An Invisible Tattoo

by Suellen Dainty

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The thing about friendships formed in childhood … is that they’re like an invisible tattoo. They mark you and mould you. They’re under your skin.

When a last collection of songs by British musical icon, James Bennett, is discovered in an old Somerset house, rumours about his mysterious death during a wild midsummer party more than fifty years ago begin to swirl again. An accident? Suicide? Or murder? 

The only person still alive who knows what happened is frail but indomitable Ruth Henderson. She now lives in a Sydney apartment, but back in 1972, she was staying in Somerset with her closest friend, Adela McMahon, who was married to James. 

From very different backgrounds, Ruth and Adela became inseparable while growing up in an isolated New South Wales rural town. And they longed to escape. Adela fled first, to the bright lights and hectic whirl of swinging London, where she soon met James. But all was not as gilded as it seemed. Ruth was a witness to her beloved friend’s tempestuous and troubling relationship – and she was by Adela’s side the night James died. 

Journalists are clamouring to hear Ruth’s story. Of them all, Ruth chooses young and ambitious Kate Griffin, who will do anything to boost her career. But as the past and the present begin to collide, an unexpected friendship grows between the two women and deciding what really matters proves life-changing for them both. 

Moving between contemporary Australia and England in 1972, and between the worlds of Ruth and Kate, this compelling and beautifully written novel is about secrets and confessions, about vulnerability and hidden strength, about the cruelty of betrayal and, most of all, about the inextinguishable power and joy of friendship.