Home entertainment

BOOK REVIEW: The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone

Charity Norman's latest novel, The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone, deals with the topical the issue of transgender men and women.
The secret life of Luke Livingstone

When Charity Norman began researching her latest novel, The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone, she didn’t imagine how topical the issue of transgender men and women would be. Her latest novel was released just as Bruce Jenner, former US Olympic decathlete and stepfather of the Kardashian reality starlets, announced he was transitioning from a man to a woman.

Charity was surprised and sympathetic when she heard the news. “It seems that – like so many transgender people – Bruce Jenner lived with this inner conflict for a long, long time,” she tells me when we talk. “It takes immense courage to do what he’s doing. I’ll be cheering from the sidelines.”

The author of four best-selling novels, former barrister Charity Norman was born in Uganda, raised in Britain and now lives in New Zealand after falling in love with a Kiwi farmer on his OE. Moving to a Hawke’s Bay farm gave the mother-of-three the time and freedom she needed to formulate her stories. “I’d take long walks by the river with a dog we’d inherited. Having no phone, no internet, and the rhythm of walking along made the characters and places spring to life.”

Charity’s novels deal with social issues and are a blend of current affairs stories and a fertile imagination. “Life’s so fascinating, isn’t it?” she says. “Sometimes a seed is sown and looks promising but withers when I try to make anything of it; but sometimes one takes root. The next time I look, it’s taking over the greenhouse and I know it’s going to be the next book. That’s what happened in Luke Livingstone’s case.”

It’s not easy in this digital age to make a living being an author but Charity is sanguine about the rise of eBooks. “I’m certain that more people are reading because of eBooks. Mine sometimes go on sale at ludicrously low prices and shoot up the Kindle charts. That doesn’t make me rich but it means a lot of people are reading my books, and that’s terrific. If they would then buy a copy for a friend, I’d be even happier!”

Related stories

The Anchoress
Home entertainment

BOOK REVIEW: The Anchoress

The Anchoress is a fascinating glimpse into another world and another time – when women were so powerless that being locked away in a tiny cell until you died was preferable to being a plaything of men.