A review by cmoo053
Tess by Kirsten McDougall

5.0

This novel was unexpectedly magnificent. Tess is a true New Zealand Gothic love story. It is a novel about people who don't quite fit. Each of the characters is caught in an intensely conflicted; trapped by circumstance and wounded by each other. The relationships are complicated and the world McDougall constructs is a dark and hopeless one. Nevertheless, I thought this novel was expertly crafted. The writing is stark and measured, and the internal lives of the characters are vivid and deep. I loved it.