Theresa Smith's Blog, page 108
March 24, 2019
Book Review: A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron
About the Book:
Buddy is a good dog.
After searching for his purpose through several eventful lives, Buddy is sure that he has found and fulfilled it. Yet as he watches curious baby Clarity get into dangerous mischief, he is certain that this little girl is very much in need of a dog of her own.
When Buddy is reborn, he realises that he has a new destiny. He’s overjoyed when he is adopted by Clarity, now a vibrant but troubled teenager. As Clarity navigates the ups and downs of adolescence, Buddy is there to protect, cheer, rescue, and love her unconditionally. When they are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs – who will take care of his girl?
More than just another endearing dog tale, A Dog’s Journey is the moving story of unwavering loyalty and a love that crosses all barriers, that asks the question: Do we really take care of our pets, or do they take care of us?
My Thoughts:
Hollywood loves W. Bruce Cameron at the moment, but who can blame them when we all keep flocking to the cinema to watch the next dog movie! And these are great dog movies too, absolute tear jerkers (check out the movie trailer below) but also incredibly life affirming, because so much can be said through showing the bond between an animal and a human. W. Bruce Cameron is a bit of a master at this, and it’s no accident Hollywood are adapting his dog novels into movies instead of coming up with ideas from elsewhere. He has a knack for flipping the dog owner relationship around to show just how much our pets look after us through their unwavering love and devotion.
A Dog’s Journey is the sequel to the gorgeous A Dog’s Purpose, and it more than lives up to its predecessor. This is a really heartfelt story about a dog (Buddy) who takes on the responsibility to always look after his owner’s granddaughter – and in the manner we saw in A Dog’s Purpose, this involves living several lives alongside her. So it has all the feels, and being told from Buddy’s perspective adds an extra layer of poignancy. This is another one for all the family to enjoy and return to, a timeless story for all ages and for all of the dog lovers out there.
Thanks is extended to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy of A Dog’s Journey for review.
About the Author:
W. Bruce Cameron is the New York Times bestselling author of A Dog’s Purpose and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, which was turned into the hit ABC series.
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A Dog’s Journey – Film Tie-In Edition
Published by Pan Macmillan Australia
Released on 26th March 2019
Film Trailer:
March 23, 2019
Book Review: Diving into Glass by Caro Llewellyn
About the Book:
Caro Llewellyn was living her dream life in her adopted home of New York, directing an international literary festival. Then one day, running in Central Park, she lost all sensation in her legs. Two days later she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Caro was no stranger to tragedy. Her father Richard contracted polio at the age of twenty and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Dignified, undaunted and ingenious, he was determined to make every day count, not least seducing his nurse while still confined to an iron lung, then marrying her.
But when Caro was herself blindsided by illness, cut loose from everything she depended on, she couldn’t summon any of the grace and courage she’d witnessed growing up. She was furious, toxic, humiliated. Only by looking back at her father’s extraordinary example was she able to rediscover her own grit and find a way forward, rebuilding her life shard by shard.
My Thoughts:
I don’t like musicals. All of the singing just seems to get in the way of the story, and while there have been couple of exceptions to my dislike (Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia, Into the Woods), generally speaking, if someone suggests we go and see a musical, either live or at the movies, I find myself very busy on that day. For me, memoirs are the literary equivalent of a musical: so much promise, but all of the singing just ends up getting in the way. Also, I don’t think it’s an accident that the word memoir begins with ‘me’.
Now, I don’t read many memoirs, just like I don’t watch many musicals, but from time to time one will pique my interest. I actually requested Diving into Glass from the publisher for review because the topic of the memoir, a woman dealing with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, was on my radar of interest. And it starts well, the prologue drew me in and held my attention, for Caro Llewellyn has a fantastic turn of phrase. Yet, from chapter one through to chapter 37 (page 265 of a 315 page book) it’s all distracting singing: everything about her parents, her childhood, her schooling, failed relationships, being a single mother, career choices – nothing about her MS journey. Some of this was interesting, but on the whole, I honestly didn’t care. I chose this book because I wanted to read about a woman dealing with a diagnosis of MS. 57 pages of this book covered her MS, but everything in the middle was pretty much what I don’t like about memoirs: the rehashing of everything in a person’s life up until that point, with an over-blown focus on an author’s parents and the miniature of their childhood. Those 57 pages were excellent, which makes my disappointment in the rest of the book more profound. Memoirs are tricky beasts, particularly once a person’s childhood factors into the book. Memories are flimsy at best, but I’m not inclined to trust vivid recounts of things that happened when a person was five. I just can’t credit it. But I will completely take responsibility for my dislike: this is a memoir, and as a result, it was always likely to be more miss than hit for me.
