Catch The Beach Caves Picturized By Trevor Shearston Depicted In E-Text

Beach Caves is initially set inand Annette Cooley and other archaeology students from the ANU are working on a site on the NSW South Coast which seems to show that Indigenous people were becoming less nomadic and more sedentary.
A larger group moves on to a new site to excavate beach caves, The dig is being led by a husband and wife team Aled Wray and Marilyn Herr,

Annette begins to develop feelings for one of the other students Brian Harpur, Soon however a second site is found which creates a strange and unsettling dynamic as the group abruptly and acrimoniously splits in two with each professor taking a site.
Then one of the group disappears and Annette makes a decision which forever changes her life and that of Brians.


The book then switches to, When the mysterious disappearance from the beach caves site is pushed back into the spotlight, Annette is forced to relive the past, examining her part in it and grappling with the memories of the guilt, jealousy and betrayal she felt.


Firstly I loved the setting of this book! For this Canberran it was a little bit thrilling to have Annette running across Barry Drive from the ANU and for the digs to be located on the South Coast.
I also found the topic of archaeology and the questions raised about the use of the land by the local Indigenous people to be fascinating but not overwhelming with too much detail.


The Beach Caves is a mystery but of the slow burn and character driven

type, The mystery itself isnt particularly shocking or dramatic but the tension is built slowly and carefully and by the end I found it hard to put down.


The characters were a bit hard to keep track of initially and Brian Harpur was always acknowledged using his full name which gave a strange serious tone to the interactions between him and Annette.
Neither he nor Annette come across as particularly likeable but I think the portrayal of flawed characters really added to the books examination of morality and the impact of guilt over the course of a life.


I enjoyed reading The Beach Caves, Thank you scribepub for my freegift copy,
Please. Im in hell! The truth of that was in his face, The rims of his eyes were redraw, his hair was matted, he hadnt shaved since knocking at her door, when hed been cleanshaven one of the few details she remembered of that blurred encounter.
I know why youre avoiding me, Whoever told the cops told you, too,

Its, and young Annette Cooley is part of a small team working on an archaeological dig on the New South Wales south coast a site that appears to prove that Aboriginal societies in the late Holocene were becoming less nomadic, even sedentary.
The discovery is thrilling in its significance, and the atmosphere in the group is one of charged excitement.
The team is led by a husbandandwife pair, in their field, Aled Wray and Marilyn Herr, and working on their sites promises to be the making of Annette as an archaeologist.


On a new site, linked to the first, Annette starts to fall for a fellow student, Brian Harpur.
But there are strange tensions and a hidden darkness within the group, Then one of their party mysteriously disappears, When police arrive, Annette makes a decision that will irrevocably mark her life, and Brian Harpurs,

Written in simple, beautiful prose, and with great depth and moral complexity, The Beach Caves is a powerful story about jealousy, guilt, the choices we make, and the different paths our lives could have taken shadow paths, which nevertheless leave a trace.
This book kept me reading, Who killed the woman "What part did each play What happened then
I recommend this to all my friends.
More of a slowburn than a pageturner, and not quite the thriller that was described, But the archaeology setting in Australia was novel and I did want to see how the story was resolved.
Just finished amp not sure what I think I found the first/of the book a bit boring amp bland, but the last/quite good.
Maybe the character development in the first phase was so subtle amp nuanced that I missed it, because it almost all made sense in the end.
I started with very high expectations having loved "Hare's Fur", "Game" amp "Tinder", so maybe I'm marking this a bit harder than usual This book was such a surprise! I went into this one excited but cautious as I know zip all about archeology and was worried with it being the setting of the book I would miss important information.
But, that was not the case at all! I was pulled into the story instantly and found the science very readable.
I also really enjoyed the mystery element, although I do wish it was brought into the story a bit earlier in the book as around thepage mark I started to get a bit antsy and felt like I was waiting for something to happen.
The ending was interesting and more straight forward than I thought it was going to be but I enjoyed that! I enjoyed that the mystery didnt have twists and turns and was much more of a realistic mystery.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this one so a big thank you to for sending it my way! A huge thank you to scribepub for sending me a copy of this book to review, I was incredibly excited and intrigued when I first learned what this book was about! This novel will be released on thend of Feb!

First of all, I absolutely love that this book was set in Australia.
Another thing that really pulled me towards this book was that it was set during an archaeological dig.
I dont know a whole lot about archaeology, but I think thats partly what made me so intrigued.

Despite the title sounding quite wholesome and innocent, this story turns out to be quite a mystery filled with jealousy and guilt whilst it explores the choices that certain characters made.


Towards the start of the novel I found it hard to determine who each character was and their relation to everyone else, and I did find myself feeling a little lost in certain parts of the story.
However, the ending tied everything together nicely and explained everything which is great, Just patchy, so this novel is maybe,. I was impressed with the authors exquisite writing in Hares Fur, felt this one was good in parts, sometimes just plain overworked.
Ditto the plot, its an ambitious one, two stories linked by one thing and a few people, It kept my interest though and I give up very quickly these days, I liked the scenes describing coastal NSW bush vegetation, and the archeological focus was a different and intriguing feature.
Theres worthwhile reflection on guilt, regret, their role in the failure or success of relationships, Characters were a sticking point they were patchy in development, None were likeable. Inflight reading this evening: "The Beach Caves" was an interesting read, Almost a play on words, many characters seemed to submit to take particular actions under pressure, On the surface this was about Aboriginal archaeological findings along coastline in thes, and a tragic turn of events that seemed to snowball and become complicated on so many levels.

