The Wish Child is Catherine Chidgey's fourth novel, and it comes 13 years after her previous outing The Transformation. Perhaps best known for her first novel In A Fishbone Church (1998), she has won and been shortlisted for local and international awards. This novel is set in Berlin, and opens in 1939. It follows two children who observe their parents dealing with events that they can't understand. The story is told through a progression of details that only hint at the horrors of war; in effect, the reader sees the unfolding war and its impact on ordinary Germans through the eyes of innocents, and the reader becomes a participant through their own knowledge of what has actually happened during those years. As the war doesn't go Germany's way, the book reaches an incredible climax in a ruined Berlin.
Although the book requires patience during the necessary scene setting, the growing sense of unease and inevitability in the background keeps one reading, and the climax is a tour de force worth waiting for. This book will also win awards, and deservedly so.