Fans of memoirs will think this is an incredible book; in many ways it is. Caro Llewellyn certainly writes well, and for the most part, there is a lack of the type of self-indulgence ever present in memoirs. She accepts responsibility for her own actions, she doesn’t demonise her parents, nor does she wallow – all factors I appreciated. I just really wish there had been more of her MS journey through to the present day and less of everything else. I need to stay away from this form of writing and stick to reading biographies and fiction.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of Diving into Glass for review.
About the Author:
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Caro Llewellyn is the author of three previous works of nonfiction. She is the former director of several large-scale literary festivals and cultural events. She has hosted writers from every corner of the globe, including a number of Nobel Prize winners, and presented events at the Sydney Opera House, London’s Southbank, the Louvre, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Town Hall, 92Y and historic Cooper Union. She is currently a director at Museums Victoria. Diving Into Glass is her first work of autobiography.
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Diving into Glass
Published by Penguin Random House Australia
Released on the 5th March 2019
March 22, 2019
Book Club for April
Here are our book club titles for April!
Discussion will commence in the Page by Page Facebook group towards the end of April. If you’re not on Facebook, please feel free to revisit this post and share your reading thoughts in the comments section below.
The French Photographer by Natasha Lester
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Published by Hachette Australia
Inspired by the incredible true story of Lee Miller, Vogue model turned one of the first female war photojournalists, the new novel by the bestselling author of The Paris Seamstress
Manhattan, Paris, 1942: When Jessica May’s successful modelling career is abruptly cut short, she is assigned to the war in Europe as a photojournalist for Vogue. But when she arrives the army men make her life as difficult as possible. Three friendships change that: journalist Martha Gellhorn encourages Jess to bend the rules, paratrooper Dan Hallworth takes her to places to shoot pictures and write stories that matter, and a little girl, Victorine, who has grown up in a field hospital, shows her love. But success comes at a price.
France, 2005: Australian curator D’Arcy Hallworth arrives at a beautiful chateau to manage a famous collection of photographs. What begins as just another job becomes far more disquieting as D’Arcy uncovers the true identity of the mysterious photographer – and realises that she is connected to D’Arcy’s own mother, Victorine.
Crossing a war-torn Europe from Italy to France, The French Photographer is a story of courage, family and forgiveness, by the bestselling author of The Paris Seamstress and A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald.
Star-crossed by Minnie Darke
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Published by Penguin Random House Australia
In this sparkling romantic comedy, a young journalist tampers with her magazine’s horoscopes to win her friend’s heart – and sets in motion an unpredictable and often hilarious ripple effect. . .
When Justine Carmichael (Sagittarius, aspiring journalist and sceptic) bumps into her old friend Nick Jordan (Aquarius, struggling actor and true believer) it could be by chance. Or perhaps it’s written in the stars.
Justine works at the Alexandria Park Star – and Nick, she now learns, relies on the magazine’s astrology column to guide him in life.
Looking for a way to get Nick’s attention, Justine has the idea of making a few small alterations to ‘Aquarius’ before it goes to print.
It’s only a horoscope, after all. What harm could changing it do?
Charting the many unforeseen ripple effects of Justine’s astrological meddling – both for herself and others – Star-crossed is the funny, super-smart, feel-good novel of the year!
The Gift of Life by Josephine Moon
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Published by Penguin Random House Australia
You’ve been given the gift of life, now go live it.
Gabby McPhee is the owner of The Tin Man, a chic new cafe and coffee roasting house in Melbourne. The struggles of her recent heart transplant are behind her and life is looking up – until a mysterious customer appears in the cafe, convinced that Gabby has her deceased husband’s heart beating inside her chest.
Krystal Arthur is a bereaved widow, struggling to hold herself and her two young boys together since Evan’s death, and plagued by unanswered questions. Why was her husband in another city the night he died? And why won’t his spirit rest?
