With their father, there's always a catch ...Colt Jenson and his younger brother Bastian have moved to a new, working-class suburb. The Jensons are different. Their father, Rex, showers them with gifts - toys, bikes, all that glitters most - and makes them the envy of the neighbourhood.
To Freya Kiley and the other local kids, the Jensons are a family from a magazine, and Rex a hero - successful, attentive, attractive, always there to lend a hand. But to Colt he's an impossible figure in a different way: unbearable, suffocating. Has Colt got Rex wrong, or has he seen something in his father that will destroy their fragile new lives? Sonya Hartnett's new novel for adults is an unflinching and utterly compelling work from one Australia's finest writers.
Barbara is an award-winning bookseller who has a special interest in fiction, especially Australian fiction and children’s books for all ages.
Sonya Hartnett is one of the most diverse Australian authors as she has written award winning books for adults, young adults and children. Golden Boys is an intricate story of two utterly different families. The Kileys are long-time residents in an outer Melbourne suburb who have six children. Joe Kiley is a working class man who gets extremely aggressive when drunk. Then there are the Jensens who have recently moved to the area. Rex Jensen has money and charm. He’s friendly, smooth and wants to share his lifestyle and possessions with the newly acquired friends of his two sons. His son Colt becomes suspicious of his father’s seemingly overfriendly attitude to the friends that he and his younger brother have made. The novel spans only a few weeks but Sonya Hartnett has given us a novel which slowly builds with compelling tension. She is a writer who has a special skill of writing about children and their relationships with their family, with neighbours and with their peers with subtlety and conviction.
