This was an emotionally compelling novel about three generations of Stone women and the heartbreaking choices they had to make. Spanning the trauma of the Vietnam War to the bright lights of Nashville, Tennessee, to present day Melbourne, Australia- the epidemic of teenage self-harm to the tragedy of incurable illness, this was a sentimental story of Australian women discovering that true love isn't always where you seek it. In 1969, Flower child and hippie girl, Jess James is a young nurse who is against the Vietnam War. She never imagined that she'll fall for a nasho, army soldier Frank Stone, but some things are not in our power to stop. Despite their differing world views, they fall in love, and Jess promises to wait for him as he serves overseas, despite the uncertainty of his survival and the unexpected life events that happen. Then two decades later in 1989, Jess's daughter, Jamie Stone, is obsessed with fashion items and celebrity magazines and dreams of a simple but everlasting happily ever after that includes stability such as marriage and a large family- then she meets a struggling musician and opposites attract, but then her future becomes so wild and complex in ways she hadn't imagined. In 2017, Jamie's daughter CJ is nearing the end of her schooling, and she is a talented and passionate music student who seems to have it all, until she falls hard for popular American bad boy Finn at school. When she brings him home, his arrival causes the worlds of all three women to be turned down as history repeats itself-the past returns to haunt them all. This novel brilliantly tackles issues such as self-harm, cyber bullying, sexual assault, drugs and trauma. Overall, Tess Woods wrote a wonderful novel about great love against all odds, dealing with family secrets, heartache and having hope for the future.

I have never read anything by Tess Woods before. Generally, I shy away from historical fiction and I am not sure why – I actually really enjoy the majority of them when I read them! But for some reason the genre doesn’t appeal to me the way thrillers, sci-fi and others do. Having said that, I am so glad I got this little gem!

Spanning across three timelines, this story follows a grandmother, Jess in the 1960’s hippy era. She swears she will never fall in love with a soldier, but fate has other plans for her! Her daughter Jamie’s story intertwines with hers as she navigates love in the late 90’s, and Jamie’s daughter CJ is dealing with her own dramas in the late 2010’s when she brings a bad boy home.

Just how these stories interweave and compliment each other is fiction writing at it’s best! What a great story! I loved the jumping between times, I felt SO MUCH for poor CJ, and loved Jess’s story with her soldier love!

Brilliant writing, that is all I can say. I just loved it! I adore a good romance in the book and there were at least THREE in this one! But it wasn’t a romance overload!

It was paced well and the characters had a great depth to them, things weren’t TOO unbelievable and it was just lovely!

And TWISTS AND TURNS! My goodness I was not expecting that big twist at the end there and it was really fitting and AWESOME!

Would I recommend it?
Absolutely! Even if you aren’t a huge historical fiction fan like me, if you appreciate a good drama, some exquisite romances and a darn good story line, then give this one a go!

Many thanks to the author and publisher via Netgalley for a copy of Love and Other Battles to read and review!

A family saga set in Melbourne about the nuance of female relationships, especially those between mother and daughters.

We start in 1969 with Jess, a nursing student who, along with a lot of Australia at the time, is morally opposed to the Vietnam war. She unexpectedly falls in love with a soldier who is about to be sent into battle.

In 1989 we meet Jamie, who wants nothing to do with the vegan hippy lifestyle her parents have. She wants stability, a permanent job and a family. Falling in love with a musician was not in her plans.

2017 is Charlotte’s story, when 17 yea old C.J comes home with the school bad boy, her mum is worried that history is repeating itself.

A beautiful, layered story which brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

‘If I do what you want me to do, then that’s it. It’s over. No second chances. You’re gone, and I’m left all alone.’ She cried with full force now. ‘And I don’t want to be alone. I want to be with you.’

Tess Wood’s third novel is truly triumphant. Little more than part way in and I knew I was onto something special. The three generations of women (from the same family) in Love and Other Battles had me completed invested with their individual, yet related, stories. They were real and they were relevant. That, Tess Woods, is exceptional story telling.

I often refer to myself as the ‘sandwich generation’ (caring for aging parents while supporting your own children) and this book encompassed that and so much more. There were teenager issues, there were midlife issues and then there were the aged care issues, all succinctly entwined. I thought for sure I would lose track of characters or timelines, but the writing soon put that qualm to rest. This book spoke to me, resonated with me so clearly, I can't praise it highly enough.

‘She’d learned enough about Parkinson’s disease to know that it wouldn’t kill him. He could keep deteriorating like this for another ten or more years, barely able to move or communicate, but with his organs doing just enough to keep him alive, trapped in the body that had failed him.’

