Bodies Of Light is the second novel by award-winning Australian editor and author, Jennifer Down. When the woman who, in 2018, calls herself Holly and lives in Burlington, USA, gets a Facebook message from a stranger looking for Maggie Sullivan, she’s extremely wary. Tony Cooper claims to know Maggie from his childhood in Victoria, and hopes Holly might be able to tell him what happened to her: in the photo he has seen, Holly’s resemblance to Maggie is uncanny.

His profile photo shows a man who could be someone she knew in her teens, but he wasn’t called by that name. She blocks him and adjusts her social media privacy settings. Her reaction to further messages, sent from his partner’s account, with photos of the Maggie who disappeared in 1998, are treated with the same caution. But she can’t prevent her mind going back to an exceptionally fraught childhood, something she has locked away inside her head for decades.

It's in that recall that the woman she has become, from the girl she was, and the reason she fled from her home country, is gradually revealed, but much more can’t be said without spoilers. Except perhaps to note that Maggie has some truly despicable people in her life, whose impact could hardly be eclipsed by the genuinely caring souls she also encounters.

Readers will find much of what Maggie endures confronting, while some aspects of her story will bring to mind a certain high-profile Australian court case, this story speculating on how it could have played out differently. The final pages may well cause readers to choke up or shed some tears.

Readers should be aware that the dialogue is liberally scattered with expletives, a natural fit for these characters, that there are some explicit sexual descriptions, and that Down omits quotation marks for speech, usually an unforgivable irritant, but tolerated in this powerful read. Thought-provoking and incredibly moving.