Book launch

The Secrets of the Huon Wren: Claire van Ryn in conversation with Robyn Mundy

Senior journalist Allira is writing a story for Folk magazine when she meets Nora, a nursing home resident with dementia and a doll cradled lovingly in her arms. Bit by bit, Nora reveals details about her younger life as a spirited teenage girl living beneath the Great Western Tiers in Tasmania’s heartland, of stitching linings into coffins, of her illicit romance with a charming Polish-German migrant, and of a family torn apart by heartbreak.

As the two women form an unlikely friendship, Allira becomes helplessly drawn into the old woman’s story. When Allira opens up to Nora about her own recent tragedy, the secrets embedded in the story of a carved Huon pine wren become the key to a life-changing discovery from the past. It is a revelation that finally fills in the missing pieces of Nora’s history and has the power to set them both free.

Set among the picturesque mountain ranges of Tasmania’s Central Highlands, and moving between the 1950s and the present day, The Secrets of the Huon Wren is a lyrical and highly evocative story about two lives connected by a shared tragedy, and a universal love.

Claire van Ryn is an awarded writer who began her career as a newspaper journalist, but has also filled roles as magazine editor, communications specialist, writing teacher, blueberry picker and shoe fitter. She lives in Tasmania and extensive travels have only affirmed her love for Australia’s southernmost island state. She recently spent a year travelling Australia with her husband and two children in a caravan. Creating is Claire’s favourite thing: whether with words, watercolours or whatever else is close at hand.

Wild places form a big part of Robyn Mundy’s life, and her novels. Robyn has wintered and summered in Antarctica, the setting for her first novel The Nature of Ice. Her second novel, Wildlight, is set on remote Maatsuyker Island, home to Australia’s loneliest lighthouse where she spent ten months. For over 20 years Robyn has worked seasonally as a ship-based tour guide in Svalbard, Greenland, Antarctica, the Norwegian coast and wild Scotland. Her numerous visits to Svalbard led to her 2021 novel Cold Coast. Robyn lives in Tasmania with a penguin biologist and a Blue Heeler.

Join Claire and Robyn at The Afterword Cafe.

You can purchase tickets below.