There are serious issues tackled in Love and Other Battles and it hopefully provides a springboard for discussion. With subjects covering drugs, sexting and self harm, chronic disease and assisted dying, Tess presents but never overwhelms - her words are captivating. I hope that many read this book and topics are broached amongst families and communities. And just as you reach the conclusion, thinking all has been put to bed, Tess still keeps the punches coming with a few final surprises. So powerful.

Having read other books by Tess, I believe this one (which she had doubts about!) seriously surpasses anything she has written before. I appreciated all three timelines and loved the way they worked together to provide a bigger picture. This is a book that will take you on a journey and is most compelling, speaking directly to me and I am sure will be the same for many others.

‘Had she predicted him rotting away in a nursing home surrounded by strangers who had lost the use of their bodies or minds? Trapped in the same four walls with a window looking out at the same patch of grass forever? Had she seen that and kept it to herself? Or was she every bit as shocked as Jamie at the devastating turn his life had taken?’





This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

I read Beautiful Messy Love by Tess Woods not that long ago and really enjoyed it, so I was super excited to receive Love and Other Battles via Netgalley (thank you Netgalley and Harper Collins Australia!). Happily, I was not disappointed. This latest by Woods is another great read.

The book includes three generations of women — Jess, her daughter Jamie, and Jamie’s daughter (Jess’s granddaughter) CJ. With this type of book I usually am more interested in one of the characters/plots but Woods managed to write three likeable female characters with equally strong storylines.

I wouldn’t really describe this book as a romance, even though all three women have romantic aspects to their plots. Jess’s story is probably the most traditionally romantic when she, a true hippy/flower child of the 60s, meets Frank, a nasho about to go on a tour of duty in Vietnam.

Jamie rebels against her parents’ hippy upbringing by becoming straight-laced, with a traditional career in teaching, which has now led to her current job as a private school principal. Flashbacks featuring CJ’s father add a further explanation to Jamie’s conservative personality. Jamie’s life is thrown into turmoil when CJ is accused of using drugs (marijuana) she got from Jess.

As a mother of a 16 year old girl, I found CJ’s storyline particularly scary. Negotiating the dating minefield is difficult enough for teenagers without adding in the lack of privacy due to the internet/social media. Of the three storylines this one was actually my favourite (despite its terrifying aspects) which is a testament to its strength as I’m usually drawn to what is going on in the older characters’ lives.

Woods included many contemporary issues into the storylines seamlessly. Self harm/cutting, drug and alcohol dependency, bullying, child abuse, religious prejudice, the futility of war, the consequences of suicide, date rape, medical cannabis, and assisted death/euthanasia are all huge parts of the plot. As I said though, they’re all seamlessly added and none of them seem out of place or unnecessary. Instead, I found they added to the depth of the book and gave the reader a much better understanding of these problems than news outlets ever could.

I did love the Aussie feel of the book but I think readers from other countries will also easily connect to the characters and storylines. (They just might not know who the Aussie singers and entertainers mentioned are but I doubt younger readers would either.)

Woods’ prose is extremely readable and the shorter chapters had me flying through the book in a mere couple of days. Unlike so many other books I’ve read of late which fall flat at the end, Love and Other Battles has a satisfying ending which even includes an unexpected twist.

I highly recommend this book and can’t wait to read more books by Tess Woods. 5 out of 5.

Bravo Ms Woods Bravo!!
You have delivered an outstanding book and the best book I have read all year.

This was an unexpected but very welcome surprise as it’s been way too long since a book has made me feel so deeply, cry myself to sleep and be the first thing I thought of when I opened my eyes. I must admit I was scared that this book would fizzle the further I read, but it only just got better and I did not want it to end.

Set in Melbourne, this is the story of three generations of women from the same family. Our hippie nurse Jess, her daughter Jamie who is a school principal and the complete opposite of her mum and CJ, her 17 year granddaughter who attends the same school that her mum Jamie is principal at.

It’s told in 3rd person from the POV of each of these 3 women and from a past to present. It sounds busy and confusing but it was perfectly layered and intricately woven like the finest piece of lace. The way the author integrated each individual story seamlessly with the others was so clever.

