Books by Rose Helen Mitchell

This collection evokes situations confronting ordinary people in their ordinary lives. The author creates images of loss, love, hatred and warmth of particular characters in particular places as far apart as Scotland and Australia. Against a background haunted by Destiny, people are led or pushed by emotions into a stream of experiences. In ';Whispering Shadows' we learn about the significance of an invitation to a dinner dance during World War II and how it shaped the life of the unnamed narrator. In ';Legacy' we read about the influence of alcohol on the lives of four young brothers. ';Inheritance' and ';Foxy Ladies' bring a lighter tone to the collection to balance other weightier issues. Based on her close observation of the human condition, Rose Helen Mitchell's stories reveal uncanny insights into the emotional state of characters who could be someone the reader knows.

Pilgrim Souls is a novel which explores how the unknown past can throw its shadows onto the present and onto the personal life of someone who has had no previous known connection to events in the past. Anna, a student in Adelaide, is coping with the recent death of her mother, Eleanor. Eleanor had always kept her past life, growing up in Scotland, a close secret. After her death, Anna begins to explore her mother's relics and discovers, through the Internet, that she has relatives still living back there. She is offered the chance of a scholarship to London University and uses this as an opportunity to meet these unknown relatives, chief of whom are her grandparents.