Krystal is convinced that Gabby holds the clues she needs to move towards a brighter future. Gabby needs Krystal to help her let go of her troubled past. The two women must come together to try to unlock the secrets in Evan’s heart in order to set free their own.
By the internationally bestselling author of The Chocolate Promise, this is a profound and moving novel about the deeper mysteries of love and loss – and the priceless gift of life.
In a Great Southern Land by Mary-Anne O’Connor
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From the soft green hills of Ireland to the wild Shipwreck Coast of southern Victoria, the rich farm lands of New South Wales to the sudden battlefields of Ballarat, this is an epic story of the cost of freedom and the value of love in a far-flung corner of the world where a new nation struggles to be born.
1851: After the death of her father, young Eve Richards is destitute. Her struggle to survive sees her deported in chains to the colony of New South Wales, penniless and alone. But here in this strange new world fortune smiles on the spirited, clever Eve in the shape of a respectable job offer that will lead to a quiet, secure life. Then the fiery and charismatic Irishman Kieran Clancy crosses her path…
For Kieran Clancy, the kindest man on earth, and his brother Liam, the promise of free passage and land in this brave new world is a chance to leave the grief and starvation of County Clare behind. But while Liam works to farm their land, Kieran has the fire of gold-fever upon him and is drawn to the goldfields of Ballarat. As tensions grow on the goldfields, and with the blood of an Irish rebel still beating through his heart, Kieran finds himself caught up in the cataclysmic events at the Eureka Stockade and faces the decision of a lifetime: whether or not, when it comes to love, blood will remain thicker than water…
March 18, 2019
New Release Book Review: Star-crossed by Minnie Darke
About the Book:
Marian Keyes meets Love Actually in this fresh, funny and gloriously romantic Australian novel that has sold all around the world.
In this sparkling romantic comedy, a young journalist tampers with her magazine’s horoscopes to win her friend’s heart – and sets in motion an unpredictable and often hilarious ripple effect. . .
When Justine Carmichael (Sagittarius, aspiring journalist and sceptic) bumps into her old friend Nick Jordan (Aquarius, struggling actor and true believer) it could be by chance. Or perhaps it’s written in the stars.
Justine works at the Alexandria Park Star – and Nick, she now learns, relies on the magazine’s astrology column to guide him in life.
Looking for a way to get Nick’s attention, Justine has the idea of making a few small alterations to ‘Aquarius’ before it goes to print.
It’s only a horoscope, after all. What harm could changing it do?
Charting the many unforeseen ripple effects of Justine’s astrological meddling – both for herself and others – Star-crossed is the funny, super-smart, feel-good novel of the year!
My Thoughts:
This was an utterly delightful novel. If you’re a fan of movies such as Love Actually, New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day – as I am – then this is the novel for you! It’s both smart and funny, it doesn’t take itself too seriously but still manages to captivate and delight. And even though the story revolves around astrology, you don’t have to actually know anything about, or even like, astrology to love this novel.
Justine is a journalist who has been slogging away as a copy runner for a few years while waiting in the wings for a promotion at the magazine she works at. She has an awesome memory, works hard, and is a stickler for accuracy, so much so, she carries around a sharpie so she can correct the many misspellings and errors that appear on signs and menus and programs and pretty much any other thing she spots while out and about. I can’t tell you how much I loved this! I could feel Justine’s pain at seeing all of these errors, and I totally admired her confidence in the need for accuracy that drove her to correct everything she ever came across. She was a classic over-thinker, another aspect of her personality I could relate to, even though we are not actually the same star sign! To give you a taste of Justine, here is a little extract I loved that showcases her to perfection:
But even now, as she stood in the semi-dark of her living room, hands on hips, Justine understood that, henceforth, her curtains were going to be an issue. The curtains in question, pale green and damask, were a relic of Fleur Carmichael’s occupancy of the Evelyn Towers apartment, and although Justine knew that she should just fling them open – in the normal careless way that she always did at around this time on a weekday morning – she found it wasn’t that simple any more. What if Nick thought she was looking in on him, or inviting a conversation? Maybe she should wait, until, say, seven-thirty? Evenings were going to be equally problematic. To close, or not to close? When to close? And then there were the weekends. If she shut her curtains at an unusual time, Nick might think she was doing something weird behind them. But if she didn’t close her curtains, he might think that she wanted him to see whatever she was doing – weird or not. Justine wondered if there was, set out in a reference book somewhere, a standard opening and closing protocol for curtains: some kind of code, the adherence to which would ensure that her curtain behaviour could be in no way construed as strange or inappropriate.
