Sixty Seconds is a poignant story that explores the aftermath of a sudden and tragic death and the different ways people react and reconcile with the loss.

Bridget wants to find blame and to direct her heartache into hate, both strong emotions that can feed off each other. Finn tries to find solace in their shared grief but is pushed away by Bridget. Their teenage son Jarrah is not only suffering loss, he is trying to fit into a new school and struggling with identity. It is heartbreaking watching him dealing with his conflicting emotions alone.

This story is so confronting I found it hard to read and had to put it down on occasions. There are support workers that have their own agenda to push and empathisers that want to unburden their own demons. And when you think this family has suffered the worst imaginable, life just keeps throwing more tragedy their way.

The narration is unique as it is told in multiple POV and multiple narrative styles. Finn is in 3rd person, Jarrah is 1st person (which worked well for the teen perspective) and Bridget is 2nd person (I didn’t particularly like this because I find the use of ‘you’ did this and ‘you’ did that sounds quite accusing and confronting). The characters are well developed and their actions wholly believable.

Author Jesse Blackadder drew inspiration from her own tragic experience to write this heartbreaking and compulsive story of loss.

Sixty Seconds is a story that explores loss, forgiveness, hope and the rebuilding of a family that has been shattered.
This book has been re-released as In the Blink of an Eye.

Content: Child death
Swearing
Sexual references

I received my copy from the publisher via Netgalley.

Finn and Bridget Brennan moved from Hobart, Tasmania to Murwillumbah, Queensland with their two boys Jarrah 15 and Toby 4. The family needed a new start after Finn had a slight indescretion with his wife's best friend. Bridget secured employment while Finn, an artist, worked from home. They were just settling in when tragedy strikes the family. As each member of the family tries to come to terms with their loss the family starts to fall apart. What will it take to bring the family back together or is their pain so deep it cannot be repaired?

This is a deeply, intense novel. Told from the point of view of Finn, Bridget and Jarrah in the third, second and first person respectively. Jesse Blackadder shows wonderful talent in describing the thoughts and feelings of each character. Her own personal experience is clearly reflected in this novel, adding to its richness.

Book blurb...
Inspired by the author's own family experience.
The Brennans - parents, Finn and Bridget, and their sons, Jarrah and Toby - have made a sea change, from chilly Hobart to subtropical Murwillumbah. Feeling like foreigners in this land of sun and surf, they're still adjusting to work, school, and life in a sprawling purple weatherboard, when one morning, tragedy strikes.
In the devastating aftermath, the questions fly. What really happened? And who's to blame?
Determined to protect his family, Finn finds himself under the police and media spotlight. Guilty and enraged, Bridget spends nights hunting answers in the last place imaginable. Jarrah - his innocence lost - faces a sudden and frightening adulthood where nothing is certain.
Sixty Seconds is a haunting, redemptive story about forgiveness and hope.
My thoughts…

I’m not sure what my thoughts are on this read. I agree with others about the writing being evocative and the subject matter is certainly powerful. But perhaps the characters were portrayed a little too realistically for me. That is not a criticism. It is a compliment to the author for developing the characters of Bridget, Finn and Jarrah. On that, I did find the POV interesting. Finn’s POV is regular 3rd person. Jarrah is portrayed as a teenager with fragmented sentences (short, sharp, teenage-like, I guess. Eg: Opened door. Sat down. Picked up remote). But Bridget’s 2nd person POV totally threw me. I thought I would get used to it, but reading ‘you’ all the time (Eg: You know you want a drink.... You want to walk over and you feel you…!!!) I just didn’t warm to the style but that may be because I did not warm to the character. I was also thrown by the prologue which I worked out was the young child, Toby, but his descriptions/emotions of the lead up to the incident were that of a grown up. Interesting approach.

60 Seconds certainly is very thought provoking. It is a very important subject and a lesson, and if you like evocative descriptions and prose, this is an intriguing read.

This is a heartbreaking and tragic story!
The Brennan family make a sea change from cold Hobart to subtropical Murwillumbah with hopes of a new and fresh start in their lives. Tragedy strikes.
The writer cleverly weaves the reader through each of the characters, through their emotions, reactions, thoughts and the different stages they go through. Superbly written and developed.

Highly recommended read.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher Harper Collins Australia for an ebook copy to read and review.

‘The boy steps into the day like he owns it – …’

The Brennan family (Finn, Bridget and sons Jarrah and Toby) have recently moved from Hobart to Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales. While it’s a joint decision to leave Hobart, to make a new start, Finn has some regrets. His wife, Bridget has secured a new job, and Finn is an artist who works from home. He has just been asked to submit a piece to an outside sculpture show. A new routine is needed, if Finn is to meet the deadline required. Jarrah is in his teens, but Toby is only two and a half.

