The Midnight Dress

The Midnight Dress

-It's true. The dress is a magical thing.'

In Foxlee's latest evocative and compelling novel, readers are transported to a small town awash with rumours following a teenage girl's disappearance. Everyone is talking about the dress she wore the night she vanished – a midnight-blue dress made from the remnants of other dresses, a dress of stories …

From an early age, Rose Lovell has been on the move, drifting from one town to the next with her alcoholic father. When they wash up in a coastal sugarcane community, Rose wonders if this time it will be different.

At the local high school, Rose meets Pearl Kelly, who is popular, pretty and intent on tracking down her Russian father. When she convinces Rose to be part of the annual Harvest Parade, Rose must find a special dress for the occasion. She seeks the help of the eccentric Edie Baker, who knows all the town's secrets and whose own family has a rich tapestry of stories. When Rose agrees to let Edie teach her to sew, she doesn't realise that nothing will ever be the same again.

Gympie-based Foxlee's first novel, The Anatomy of Wings, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Asia-Pacific region) and the Dobbie Literary Award.

Influenced by her great love of fairy tales, Foxlee started writing The Midnight Dress as soon as The Anatomy of Wings was published. -Rose was hovering around in the back of my head,' she said. -The novel in its final form was written in about eight months between the hours of four and seven in the morning. I loved those mornings. In the pitch dark, winter freezing. I wrote on my sofa, huddled under blankets. It was my time.'

Like The Anatomy of Wings which was hailed as -exceptional', The Midnight Dress will captivate readers with its intriguing story of loss and longing to the very last page.


Karen Foxlee was born in Mount Isa in 1971 and began writing at a young age. She started a Bachelor of Arts after high school but finished a nursing degree, never giving up her secret dream to become a writer. She finally completed her arts degree a decade later and began her first novel, The Anatomy of Wings, which went on to win the Dobbie Literary Award and regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award. The Midnight Dress is Karen's second novel. She lives in Gympie, Queensland, and continues to nurse and write.


The Midnight Dress
UQP
Author: Karen Foxlee
ISBN: 978070224964 8
Price: $29.95