I’ve seen this book classified as historical fiction and I admit that’s what originally drew me to the book but it’s so much more than that. Whilst it’s starts in 1969 and the very controversial debate about whether Australia should be sending troops to the Vietnam war, most of the story is set in the here and now and deals with issues that people young and old are dealing with on a daily basis - like consent, depression, self harm, sexuality, religion, purpose and how the decisions we make Can change the course of not our lives but our loved ones as well

Personally Jess was my favourite and each time I cried (and I cried several times) it was for her. I felt a kaleidoscope of emotions and was hanging on every word that concerned her. The last few chapters I cried so hard I couldn’t see the words on the page and when it was finished I just wanted more.

This book resonated with me on so many levels and I can’t praise it enough. This is my first book by this author and I’m on a mission to read her backlist.

For those that have read this book this is for you. I never guessed and I never saw it coming and after finishing the book I went back and read the first few chapters again just to see what I missed.

A big thank you to NetGalley, and publisher Harper Collins Australia for the ARC.

#LoveAndOtherBattles #NetGalley #HarperCollinsAustralia

Book blurb...
Three generations of women. Three heartbreaking choices. One unforgettable story.
1969: Free-spirited hippie Jess James has no intention of falling for a soldier ... but perhaps some things are not in our power to stop.
1989: Jess's daughter, Jamie, dreams of a simple life - marriage, children, stability - then she meets a struggling musician and suddenly the future becomes wilder and complex.
2017: When Jamie's daughter, CJ, brings home trouble in the form of the coolest boy at school, the worlds of these three women turn upside down ... and the past returns to haunt them.
Spanning the trauma of the Vietnam War to the bright lights of Nashville, the epidemic of teenage self-harm to the tragedy of incurable illness, Love and Other Battles is the heart-wrenching story of three generations of Australian women, who learn that true love is not always where you seek it.
If you loved The Notebook, this is a novel for you.

My thoughts…
Tess Woods certainly works hard to construct a story that entangles the reader in the lives of her characters.
Complex potting, compelling and emotional, this is a story about life’s many small and big battles for three generations of women.
The author tackles topical themes such as: self-harm, suicide, single-parent families, and euthanasia.
Written with strong female characters dealing with difficult, contemporary issues, this is ultimately a story of love and three generations from the one family who learn life is not black and white and does not always have a happy ending.

I picked up Love and Other Battles, by Tess Woods because I’d heard others rave about it, and I’m really glad I did. It’s a wonderfully warm and inspiring story of mothers, daughters and lovers across three generations. It made me laugh and cry and I even learned a thing or two about parenting teenagers.

I read late into the night and finished this in just a couple of days. It’s hard to put down! The characters absolutely leapt off the page and stayed with me long after I finished the story.

Tess Woods has packed a lot of serious issues into what is, at its heart, a story of romance. Along with her daughter, Jamie, and grand-daughter, CJ, they must face together death, dying and trauma in all its many forms.

Jess James struggles to help her elderly husband who is living with Parkinson’s Disease. It becomes clear as we skip from 1969 to 2014 and various years in between that death and trauma are not events which are confined to the older generations.

This is a really emotional book. It is heart-warming and heartbreaking all at the same time. Told from the point of view of three generations of woman, grandmother, mother and daughter, it is their story of love, loss, tragedy and living your best messy life. Would highly recommend it.

**4.5 stars**
Tess Woods new novel is a beautiful book about family and choices we make. Set mainly in current times there are flashbacks to two earlier time frames. I appreciated that these didn’t over take the story as my interest was well and truely in the current timeframe.
I had great difficulty reading about CJ’s experiences earlier in the book, mainly because it’s something the younger generation has to deal with now days so much.

I loved the second part of the novel and the journey of healing and resilience that the family had to go through. I couldn’t put the last third of the book down, the story kept me totally entranced.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy to read.

I just loved this book!! I was immediately invested in the characters and loved the themes running through the novel . Tess Woods is an exciting voice in Australian literature and just keeps getting better !