The purple weatherboard house the Brennans bought in Murwillumbah has an outdoor pool, and the family use it often. How else can a family from Hobart manage to adapt to the heat and humidity of northern New South Wales?

And then tragedy strikes. Toby drowns. In sixty seconds a family is fractured. Guilt and grief overwhelm each of the surviving members of the family. The past is revisited, the present is frozen, any future appears unattainable. How did Toby get into the pool? Everyone is looking for explanations, for an explanation.

In this novel, Jesse Blackadder takes the reader deep into each family member’s reaction to Toby’s death. At a time when they need each other, Bridget and Finn retreat into their own grief. And Jarrah has to try to negotiate his own difficult world without much assistance from either parent.

My words cannot do justice to how Ms Blackadder makes each of these characters so real. Bridget’s rage, Finn’s attempt to protect, Jarrah’s search for self: each struggle felt so real to me. Add in the police investigation, the public scrutiny, the other issues that families deal with. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering how I would react in such circumstances. Short chapters deliver the reactions of Finn, Jarrah and Bridget. Switching between characters provides the reader with a momentary breathing space, to try to make sense of each character’s views and enables the story to move forward. Because life (for the survivors) does go on. Eventually.

In her Author’s Note, Jesse Blackadder writes: ‘It took more than forty years to write this book. Forty years to understand my own sister’s death and how it shaped my life, and nearly two to write a fictional story about a family facing a tragedy in some ways like mine.’ Thank you, for putting into words, some of the aspects of such a devastating tragedy. For moving beyond loss and blame, for reminding us of vulnerability, and for introducing the prospect of forgiveness.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I loved this book.
An incident of indiscretion between Finn and a family friend sees the Brennan Family uprooted for a ‘sea change’, from Tasmania to Murwillumbah on the NSW Coast. They were lucky as Bridget was successful obtaining work in the Environment Department researching Koala extinction in the area. Finn is a stay at home Dad to three year old Toby and sixteen year old Jarrah but makes a living as a sculptor. He is on the cusp of his first big break, having being asked to present a sculpture in Sydney. Jarrah is in that horrible unsettled age, trying to be comfortable in himself and meanwhile trying to keep away from the bullying at school.
Then the family is shattered when Toby is torn from them.

What I loved about this book is its raw palpable emotion. Told in alternating chapters between Finn, Bridget and Jarrah, as each struggle within themselves to come to terms with what happened to Toby. Finn takes the blame to protect his family but it’s Jarrah who really resonated with me. I could feel his pain and confusion and I felt so much for him and I loved how wise Tom was towards both Jarrah and Finn.

A truly satisfying read...to forgive, you have to forgive yourself first.
A big 5 stars, I think this may be up with my favourite books of the year.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy to read and review. It’s noted that the story is inspired by the authors own family experience.

The move from Hobart to Murwillumbah in Queensland was a joint decision, though Finn felt he had no choice. Leaving the Brennan family there and knowing no one in Queensland was probably the best for them all. Bridget’s interview was successful – Jarrah and Toby drove around with their father while it was on, to fill in time. The startling purple home which was for sale as they drove past took both Jarrah and Finn’s eye – that was their new home; Bridget agreed.

As they settled into life in the topics, Finn wondered if he’d ever get used to the heat and humidity after the coldness of Tasmania. But the inground pool in the backyard was something the family used often – it was perfect after a long, hot and exhausting day. Finn was an artist and working from home while caring for two-and-a-half-year-old Toby was what he needed. Jarrah was in high school, and the bullying was just the same as it had been in Hobart. He tried to keep to himself; to keep his head down, but it didn’t always work…

When unexpected tragedy struck, the lives of each family member was shattered beyond repair. And when the police, with their investigating, came down hard on Finn, he found himself drifting in a sea of outward calm and inner turmoil. As the family fractured, each with their own guilt and terrible grief it seemed there was no way to rise above what had happened. What would be the outcome for the family who had their lives ahead of them; the lives that were shattered in sixty seconds?

Sixty Seconds by Aussie author Jesse Blackadder is a heartbreaking story of unimaginable grief, loss, love and the decisions to forgive or not to forgive. It’s also a story based on the author’s own experiences when she was a child; something she has never forgotten, her grief still raw. Most people don’t know the experience of deep, relentless grief – but Sixty Seconds lets the reader experience a part of that; and also to know that we never want it for ourselves or our loved ones. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital copy to read and review.