When Justine bumps into her oldest friend, Nick, after years apart, their friendship is renewed, and for Justine, so are all of those old feelings that she ended up developing as an angsty teenager. Nick is mad about astrology, basing many of his decisions on what is written in his stars, and is a huge fan of the astrologer who writes the monthly column at the magazine Justine works for. Justine thinks it’s all rubbish, but when she gets promoted to contributions manager at the magazine, a part of her job is to transcribe the monthly astrology column, and that’s when the games begin. Justine begins to alter the monthly entry for Aquarius, Nick’s star sign, engineering the messages in a way that she hopes will steer him in her direction.
“What I want to know is, does someone really love you when all they ever want to do is change you into something that you’re not?”
It had worked, Justine realised. Her horoscope had absolutely worked. Cocooned inside Nick’s oversized woollen jumper, she was hardly able to believe that it had really, actually, properly worked to set off some doubts that were already there, lurking in his mind.
While Nick doesn’t always act in the way Justine anticipates, she keeps on meddling, upping the ante to force his hand her way. What she doesn’t realise, is that so many other people are also reading the Aquarius column and making decisions based on her bogus entries. This is where the novel wings its way into Love Actually/New Year’s Eve/Valentine’s Day territory, with these multiple stories of people with connections to each other. This was all so perfectly executed, and as the novel progresses, the many connections become more and more apparent. It was really lovely, and very clever. As you can expect, all goes very wrong before it ends up going right. But this story is in no way formulaic, it’s fresh and original, and always entertaining.
Yes, she had made an idiot of him, but even worse than that, she had taken something from him. She’d spoiled it: his one little sprinkling of magic in an otherwise pragmatic world – a harmless handful of stardust and mystery, once a month, on the page of a magazine.
I loved the arrangement of this novel, with the chapters following the astrology year, beginning and ending with Aquarius. Within each chapter, time was devoted to Justine, and then to all of the other characters whose lives were being affected by the dodgy Aquarius entries. The prose was delightful, with this old world style of storytelling narration that put me in mind of Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray, where everyone was introduced via a witty bio (see below for the author’s own bio as a sample of this) with the continuing narration peppered with comic banter and random incidentals. I really enjoyed Minnie Darke’s writing style and look forward to reading more books by her. She’s a fantastic writer, so witty and smooth, the storyline of Star-crossed so clever and with such brilliant on point character development. I also really enjoyed the magazine setting, with the daily workings and the interactions between Justine and her co-workers. The journalist in me got a real kick out of it all. This is one novel I can’t recommend highly enough, there’s a lot to love about it. I’m going to be gifting this one to more than a few people this year, you can be sure!
March 16, 2019
Book Review: The Bridge by Enza Gandolfo
About the Book:
In 1970s Melbourne, 22-year-old Italian migrant Antonello is newly married and working as a rigger on the West Gate Bridge, a gleaming monument to a modern city. When the bridge collapses one October morning, killing 35 of his workmates, his world crashes down on him.
In 2009, Jo and her best friend, Ashleigh, are on the verge of finishing high school and flush with the possibilities for their future. But one terrible mistake sets Jo’s life on a radically different course.
Drawing on true events of Australia’s worst industrial accident—a tragedy that still scars the city—The Bridge is a profoundly moving novel that examines class, guilt, and moral culpability. Yet it shows that even the most harrowing of situations can give way to forgiveness and redemption. Ultimately, it is a testament to survival and the resilience of the human spirit.
My Thoughts:
‘How did people keep living when grief was weighed down by guilt?’
The Bridge is a stunning novel. Grave, yes, but exquisitely written, an intricate study on trauma and grief tightly meshed with guilt. I’m normally quite a fast reader, but I slowed myself right down with this one, taking the time to linger over the way it was making me feel. I’ve had this novel sitting on my review pile for a couple of months now but I think I’ve ended up reading it at the right time. My daughter is only a couple of weeks away from taking her provisional license test and given Jo’s storyline, this novel has really left its imprint upon me.
