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Release of Martina Nicolls' third novel: Bardot's Comet

I am pleased to announce the release of my third novel, Bardot’s Comet (2011) through the Strategic Book Group in New York. Unlike my first two novels, The Sudan Curse (2009) and Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010), Bardot’s Comet is not based on my experiences as an aid development consultant. It is an altogether different novel.

BARDOT’S COMET is historical fiction, a literary crime novel, set in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1966 to 1969. It is a period of intense social and scientific change: the rise of feminism and sexual liberation, the Vietnam War, the first lunar landing, the global debate on science versus religion, and the arrival of the Murchison meteorites.    

Leonardo Bari is an Italian who migrated to Australia with his parents at the turn of the twentieth century and is employed at the local university as a mathematics professor. He marries his Italian girlfriend and their daughter is born in 1924. His wife dies in childbirth and Leonardo changes his daughter’s name to Prudence.

PrudenceBari is viciously murdered on the day that a comet strikes Murchison in Australia on the morning of September 28, 1969. It is also the thirty-fifth birthday of the French screen siren, Brigitte Bardot, Leonardo’s favourite actress. Prudence changes the name of Murchison’s Comet to Bardot’s Comet.

The simple act of changing names haunts Leonardo Bari as he questions its impact on his daughter’s life. Can changing a name alter one’s destiny? Does the occult art of numerology form an integral part of the cosmic plan for one’s life?

BARDOT’S COMET is Leonardo Bari’s diary of the events from 1966 to 1969, leading up to his daughter’s death. Leon’s journal is an introspective, self-doubting, paternalistic account of his daughter’s life, career, and relationships. The father-daughter mathematicians are a contrast in personalities. Leon is sensitive and old-fashioned while Prudence is tough and progressive. Theories of fate, destiny, and the search for universal truth embrace the aged Italian migrant’s view of the pivotal three years of his daughter’s life. His daughter’s controversial views of mysticism and feminist science receive both adulation and criticism. Her prize science student, Innes Cartwright, denounces science for the priesthood.

Boyish in youth, asexual in adulthood; in her forties, Prudence is unmarried and childless, but at the peak of success as an internationally acclaimed professor of mathematics. Society questions her sexuality and her choice of career over motherhood. Leon questions his choice not to re-marry and his ability to raise a daughter alone.

Leon’s basic fear is that he will lose her to an unsuitable man and yet, at her age, it seems wrong for an Italian not to be married. With traditional concepts of love and marriage, he yearns for his daughter to marry Fabian Rossi, her debonair Italian manager. Prudence, however, invests her emotions in inaccessible relationships: a long-distance relationship with Michael McShane, the itinerant brooding Irish writer; a relationship with the reserved Oswald Danes, a farmer and childhood friend; and a flirtatious relationship with Cyril Silverman, a young, bi-sexual music lecturer and activist. 

Fabian accompanies Prudence on a three-month promotional tour of Europe and America but this, to Leon’s frustration, seems to add tension to their relationship.  Believing that Prudence wants commitment, Oswald proposes as man lands on the moon in 1969. Prudence visits Michael’s home in England and he subsequently follows her to Australia. Cyril increasingly distances himself from her as his gay lover, Darren, becomes violently jealous.

On September 28, 1969, Professor Prudence Bari is brutally murdered. The Police Commissioner investigates the crime. After Leon’s natural death, the Police Commissioner finds his journal. To set the record straight, the Police Commissioner adds his commentaries to the journal, and the truth is revealed.

Was Prudence Bari’s fate pre-destined? Was it a heinous hate crime; murdered out of anger, jealousy, or for her controversial ideologies? Was Bardot’s Comet the bringer of doom and death? Is Destiny, God, Bardot’s Comet, or Leonardo himself ultimately responsible for Prudence’s fate: her murder?



View the video trailer: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmfmsc_bardot-s-comet-by-martina-nicolls_shortfilms


Bardot’s Comet is available from online bookstores such as http://amazon.com. Large orders for schools, libraries, and bookstores are available at a discounted price by contacting my publisher, Strategic Book Group on bookorder@aeg-online-store.com



Title: Bardot’s Comet
Author: Martina Nicolls
ISBN: 978-1-61204-522-1
Number of pages: 242
Paperback and kindle (ebooks)

Postscript: For readers of my stories based on aid development work, my next novel will focus on Liberia.

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