6. In contrast to many of the other characters, Janey seems to have no shame about her actions. What is it about Janey’s personality that makes her different? Do you think her childhood experiences with her father and also her marriage affected her? And what do you make of her ambitions to be mayor – does she have a genuine urge to serve the town?
7. Eliza has multiple opportunities to hand in Grace’s necklace to the police but she gets the Hedlands involved instead. Why do you think she chooses that course? How does it impact the Hedlands, and do you think she was right to involve them? At the end, they finally know what happened to Grace – how is this knowledge likely to change their lives?
8. The green hat makes numerous appearances throughout the book. What does it mean to different people – eg, to Eliza, to Donal, the general public? Does its meaning change throughout the book? What feelings does it evoke at different points in the story – for instance, when we first see the green hat on Paul’s head versus the final scene, when Donal returns to Kinsale and finds it sitting on the front seat of the Mustang?
9. Pat says that faced with trauma such as the Kinsale bushfires people either sink or swim. How does Eliza respond in a crisis? How does it compare to the way Tony responded to the fire at The Castle? In contrast to his response during the bushfire, Tony is able to rush into a burning building to save Eliza’s life – why do you think he’s able to do that?
10. Bearing scars from the fire, Eliza is visibly transformed by her experiences. How do you think she has changed inside? What might the future hold for Eliza and Donal? What might Donal bring to Eliza’s life that is different from the relationships she has had with people until now?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aoife Clifford was born in London of Irish parents, studied Arts/Law at the Australian National University, and now lives in Melbourne. Aoife is the author of the Australian bestselling literary crime novel All These Perfect Strangers. It was longlisted for both the ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and the Voss Literary Prize. Her short stories have been published in Australia, the UK and the US and she has won the two premier short story prizes for crime fiction in Australia – the Scarlet Stiletto and S.D. Harvey Ned Kelly Award among other prizes.
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Also by Aoife Clifford
All These Perfect Strangers
SECOND SIGHT
First published in Australia in 2018 by
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© Aoife Clifford 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
Cover design: Christabella Designs
Cover image: Dragan Todorovic/Trevillion Images; PA/Shutterstock; John Carnemolla/Shutterstock.
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
ISBN 978-1-9255-9690-8 (ebook)
Second Sight Page 30