This book is filled to the brim with the intricacies of daily life and the struggle to adapt to an unexplored world. I was drawn in by the early revelation, however, it took a long time to get going and much of the book was taken up by setting the scene. It's a slow burn, yet enjoyable.

Things Bright and Beautiful is set in the New Hebrides in the 1950s. This is a large island in the South Pacific now known as Vanuatu. Max, a missionary, and his new wife, Beatriz, are trying to settle on the island to pursue missionary work. It’s a huge culture shock with the terrain, climate, food, odd spiritual goings-on and then the previous missionary suddenly appears.

I found the book confusing as I was never sure what time it was and whether I was reading a flashback or current time. There were a lot of characters introduced who just appeared to be filler and had no bearing on the plot. I was baffled and disinterested for much of the book so maybe I missed some vital things as I skim read a lot in the end. The emphasis was on descriptions and not plot so I found it hard-going. This was a shame as I liked the premise very much and the South Pacific location is somewhere I would love to travel to.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin UK for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Things Bright and Beautiful is one of those really intense books that take a while to unpick and understand how you feel about it. Maz and Bea Hanlon, a married missionary couple are sent to Advent Island in the South Pacific and what begins as an adventure slowly turns into a nightmare for both. The jungle is a perfect setting for this story, you almost feel hot and sweaty reading it and the claustrophobic atmosphere is intense. This is a read for those that enjoy depth of character and psychological intensity rather than all out action. Still an interesting read.

This book is a story of Max and Bea, newly weds moving to South Pacific because of Max's job.
Bea is very happy expecting to live in paradise, but there's also extensive heat, rain, insects and all that comes with tropic weather.

She also didn't encounter the impact of Christianity when a former missionary starts to reside with them, impacting Max a lot.
The book is told from Bea's perspective going deep into how dedication to religion may affect one's mind massively.
I liked the setting and the characters. Writer's descriptions were very atmospheric, making you feel you're there. I found the story interesting and well executed.
All in all it was an enjoyable read, minus too much details from time to time, which was the one down side.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was drawn in by the prologue of this book and the conflict at the heart of it, but if it weren't for that, I'm not sure I would have persevered. The writing is beautiful and has a hypnotic quality, giving a real flavour of the island. However that's also its weakness - it's harder to cut good prose when it isn't pulling its weight in narrative terms. There were also large sections of backstory that were probably useful to the writer but superfluous to the reader. It did eventually pick up pace towards the end and the drama turned in a way I didn't entirely expect.

Bea and Max are newlyweds with a mission to bring God to Advent Island. Max is the missionary, Bea the wife he saved from despair and destitution and took across the seas into the island jungle.

They had no idea the old missionary, a woman with a gammy leg, a facility for the local languages, and a domineering manner, was still there. When she moves back into the mission house with them, the difficult situation of managing the local interpretation of Christianity – centred around the need to cast out the devil in nightly vigils filled with singing, young women writhing on the ground and screaming as the evil is exorcised, along with holy water sprinkled around evil properties – is made worse by the additional burden of her presence.

Bea, while trying hard to perform well as the missionary’s wife, is also attempting to farm and find friends without any knowledge of island customs, language or foliage. She keeps on accidentally making herself ridiculous, but she keeps on trying.

Max attempts to understand and quietly make inroads into the local Christian beliefs and tries to convert other islanders, battling the demons of cultural confusion, misunderstanding and his own need to dominate and be the civilising force.

Alongside these narratives are those of I. A. M. Jonson, the local British government official, who is there to report on the development of an airstrip highly unlikely to ever be properly built, and a pair of badly treated foreign workers from the local farming complex who are trying to flee to the mainland to save their baby from a measles outbreak.

There is no western medicine; no running water apart from streams, rivers and the ocean; and the jungle with its barbed vines, its animals, its poisoned plants, its insects, is everywhere, creeping into and over any untended life.