I hate drink drivers. Even though I’m on my open license and have been for more than twenty years, I still maintain an alcohol level of zero if I’m going to be driving. Maybe some people will think this is overboard, but I have my own reasons as to why I live by this code. As far as characters go, Jo was about as stupid as they come, yet incredibly authentic, because how many young people think they’re invincible? I work with teenagers, older ones at a senior high school, they never think something bad is going to happen to them. I’ve supervised during countless presentations on alcohol and drug education, so I know the kids are all getting these messages. But Jo fairly typifies teens, in my view. She drank so much alcohol, and then loaded her car up with two more passengers than what was legal for her license, sped, did not pay attention, and then crashed. Such a stupid, stupid girl. But she’s not the first, and while she may be a fictional character, she’s as real as they come. This happens all too often. But it wasn’t Jo I was the angriest at.
‘She should’ve stopped Jo driving. She should’ve tried. She was a coward, avoiding conflict, instead of being a proper mother; a proper mother would’ve stopped them.’
It was Mandy, her mother. I’ve come across a few Mandy’s in recent years and they make parenting really damned hard for the rest of us who are trying maintain a household with rules and safe behavior. It’s the Mandy’s of the world, who just don’t want to put in the effort to argue with their kids, who give in and give up, that see the rest of us going head to head with our irate teenagers because we are ‘the strictest parents in the world’. To know the law, to witness your daughter drinking alcohol prior to driving, knowing she’s going to pick up more passengers than she’s allowed, and all you do is make an egg sandwich for her to soak up the alcohol and then wave goodbye? She was even more stupid than her daughter and I really didn’t have much sympathy for either of them. I completely understood why the accident tainted her love for Jo, but I also didn’t think Mandy had the right to feel that way given her own culpability. Jo might have been nineteen, technically an adult, but as far as I’m concerned, if your child still lives at home, you, as their parent, have a responsibility to parent them if they appear to be doing something unsafe or illegal. There’s all sorts of interesting ideas that you can pick at here from this storyline, particularly at what point you stop parenting and step back and let the consequences occur, but given that Jo was still at high school, still dependent on Mandy, I really think Mandy did the wrong thing in a big way and was partially culpable for the tragedy that occurred.
For me, a good book is one that makes you feel with intensity, be it happy, sad or something in between. It’s one that gets your thoughts churning and your emotions rising. This is most definitely one of those novels for me. While I was passing judgement from my high horse on Mandy and Jo, I could still directly relate to their experiences, because parenting styles and socioeconomic circumstances aside, I am in that same stage of life as them. For all of the hard yards I’ve done with my daughter, for all I keep reminding her of the law, personal safety, making smart choices, she could, at any point in time, make a bad judgement, kill someone, kill herself, injure an innocent bystander. The ripple effect of this is profound, and within this novel, Enza meticulously deconstructs this ripple effect. Like I said above, this is a grave novel, the subject matter is weighty, the emotions of grief and guilt are heavy to bear witness to, but it’s such an important novel. It would be a brilliant addition to the senior school English syllabus. I hope one day to see it there.
‘As if bad things could be thwarted by his refusal to pay them attention. As if he didn’t know better. As if he didn’t know that tragedy could and would strike whether you were around to pick up the phone or not, that it would catch up with you and stop you in your tracks no matter how hard or fast you ran, no matter whether you’d had your share of tragedy or not.’
There are in essence two stories within this novel, and while Enza weaves them tightly together with her themes of trauma, grief and guilt, along with the West Gate Bridge providing a focal setting point, Antonio’s story is different to Jo’s. Antonio is Ashleigh’s grandfather, and when he was twenty two, he was working on the West Gate Bridge when it collapsed. His guilt is still sharp even forty years on, a survivor guilt because he’d swapped a shift and the person replacing him died that day. As far as he’s concerned, it should have been him. His guilt manifests itself within him and he fails to grieve properly, resulting in him carrying this around within him, never letting go. When ‘the bridge’ takes the life of his granddaughter, all of Antonio’s barely suppressed grief comes to the surface. It was really well done, how Enza mirrored Antonio’s grief and guilt with Jo’s. Two different accidents, but the emotions wrought within were the same for each of them.