Thanks NetGalley, Harper Collins Publishing Australia and Tess Woods for my copy of her new book : Love And Other Battles.
In 1969, hippie nursing student Jess never imagined she would fall in love with a soldier, but she falls head over heals in love with Frank Stone and he's about to be sent off to serve his country in the Vietnam war. As we know at that time in Australia the war in Vietnam was a very touchy subject, not all Australians agreed with our involvement in the war and the soldiers coped a lot of abuse.
In 1989, Jamie Stone is studying to be a teacher, when she meets and falls in love with a Simon he dreams of becoming a country singer and making it big in Nashville. All sensible Jamie has wanted is to be married, start a family and this wasn't what Simon had planned at all!
In 2017, CJ, is a friendly, happy teenager she's doing well at school until she falls in love with the "bad boy" and she can't believe it when Finn Maxwell asks her out on a date. It doesn't take long for her mum Jamie to notice a big change in her daughters behavior and she's very worried.
Love And Other Battles is a book that explores the complex relationships between three women, a grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter. Their relationships with each other at times can be rocky, especially as it involves different generations, age groups, personalities and how they deal with the challenging situations they find themselves in.
I found the book very hard to read at times, I almost stopped reading it to be honest and I'm glad I didn't. The story included subjects I can relate to such as; aging parents, illness, being a parent, and falling in love for the first time. However, I found the parts about drug use, oral sex, peer pressure, body image, self harm and cyber bullying very distressing, confronting and I wanted to strangle Finn.
But, I can understand why Tess Woods included these topics in her book, the story was well written and it had so many interesting layers. What we need to understand is that being a teenage girl is still really hard and it's actually worse now than when I was a teenage girl in the 1980's. Technology and smart phones have made it easier for photo's and nasty rumors to be spread quickly. Peer pressure is such a powerful weapon, Love And Other Battles has made me very aware of this and well done to Tess Woods for tackling so many difficult subjects and including them in her book. It took me way out of my comfort zone and I gave the book 4 stars.

Love and Other Battles is the third novel by Australian author, Tess Woods. It’s 1969 and, with her pacifist attitude and strong views on the Vietnam War, Jessica James isn’t expecting to fall for a nasho, a national serviceman. Frank Stone sees this peace-chanting, atheist beatnik and calls her “Flower Child”. He is indeed a soldier, proud to serve his country and soon about to be sent, in all likelihood, to Nui Dat. And he’s a Catholic to boot. But there’s just something about him…

When she turned eleven, Nirvana James-Stone announced that henceforth she would be called Jamie, and that she was no longer a vegan. She’d had quite enough of calling her hippie parents by their first names. They would be Mum and Dad from then on. So to find her (very conservative) self, at eighteen, falling in love with long-haired muso Simon Gorenski, is not at all what she’d planned.

Seventeen-year-old CJ Stone is thrilled when the class heart-throb, cool and popular Finn Maxwell singles her out to compliment her on her latest song and ask her on a date. Such a sweet guy, although he is distracting her from study. But does that even matter? CJ wants to become a Country singer, get on stage at the Grand Ole Opry, and maybe even meet her idol, Scott Gunn. And Finn is right there with her. But is he maybe pushing for intimacy a bit too far, a bit too fast?

Woods gives the reader three strong female leads who end up making not-the-best choices under pressure and then have to face the consequences. Her characters are appealing, for all their very human faults. Even if he loves her with all his heart, Frank is a bit of a chauvinist, expecting Jess to compromise on her values without reciprocating. Nor is Jess perfect: in later life, she strongly resists letting go of her life partner despite his negligible quality of life. CJ allows her insecurity and need-to-please to erode her principles, while Jamie isn’t the only one keeping an explosive secret for decades.

The plot is easily believable with some surprises to keep it interesting; it explores many topical themes including self-harm, suicide, single-parent families, and euthanasia. At the end of the story, just as the reader is quite sure they have it all figured out, Woods springs one more sneaky surprise on them. Oh, and have the tissues ready for the final pages. With this one, Woods effortlessly surpasses her previous works, and it will be interesting to see what she does next. Recommended!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins Australia.

In 1969, free spirited Jess doesn’t agree with the Vietnamese war and the last thing she wants to do is fall in love with a soldier, but a chance encounter sees her fall for a young soldier about to leave for Vietnam. Twenty years later, her sensible, no nonsense daughter Jamie is looking for a stable home and life but falls hopelessly in love with a musician who eventually leaves her for a career overseas. Now her own daughter CJ has fallen for the coolest bad boy in school and Jamie is worried that history might repeat itself.

In this multigenerational story of three women and the men they loved, Tess Woods shows us that love can indeed be messy, causing us to make bad choices, and that sometimes the best kind of love can be found when we’re not looking for it. In this exploration of mother-daughter relationships, long kept family secrets will all be exposed as the women struggle to help each other cope with their choices and problems. CJ could be anyone's teenage daughter, struggling with the expectations of her first boyfriend and the heartache that follows. This was an engrossing read about three strong women supporting each other in the midst of difficult and emotional times.

‘Jessica James never expected to fall for a soldier.’

This novel, which spans the lives of three generations of women from one family, starts in 1969. Jess James is a free-spirited young hippie. She’s against the Vietnam War, and the last thing she expected was to fall in love with a soldier about to leave for service there. In 1989, Jess’s daughter Jamie dreams of marriage and children, and then she meets a struggling musician. In 2017, Jamie’s daughter CJ ends up with the coolest boy at school, and the world changes for all three women. As the past collides with the present, all three learn that true love is not always where you expect to find it.