The intensity of the physical and emotional extremes of these lives is compelling. Sweltering heat, drowning rains whose ‘bullets of warm water … splattered crowns of mud in the air’, endless insect bites, the labyrinthine nature of the jungle in which any stranger is instantly lost, alongside a need for spiritual and physical companionship makes for a visceral and heady combination that takes its characters to even greater extremes, offering the reader a privileged position outside of the maze of cross-cultural misreading that leads so many characters into a kind of fevered desperation from which the strangest of actions can seem the only logical course.

I thoroughly enjoyed the moral and cultural complexities of Things Bright and Beautiful though this is more a novel for the sceptic than the believer. Filled with thoughts on cultural and religious colonisation, Things Bright and Beautiful is a fevered delight. Though these thoughts are mostly from an expat perspective, the whole idea of belonging, of fitting in, of acting correctly, of social cohesion, makes Things Bright and Beautiful very relevant to a modern global world. Jonson and Max both have their own way of looking at the different world around them, but they also both believe they should somehow be able to control it, to save it and those around them, women in particular. The local spiritual leader, Aru, and indeed Marietta the old female missionary, are much the same. A colonising spirit is a dangerous one. Bea’s approach is different and her story the one that ultimately sings through the madness.

I didn’t finish this book - sorry Netgalley. It just wasn’t my style of book. Too many characters and too much description so only got about a third of the way through and gave up.

Max and Bea are missionaries in the South Pacific. This story is haunting and hard to read in places. Their life is far from easy. It is compelling reading and hard to forget.

Things Bright and Beautiful is set on an island in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), which I can safely say is a first for me as the location for a book.

Arriving on Advent Island with her missionary husband, Max, Bea finds her new home is no Bali Ha’i. Whatever she was expecting it wasn’t the incessant insects, dirt, heat, rain and the almost suffocating nature of the jungle. ‘Its constant whirring noises, its fetid organic complexity. Its restlessness. So many thousands of trees and and bushes and leaves, each populated by slithering, crawling insects, all with tiny hearts pumping and pumping.’ The jungle threatens to invade even their home in the Mission House. ‘On Advent Island, the jungle refused to stay outdoors, it lurked at the corners of the village and wormed its way into civilization. Pale weevils cavorted in the powdered milk, black orchids blossomed in the shower... It perpetuated itself with explosive fertility.’

Max is buoyed up by the strength of his faith and his fervent belief in the importance of his mission. ‘To think there were still villages, here on the island, which had never heard the Word. It was the last frontier. His chance to carve out another kingdom for the Lord.’ However, Bea initially struggles to adjust to the many ‘tabus’ governing a woman’s place in the social order of the Island. ‘She wasn’t supposed to go walking around by herself. She wasn’t to show any skin above her elbows or knees...She wasn’t allowed to go out in a dugout canoe. It was tabu for women to fish...She wasn’t to wear her hair loose. She mustn’t dry her cloths outside, especially any underclothes. She wasn’t to point directly at anything, because it was unlucky.’

I loved the way the author gives us small signs of Bea’s spirited and slightly rebellious nature, a spirit that will sustain her through the trials to come. ‘It made Bea feel a little wild. All she wished to do was to leap from her house on a Sunday morning, wearing only her underclothes with her hair shockingly loose, and run straight down the cost in a dugout and start fishing.’

The island is so remote – no running water, sanitation, electricity – that I constantly had to remind myself the book is set in the 1950s, not in the Victorian age. Bea and Max’s isolation from the life they’ve known before is almost total. ‘They had brought a transistor radio with them, but the island was too far out to catch any frequencies.’ Because there are no clocks on the island, the pace of life follows ‘island time’. However, the islanders are industrious and resourceful, making use of whatever animal life, fruit, herbs and roots the island can provide. They are used to making long treks between villages that take hours, even days, over often perilous paths where one slip can spell disaster – and, in fact, does with momentous consequences.

Although many of the islanders have ostensibly embraced Christianity, they cling to their traditional ways or ‘kastoms’, with anything else being ‘tabu’. They have a particularly strong sense of the power of the Devil, who exists for them as an almost physical presence within parts of the jungle or within people. Under the influence of the charismatic Aru, the villagers indulge in ‘dark praying’ in an effort to exorcise the evil presence they feel all about them.

