AustLit

My Candlelight Novel is the follow-up to Joanne Horniman's previous novel Secret Scribbled Notebooks, the story of two sisters, Kate and Sophie who have grown up with Lil, 'their adoptive guardian since they were abandoned by their father when they were young'. The first book was narrated by Kate while this story is told from the perspective of Sophie, a 21 year old single mother whose relationship to literature allows her to 'explore life and connect to a world outside of her immediate and often dull existence'. According to Fulcher, this is a 'sophisticated novel that frankly explores the beauty and sorrow of an examined life' and elevates 'ordinary life to the same beauty and standing usually reserved for brilliant works of art' (33).