Customer Reviews

Baggage

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Emily Barr has delivered another great novel in BAGGAGE. Like BACKPACK, her debut book, BAGGAGE is a combination mystery, love story and travel narrative. Using her experience as a travel writer with London's Observer and The Guardian, Barr whisks us away this time to the Australian Outback, with all its ubiquitous dust, oppressive heat and beer drinking Aussies.

Lina Pritchett has been on the run for ten years. Why? Well, we're not entirely sure at first but the story unfolds at a teasing pace, as little by little Lina's past comes to light. Settled in Craggy Rock, Lina has a comfortable marriage to Tony, an opal miner, as well as a delightful ten-year-old boy named Red. She teaches elementary school, frequents the neighborhood pub, indulges in neighborhood gossip and feels her roots spreading with ease, for the first time in a decade.

On another continent, Larry is a second-rate reporter in search of a blockbuster story that will help his career soar --- he will stop at nothing to get it. This means that he'll search through co-workers' desks when they're not looking, cheat on his unsuspecting girlfriend, manipulate the few friends he has --- and lie, lie, lie. He's a weasel with a mission.

The stories of Lina and Larry intersect in the person of Sophie, a natural beauty with a sweet naiveté. Traveling in Australia, her first trip away from England, Sophie attends a local wedding on a whim, where she discovers her best friend since third grade, Daisy Fraser. The trouble is that Daisy died ten years ago when she threw herself from a bridge to escape going to jail for a horrible, mysterious crime. Despite Lina's protestations and fake Australian accent, Sophie knows in her heart that she has found her long-lost, believed-to-be-dead friend. I am not ruining anything by telling you that Sophie's instincts are correct --- Lina Pritchett is indeed Daisy Fraser (this is revealed early on in the narrative). Sophie returns to London and tells her boyfriend, the crooked reporter, that she has found Daisy. Larry's plans to bring Daisy to justice begin and his dreams of a Pulitzer Prize seem within reach.

Needless to say, Lina Pritchett is traveling with more than her share of baggage and the load is getting heavier by the day. Pregnant and fearing that she will soon be ratted out by Sophie, Lina hits the road again, relocating her entire family and her nagging secrets. Barr impresses upon the reader every pound of Lina's growing pregnancy, every fear of discovery, every bead of sweat as she drives the long, hot roads of Australia searching for sanctuary and peace. You won't be disappointed if you pick up BAGGAGE.

--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara

When I picked this book up, I thought it would be a typical chick flick ~~ it wasn't. Much to my surprise, it's somewhat of a mystery book ~~ and I enjoyed it immensely! At least, I have a better idea of what Australia is like!

Lina is preoccupied with hiding her pregnancy from the villagers of Craggy Rock, a desert town in Australia. She hasn't even told her 10-year-old son yet ~~ and the next day, her whole life changes upon a chance meeting with an Englisher who was insistent that Lina is her best friend, who had disappeared ten years previous. Lina insists that she's Lina, wife to Tony and mother to Red ~~ is she hiding something more than she is willing to let on? And Barr writes convincingly of a woman with a past ~~ how the past catches up with her and the sleazy journalists who swarmed over the sleepy desert town just to get the hottest story of the year.

It is a quick read ~~ perfect beach read ~~ and it's not one of the fluffy chick lit either. Don't let the cover fool you. If there were sex scenes in that book, there weren't that many and it wasn't graphic either. The characters were more preoccupied with alcohol than sex ~~ which is an unusual change of pace for me! But it was an enjoyable read ~~ Barr is one author I would like to read more on...

Baggage is a suspenseful and complex novel about a woman who thought she had escaped her painful past. Lina Pritchett has finally found the normalcy she's always craved. She's an elementary school teacher in a small Australian town, has a loving husband and an adorable adopted ten-year-old son. However, her ordered world shatters when she reunites with an old friend -- a friend who had left her for dead years ago. What is Lina hiding? And will she be able to escape her past again? To make matters worse, she is pregnant. There are various twists in the novel.

Emily Barr is a great new voice in fiction. Baggage is readable from cover to cover. I devoured it in two days. I look forward to reading Backpack, her first novel.

Baggage starts off at a pretty slow pace, but once the main part of the story gets going the want to keep reading until the final page factor does kick in. To be honest if I hadn't read other books by Emily Barr I may have stopped reading before getting there, so if you're thinking of giving up on the book and trying something else, stick with it for a bit longer. It becomes a fun, albeit a fair bit unrealistic tale, but it is fiction after all.

Basic plot revolves around a woman who as a teen faked her own death while out on bail for a crime which we slowly get leaked the details of as the novel goes on so I won't give away what that is. She seems to have fooled everyone and with a fake ID that says she's 29 as well as a child who is now ten who she claims she adopted as a baby in India when abandoned there by some hippies, she has reinvented herself. She has a baby on the way to an opal miner in the small isolated Australian outback mining town of Craggy Rock and thinks she can now get on with her life as a school teacher. However when some backpackers decide to crash her student's wedding reception she is happy to interact with them, since the groom was married to her best friend before being caught with the student, and she doesn't want to be there. After posing for a photo she notices one of the backpackers staring at her, the girl says her name is Sophie, that she is her best friend, everyone thought she was dead and calls her Daisy. Lina tells Sophie she is confusing her with someone else and quickly makes herself scarce. However Sophie is convinced Lina is Daisy and back in London tells her journalist boyfriend. He doesn't really believe her but imagines if it were true it would be the big break he needs.