Bea’s mood lifts as the rainy season ends and the vibrant, kaleidoscopic profusion of the island becomes evident, conveyed in wonderfully lush prose by the author. ‘Candy-pink hibiscus flowers appeared in the hedges, crinkled at the edges like crȇpe paper. Crimson-headed honeyeaters buzzed at the tips of banana suckers. Gigantic butterflies swarmed in and out of the palms, streaked with electric-blue zigzags. Occasionally, in the fringes of the coconut palms south of the village, there was the bright flash of parrots, a conflagration of colours so impossibly lurid they looked like novelty recreations of themselves, made from marzipan.’

Max is not doing so well. The rain, the insects, the humidity, the heat, the macabre night-time chanting of the islanders and the after-effects of malarial fever all play on his mind. ‘The island was doing things to him. He was supposed to be here to set an example.’ He is also consumed by guilt for his role in a tragic event that he has kept secret.

Having formed a valuable friendship, Bea gradually develops a courage and resilience that surprises Max. She’s no longer the damaged young woman he rescued from a mission hospital in Venezuela. However, affected by the febrile atmosphere of the island, Max begins to fear that Bea’s very soul is in spiritual danger. ‘And despite his best efforts, the darkness inside her persisted’. Events take a darker turn before reaching a shocking conclusion.

The book introduces other characters and another storyline that touches on the impact of colonialism and the plight of Vietnamese workers brought to the island on five year contracts to toil in the plantations. However, this always feels secondary to the compelling story of Max and Bea.

This is a book that transports the reader to another time and place. At times, Things Bright and Beautiful has a dreamlike quality; at other times, it’s more the stuff of nightmares. "The isle is full of noises" (The Tempest, Act 3 Scene 2). With its intoxicating atmosphere, Things Bright and Beautiful is like the love child of Black Narcissus, Heart of Darkness and Wide Sargasso Sea. An impressive and imaginative debut; I look forward to reading more from this author.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Fig Tree, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

This was a book that described the life of a missionary sent to the jungle to convert the natives. It was a good start to find out how Max met Bea as this explained their odd relationship throughout the story. Bea wanted love and friendships which the island did not at the start provide her with. The descriptions of the jungle and the smells were so well described that I was easily transported into the book and felt that I was there with the characters. At times there was a little to much repetition which made it hard to read as it lost the flow but it was well worth getting through these small parts as the story describes life on a island where the old traditions still exist and even the Christian helper was still holding to the old ways sometimes. Bea starts off as a person who is submissive and just does as her husband tells her as all she wants to do is to please him. She works hard at her garden and although she does not like the rules surrounding women on the island she goes along with them mainly. By the end of the book it was lovely to see that the worm had turned.
The book is full of great descriptions of the scenery and wonderful characters that are so well described. I believe that this author will produce excellent books in the future that warrant a full blown 5 stars but this one just misses the fifth star because of the stodgy parts.
Thank you to NetGalley for letting me have a copy to read and review.

A book that evokes all the claustrophobic discomfort of living on the outskirts of a jungle as missionaries. This book was full of atmosphere but a little overwhelmed with details unnecessary to the main story. I did not feel much connection to Max or Bea.
Thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

I am not sure how to rate this book. It is definitely evocative of time and place and strangely enthralling in places. However, the time line is a mess there are chapters that have no relevance to the main story and exist in a time before Max and Bea come to the New Hebrides. It has an intermittent burn for me as the reader strangely thrilling, horrific and, indeed monotonous in different parts. Not my favourite book but i do think the author has promise for the future. It is not one I would count among my all time favourites

I struggled with this.
Making it more confusing for me as I wasn't able to take much in.
I ended up DNFing at 62%.

Found this book to be slightly bizarre. Recommended if you like slightly offbeat stories.

Bea Hanlon and her new husband, Max, head off to be missionaries in the New Hebridies. This is the 1950s and the world is not as connected as it is now. The village is isolated, travel is on foot and the only help several days away. The contact with their home church is spasmodic and letters take several months to arrive - if at all!