The battles the women face include the impact of the Vietnam War, the consequences of incurable illness and self-harm. I could relate to each of the women and their battles. I’m a little younger than Jess, but I remember the Vietnam moratorium protests (and marched in one). I could relate to Jamie and her struggle to connect with CJ, and I could absolutely relate to CJ’s struggles. But it isn’t just the women’s problems that make this novel so memorable: it’s their choices, and the way in which they support each other. Each of them has made (and will make) difficult choices. And whether you agree with the choices made, or not, they are completely congruent with the characters.

If you like novels with strong female characters dealing with real contemporary and difficult issues, then you may enjoy this novel as much as I did. But it’s not just a novel to read, it’s a novel to think about and then talk about. This is the first of Ms Woods’s novels I have read: I’ve added her others to my reading list.

Highly recommended.

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

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Tess Woods is an absolute master of human emotion. She convinced me of this with her first novel, confirmed it with her second, but this one, her third, is next level. Love and Other Battles is a novel for our times. It is a deeply affecting novel that explores the many ways in which a family can fracture and then knit itself back together. This is contemporary fiction at its finest and I am so grateful to Tess Woods for her bravery in writing a novel that takes readers right into the crux of current social and medical issues, things that so many of us are dealing with but keep quiet about for fear of judgment and contempt.

‘She still didn’t know how to keep living. How was she going to start again after what happened?’

What I loved most about this novel was the inter-generational aspect of it. We have three women from the same family: Jess, her daughter Jamie, and her grand-daughter CJ. Being within Jamie’s generation, I thought that she might have been the character I would relate to the most, but in fact, I was able to deeply connect to all three characters and what they were faced with. I find myself at this age unable to muster the interest to read YA fiction, despite the fact that these novels tap into relevant issues that as a parent of teens, I want to know about. Likewise, I have struggled recently to connect to stories that are entirely about retirees. I feel too removed from the characters themselves, yet I’m interested in the issues they are dealing with. By crafting her characters from three generations within the one family, Tess Woods was able to give me the perfect read. Teen issues that are relevant to me as a parent of teens; parenting and relationship issues that are relevant to me right now; and aged care issues that will become relevant in the not too distant future as my parents age and my husband and I also age. It’s a rare thing for a novel to encompass so much with such precision. And by effectively having three focal points, my attention was regularly shifted from one to the other, eliminating the risk of me not being able to connect to a character for the duration. Instead, I looked forward to spending time with each of them, equally, their battles becoming very personal to me.

‘She'd learned enough about Parkinson’s disease to know that it wouldn’t kill him. He could keep deteriorating like this for another ten or more years, barely able to move or communicate, but with his organs doing just enough to keep him alive, trapped in the body that had failed him.’

Love and Other Battles is a serious novel. Despite the book description that talks of each character within the context of falling in love, this story is so much more than that. At times, it’s so real it hurts. But far out, it hits its mark square on. What happens to CJ, and consequently her mother and her grandmother, is one of the most common things that teens and their families are dealing with today. There is a lot of shame, judgement, and recrimination involved and it’s so important that we stop this. Novels like Love and Other Battles serve a purpose within society, opening the flood gates of discussion through the safe medium of fiction. We have to start talking about these issues, because more and more people are being affected, daily, and without support, there is little hope at turning things around. I’m not going to tell you specifically here in the review what the issues are, and not because of #nospoilers. I’m not telling you because I want you to read this book. I want everyone to read this book. And then I want you all to start talking about it.

‘But now, standing face to face with him, she didn’t feel any desire to hurt him. She didn’t have the urge to scream at him. When she looked into his eyes, all she felt was nothing.’

It’s not all heavy going and nothing but heartache within this novel. There is hope in the form of new beginnings and there's delight in discovering the sprinkles of Nashville fan fiction throughout. I am a complete Nashville tragic so I picked them all but if you have no idea what I'm talking about right now, it’s all good, it won’t affect your appreciation for the story! With its multiple timelines and genre breaking elements, Love and Other Battles sits firmly in our literacy fiction category by Australian Women Writers Challenge standards. It’s new terrain for Tess Woods but she’s conquered it like a Jedi master. Hats off to you Tess, your talent and emotional response to your subject matter is unmatched.

Thanks is extended to HarperCollins Publishers Australia for providing me with a copy of Love and Other Battles for review.