Bruce College, a private school in a leafy Melbourne suburb, is a place for winners. Affectionately known as Bruisers, its boys' football program has a reputation for pumping out superstars. But when its girls' team pushes for glory, sixteen-year-old Grace Dooley is left with a catastrophic brain injury, and her parents want someone held accountable. The school points the finger at the coach, Brick Hannaford, a former professional player who is struggling with the legacy of his lauded, 300-game career. Brick says he was coaching the kids exactly as the parents and school demanded: hard.
In a rut, questioning her single-minded pursuit of a career at the expense of her personal life, lawyer Romola Cross takes on Brick's case. She soon finds herself caught up in the complex and disturbing fallout of school sport turned toxic. As Romola investigates the reasons Grace played that day, she begins to understand the pressures bearing down on the girl - from peers, teachers, coach and parents. But who should take responsibility? What will the Court's judgment be? And, once the case is over, will Romola find what she's been searching for?
Smother is a novel about chasing dreams, and how the quest for victory can risk losses far beyond those on the scoreboard. It's a story about the forces of love, ambition and fear, and finding the right balance before it all comes undone. Eve Thomson is a partner at a leading Australian law firm, where she's a litigator, working on everything from class actions and media law to consumer protection. Her debut novel, She Too (Echo Publishing, 2023), dealt with law and celebrity, drawing from Eve's experience advising some of the country's biggest publishers on defamation matters. Eve is also a mum of two, and for her second novel, Smother, she has combined courtroom expertise with her experiences on the sidelines of kids' sports - both worlds as cut-throat and full of drama as each other. Eve lives at the beach in South Australia with her family. Winning isn't everything. It's more. Smother is both topical and timely, exploring the rising pressures placed on young people and their sporting achievements, the dangers of ambition pushed too far, and the legal and emotional fallout when tragedy strikes. Sixteen-year-old Grace Dooley suffers a life-changing brain injury during a school football game, exposing the brutal pressures of youth sport and the demands parents and institutions place on their children. Lawyer Romola Cross takes on the defence of coach Brick Hannaford, a fallen sporting hero accused of pushing his players too hard. The trial becomes a battleground of ambition, love, fear and responsibility. Smother combines the tension of a courtroom drama with the emotional intensity of contemporary fiction. It's an emotionally charged novel about ambition, accountability and the dangerous line between love and pressure. During her investigation, Romola discovers that Brick is suffering the ramifications of his own hard-hitting football career, as it becomes apparent he has Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head injuries. This is a topical area of interest, as it is being diagnosed more widely in some of our most-loved sporting legends. Comparable to:
9781760785024 Apples Never Fall, Liane Moriarty (Bookscan 243K)
9781405930208 Beartown, Fredrik Backman (Bookscan 20K)
9781761470714 Sidelines, Karen Viggers (Bookscan 3K) Eve Thomson draws on her expertise as a lawyer and her lived experience as a mother on the sidelines of kids' sport, delivering a story that feels both sharp and relatable.