I felt this book started well. The young couple were finding their feet in this land which was very alien to them. Max is a bit of an idealist and life is not quite as he imagined it. His character lacked strength and he gets caught up with events. Bea settles in better and gets to know the women and children of the village & surrounding areas. She even makes a friend. Events, however, spiral out of control and so did my enjoyment of the book. Much of it stagnates in the middle and then the whole story really became quite absurd. Max's mind disintegrates and he becomes caught up in the island's ancient traditions to an extreme extent.

What started as an interesting book concerning their lives as missionaries took a very unpleasant turn and, although I completed the book, I didn't feel as if I wanted to. Max commits murder and shows little remorse and Bea is happy to support him. Although flashbacks into their troubled upbringings do explain this to some extent I struggled to come to terms with the following story. There are sessions of casting out demons, murder, starvation and cruelty. Although some of these possibly connect with the traditions of the islands (that is certainly suggested in the book) I felt that the author was denigrating these traditions. There were no redeeming features and I felt that there was a lack of reality concerning the people on these islands. I do wonder if the author did full enough research into the religion and traditions of these islands at the time or just twisted what little she knew to suit her book? There seemed to be little balance.

I didn't like the ending at all. The characters of Max and Bea in the beginning of the book are totally unrecognisable by the end. There are so many loose ends and things that I failed to understand. I just couldn't connect the start of this book with the ending.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley

When her husband Max lands a job in the South Pacific, Bea as we all might expects paradise. But the beautiful setting is spoiled by, the oppressive heat, rain and being overrun by insects and rodents,

Alongside this, the peculiar form of Christianity impacts Bea's life greatly while an incessant humming former missionary takes up residence with them sparking a descent into insanity for Max.

Told largely from Bea's perspective this is an excellent insight into Max's deteriorating state of mind and is manly a story of the setting and the characters in the story with more than a casual hint at the potential downside of religious devotion..

A well written novel in the long tradition of novels about missionaries, colonialism, religious and cultural differences. Not an easy read but not an easy subject. I would be interested to know why the author chose this particular time to write the book.

I feel like I have just emerged from a dark, rich, vivid and very very hot dream. Things Bright and Beautiful is set on a remote island in the Pacific in the 1950s. The book sets the scene with detail that is often uncomfortable to read, with rats, mosquitos and the heat of the rainforest described vividly.
The geography provides a backdrop to a disconcerting story of adapting to an unknown and very tough world, the conversion of local people to Christianity, the difficulties that arise when religious views and cultures merge and clash, and the power of the coconut plantations over their labourers. . The well written story of missionaries Bea and Max and the side story of Philippine labourers Lien and Thieu were intriguing. I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it. Thank you Anbara Salam and #Netgalley

This novel is a tale of two part's for me. The story of Bea ands her life adjusting to missionary life and ask that brings is interesting and fun to read. Other parts of the story that goes off at tangents I found slow and a bit dry.
Much better towards the end, but not enough to keep me wanting to come back to this book.

When your husband has to move to the South Pacific due to his work, it might sound like you have hit the jackpot. Things Bright and Beautiful will make you reconsider your upcoming vacation plans. Set in the 1950s, Bea Hanlon accompanies her missionary husband to a remote island, where she will not only face the struggles of a life in dirt, damp and among insects, but also see her husband slowly but surely losing his mind.

It was the setting and time that attracted me to this book and both was conveyed very vividly. With most of the story told from Bea's point of view, her struggle to accustom to the new living circumstances feels relatable and Salam makes the world come alive with vivid and claustrophobic descriptions. The biting vermin, the tropical heat and the hostile islanders... it is all there.

What is not, on the other hand, is a plot that managed to grip me from beginning to end. There are inserted chapters of other people's lives which did not feel relevant to the main plot we were following and I feel like the story would have profited from focussing on a smaller cast, as you did not end up caring about the rest of the people anyway. There is a build up of suspense towards the end of the novel, with the second half being a lot more action-packed and I wish it would have been more of that.

Things Brights and Beautiful is an atmospheric novel that is a nice change in time and setting from many other things that are being published at the moment and I enjoyed my stay on the South Pacific Islands (mainly glad to not having been there in person), but I can't help but feel that this would have made a stronger novella than full-length novel.