Puzzled by the closure Annette was seeking throughout the book, she was a character that was hard to warm to.
Through her eyes we Sue in this light, but I wonder again if this was just naivety of a young student in thes, or just a young woman uncomfortable in the void.
Annette seemed so resistant to argue and fight for what she wanted, more from the pressure of her inner monologue.

Relationships seemed to also be a key theme in this story, Deeper down, we see the relationship between Annette and Sue, where even Annette remarked that she had to be the one to initiate a connection with Sue: although they were both PhD colleagues, there was some hidden competition maintaining their separation.
There seem to be an unbalanced give and take between Alec and Marilyn, and Annette seemed to give way to an opportunity with Brian.
The Aboriginal village findings reflected on theories of seeking to be more grounded,in opposition to the obsessive behaviours of the two professors, and also the unspoken antagonism between Sue and Annette.
local author This novel built tension well in the first half, but I found the second part uninspiring.
I also took issue with the fact that it's a novel about Aboriginal history that includes no Aboriginal characters.
This is an intriguing and unexpected read, Featuring much scientific jargon mostly archaeological the story is set inand alsofirstly at an archaeological dig site on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia and latterly in Canberra.
The coastal setting in the first part of the book is beautifully described by author Shearston who obviously knows much about his science which although very detailed actually enhances the story.


Shearston has nailed academic life in thes, Again this is integral to the story which centres on the archaeological dig and the dynamic between husband and wife archaeologists who have a professional rivalry as observed by student Annette Cooley.
There are other students including engineer Brian Harpur who grew up in the dig area and uses his local knowledge to his advantage.


A key member of the group disappears and the suspicions, jealousies, secrets and guilt all begin to surface, like the fossils and artefacts at the dig.
A compelling thriller at its core, this is recommended reading indeed, This is a novel in two parts that interested in me in different ways, The first part, set in thes, describes excavations by Canberra archeologists of prehistoric sites on the Clyde River and then on the beach north of Batemans Bay in New South Wales.
I enjoyed the descriptions of places with which I am familiar, The interactions and tensions between the Aled Wray and his wife Marilyn Herr affected the students who were working with them.
This interested me less than the excavations themselves, which showed stone dwellings from the Holocene era and a new discovery from the Pleistocene era.
Although Shearston fictionalises these discoveries, there is some basis in archeological fact, if not in these areas, Given current debates about Australian Aboriginal societies before the arrival of European colonisers, this aspect fascinated me, This section ends with the disappearance of one of the group and a police investigation,

The second part of the novel, set in the first decade of thest century, describes the after effects of the disappearance on the lives of some of the main characters, particularly the student Annette and the extra hand, Brian.
When the mystery appears to be solved, Annette seeks to assuage the guilt she has felt for so many years.
This section was psychologically convincing and provided both tension and some surprises,

This is a good book though not a great one, It has an engaging story and a convincing historical and sociological background, Sometimes the writing seems a little awkward, Another thing that bothered me was the failure of the writer to acknowledge the traditional owners of the areas that were being excavated.
Although archeologists in thes were not overly concerned with the displacement of artefacts and even skeletons times have changed and I thought something should have been said in Shearstons Acknowledgements at the end of the book.
dnf, I'm sad this book didn't hold attention I really enjoyed my previous Trevor Shearston 'Hare's Fur', this was just toooo slow, the characters did not appeal, I lost interest in what should have been a truly exciting novel.
The Beach Caves is a deceptively innocent title: this is a novel that reeks of jealousy, betrayal, and guilt.
Part I begins in the summer ofwith a team of archaeologists working a dig on the New South Wales South Coast.
They are poised to make remarkable discoveries about Aboriginal lifestyles in the late Holocene era, Aled Wray and Marilyn Herr, a husbandandwife collaboration, lead the team which includes their PhD students Annette Cooley and Sue Klima.
The outsider is Brian Harpur, whos an engineering student fulfilling his parents ambitions, not his own,

It is Brian who by chance discovers the new site offering exciting possibilities, but the find fractures the cohesion of the team along faultlines determined by Aled and Marilyns professional competitiveness.
Shearston depicts with forensic precision Aleds assumption that he should dominate: this is thes when men in western societies were having their precedence challenged by feminism, and those of us who were challenging the same assumptions on the domestic front as well as at work, will remember that not all concessions were made gracefully, and some men could not cope with being challenged at all.


Annette and Sue have to make their choices knowing that their PhD supervision is at stake.
And when one of the team goes missing and the team breaks up in distress, some of the group have their choices constrained by the Vietnam conscription ballot: they could defer their national service only for as long as they are students.
Dropping out of university means being forced to serve in a war that by this time is generally recognised as morally wrong.
Conscription and Australias participation in the war ended inwhen the ALP came to power afteryears of Liberal Party rule.


However, it is Annettes decision to intervene in the police investigation that drives the novel, By chance she sees something that might or might not be relevant, but her behaviour is driven not by any moral imperative but by jealousy.
She had thought that Brian was interested in her, She wants to punish him,

To read the rest of my review please visit sitelink comt .