In the publicity flyer for Pacific, author Judy Nunn explains that she likes to write ‘larger-than-life stories about larger-than-life people, caught up in the historical events of their time.’ Pacific is such a blockbuster epic. We follow the career rise of an Australian actress, Sam, who stars in a Hollywood movie about a World War II heroine, Sarah Blackston, an English nurse who lived in colonial Vanuatu (then called the New Hebrides), and her special bond with the native population. You will find yourself racing through the 700-odd pages of Pacific to solve Sam’s eerie bond with Sarah Blackston, and the strange interweaving of their lives. While the coke-fuelled Hollywood backdrop is very entertaining, the author seems more alive in the historical scenes-both narratively and substantively (the insight into colonial life in the New Hebrides is fascinating). Her epic characters, with their flowery language, seem to suit her, especially the love scenes where breathing is ‘feverish’ and ‘naked bodies set each other on fire’. The author has a gift for writing real dialogue, whether it is the open Australian chatter, or the movie star drivel. Pacific is a perfect book for readers who like a well-written, historically interesting blockbuster.

Michelle Atkins is a freelance writer

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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