The Hive Of Glass: J.T. and A.E. Martin

A novel chock-full of the hopes, scandals, fears, desires, eccentricities, quirks and inhibitions of the inhabitants of the small country town of Morden Vale, New South Wales at the end of the 19th century. Gossip is rife, people whisper behind their hands, family skeletons come rattling from their cupboards and personal secrets are revealed. The characters are like any you'd meet today: Ella Westlake, orphan daughter of what was once the leading family of Morden Vale; Peter Gelston, the ineffective curate nagged by the memory of an unpleasant incident in his past; Joe Hardy, the brash and unconventional schoolteacher and Mark Millanbe, the city-bred newspaper editor who efforts to rouse the sleepy township lead to unexpected consequences. These and the remaining vividly-drawn 'cast' serve to remind us of the lines from which this novel has been taken: A village is a hive of glass..where nothing unobserved may pass. The winning novel of the Rigby £1000 Centenary Competition.