The number one thing I kept thinking when you find out what the crime Daisy was going to trial for was, is why would a journalist think this would be a story that
would be anything other than a few lines in the local paper where the crime happened. Let alone think it would be such a newsworthy story that he could become a mega star and bring the world's media to Craggy. It just isn't that big or interesting a crime. But put that aside it does become an interesting novel. Like all Barr stories the main characters aren't very likeable and you probably won't agree with all their moral choices and stances. The book also is written in first person narrative but switches between characters at various chapters, sometimes you have to read a fair bit of a chapter until another character is refered to in dialogue to know whose eyes you are experiencing the story through. Plus there's a fair few minor characters who only appear or are referred to in conversation now and then, that you've got to stop and think who was that person again. Still it's hard not to enjoy this one, as long as you don't expect it to be too realistic.

I picked up this book because it had an irresistable cover blurb..a woman who has a stable life in the Australian Outback finds her world rocked by accusations that she's not who she says she is. The novel reads like a combo of a breezy woman's novel (Bridget Jones and pals) and an interestingly plotted thriller. Is the heroine a former ballet dancer, wanted by the law in the UK for poisoning her friend? Or is she an ordinary Aussie housewife? Will her former best friend and her smarmy, Fleet Street tabloid reporter boyfriend find out and ruin her rebuilt life? The plot was a little silly. Barr also possesses a knack for humor and nice plot twists.
Yes, some details are sketchy: the heroine and her hubby move to a new town and a mammoth new house, yet no one mentions if they have new jobs or not; a few characters drop in and out so often you forget who they are. But overall, this is pretty darn readable stuff, and somehow a couple steps above the usual Fem-Lit Lite.

Baggage is a mystery novel about a British girl that has been running from the law for 10 years. Lina now lives in the outback of Australia and thinks she is safe. Her new life is perfect; she is pregnant, her husband is sweet and her adopted son loves them both. But, when a friend from the past shows up everything turns upside down. This story takes a bit to get going. It is also a challenge at first to get the writing style. The story gets pulled together chapter after chapter not all at once. This is a wonderful story that is a great fun read.

Daisy Frasier has left her old life in England and has taken on the identity of Lina Pritchett and living in Craggy Rock, Australia. She has completely started her life over with a job a local school teacher, married with a baby on the way. Now this girl really had some baggage that she left behind, but you will have to get the book to find out exactly what it is she is running and hiding from ...I'm not giving it all away. This suspense filled book will keep you turning pages right up until the end....will the now Lina keep away from her past or will it finally catch up with her? What a page turner!

Looking forward to reading Emily Barr's other book: Backpack

I had inundated myself with reading several British chic-lit books in a short time and I was ready for something slightly different. BAGGAGE offered me the British chic-lit style but with a new backdrop - the Australian outback.
Lina is married teacher with a 10-year old adopted son and a baby on the way. When a vacationer from England happens upon this small Australian town in the hot outback, Lina's relatively normal life takes on quite a twist. Sex, lies, drugs, and scandal all make their way into this story, just to name a few.
Although this story came across as predictible, it kept me interested until nearly the end at which point I feel the story slowed. However, I do think it's quite worth the read. Emily Barr creates an excellent depiction of scandal in a small town, and makes her characters believable.
The past can always come back to haunt you...

i found this book to be exciting, leaving the reader always wondering what is next. This suspensful stroy of a woman on the run always leaves you curious to know what she could possibly be still hiding. After a contributing factor in a deadly crime, Daisy Frasier, now Lina Pritchett fakes her own death is now on the run... Now, ten years later Lina has settled in a quiet town in the Outback, Craggy Rock. Married, mothe of one and one on the way, Lina feels she is in the clear until she stumbles on a friend of the past who just may end up exposing everything she has worked so hard to cover up.
I would defiantely reccomend this book to anyone who is looking for adventure and suspense without the blood and gore. it is definately a modern book, with very recent references. Enjoy!

Emily Barr's BAGGAGE delivers a strong first half: the protagonist, Lina Pritchett, has successfully hidden her past from her husband Tony, son Red, and the rest of Craggy Rock, Australia, a dusty and desolate town in the Outback. Newly pregnant, Lina feels that her future is bright and secure; her past is something she can ignore. However, when a group of backpackers arrive in Craggy Rock, everything Lina has carefully constructed begins to crumble.

Once Lina's secret is discovered by the public mid-way through the book, the suspense dies. Because the characterization has been superficial, nothing remains to keep the reader interested in what happens to Lina and her family. Instead, too many pages are devoted to the press outside Lina's door, to the obvious implications of her being discovered, and to the shallow, often-unbelievable actions of the journalists. Tony remains conveniently behind in another town, arriving only for a bland scene or two that do little to prepare the reader for the disappointing epilogue. Eleven year old Red questions little and understands even less. As Lina closes herself in her mother-in-law's guest room, she becomes not only psychologically but also physically inert, resulting in a story that feels more like a plot outline than an expanding novel.

I read this book to the end only because it demanded so little of me. Lina's voice is smart, realistic, and easy to like. The point-of-view of Lawrence, the journalist who uncovers Lina's secret, is less successful. I found myself wishing that Barr had entered into these lives a little more fully, exploring the complexities of their ethics perhaps or the intricacies of their relationships. Unfortunately, Barr never takes her characters past the obvious. Other reviewers have commented on the inappropriateness of the cover; I can only say that it must represent the self-absorbed and inconsequential navel-gazing of the second part. On the whole, the book is light and unchallenging, fluff with a modicum of suspense.