughts a little further. In the meantime, The Hotel Witch is out on 28th February and you can find more details about it here.