In terms of writing about the tragedy of the bridge collapse, Enza’s account was so authentically rendered. You could really feel the terror, the chaos, the choked atmosphere that comes with such a large scale tragedy. I am actually familiar with the collapse of the West Gate Bridge, even though it happened before I was born. My father was working on the bridge, he was nineteen at the time of the collapse. He was a labourer, so down on the ground. After I finished reading The Bridge, I asked him about that day, and nearly 50 years on, his memories were so clear and listening to him as he recalled specifics gave me goosebumps.
‘We never got offered counselling, there was nothing like that. We just came back to work a couple of months after and finished the bridge…’ (C.F. 2019)
He’s always been a staunch unionist though, and I wonder now how much this accident influenced that within him. I can only imagine the horror of that day, the lasting trauma. My dad told me it took him a very long time before he could cross the bridge after it was finished. He still hasn’t ever visited the memorial. You can see why this novel has left its mark on me, with both storylines being so close to home.
‘Did the dead exist anywhere? Were they watching?
…He felt the weight of their unlived lives, of all they might have been; he felt his own inadequacy.’
The Bridge has been shortlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize, and in my opinion, it’s worthy of the winning place. It has all the markers of an Australian classic. There’s even more themes within this novel that I haven’t even touched on, but we’d be here all day if I kept going on and on. Best you just read The Bridge for yourself. Highly recommended reading for all tastes and interests.
March 15, 2019
#BookBingo – Round 6
One of the things I love about book bingo is that I often get to feature for a second time books I have recently appreciated and highly recommend. None more so than this week’s selection.
Themes of Culture:
A River in the Trees by Jacqueline O’Mahony
‘It was already completely bright in the room; the savage light was beating against the wall in front of her. There was nothing as depressing as that hard, flat, empty early morning Irish light. It stripped everything bare; it made you feel bleached down to the bone. It was hard to get away from yourself in this kind of light.’
Ireland itself is like a character within this novel. It pulsates with history and its own atmosphere, clinging to the characters with a visceral connection. I have come across this notion before, that the Irish never truly leave Ireland behind.
‘She had never felt fully alive after leaving Ireland. She had never been fully herself, again.’
‘She was broken enough now, finally, to be able to come home.’
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For 2019, I’m teaming up with Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse for an even bigger, and more challenging book bingo. We’d love to have you join us. Every second Saturday throughout 2019, we’ll post our latest round. We invite you to join in at any stage, just pop the link to your bingo posts into the comments section of our bingo posts each fortnight so we can visit you. If you’re not a blogger, feel free to just write your book titles and thoughts on the books into the comments section each fortnight, and tag us on social media if you are playing along that way.
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March 13, 2019
New Release Book Review: The Rip by Mark Brandi
About the Book:
An urban crime novel that slowly and masterfully hooks you in… then shocks with the horrific crime and the dread that the characters you care about aren’t going to make it out alive.
‘It’s funny how quick it happens and without you really noticing. Anton said once that it’s like walking out into the sea, and you think everything’s fine and the water’s warm, but when you turn back you’re suddenly miles from shore. I’ve never been much of a swimmer, but I get what he means. Like, being caught in a current or something. A rip.’
A young woman living on the street has to keep her wits about her.
Or her friends. But when the drugs kick in that can be hard.
Anton has been looking out for her. She was safe with him. But then Steve came along.
He had something over Anton. Must have. But he had a flat they could crash in. And gear in his pocket. And she can’t stop thinking about it. A good hit makes everything all right.
But the flat smells weird.
There’s a lock on Steve’s bedroom door.
And the guy is intense.
The problem is, sometimes you just don’t know you are in too deep, until you are drowning.
My Thoughts:
‘People can surprise you sometimes, but not usually. Most of the time, people act exactly as you’d expect.’
Having not read Wimmera, I had no preconceived notions of what to expect from Mark Brandi, although, perusing reviews of The Rip by readers who have read both of his novels tells me that he’s rather mercurial, in that these two novels are quite different to each other. He’s certainly a talent that I am keen to watch out for and I’ll be digging Wimmera out from the depths of my TBR sooner rather than later. He has a clean edge to his writing, his narrative is pared right back to the bone, but every word has impact. The rawness of this story really hit me hard and fast, his message rang clear and true.
The Rip is a novel about homelessness and addiction, about people who have felt the sharp edges of life and become tangled in too deep. It’s also about loyalty, and reaching out to other people, no matter how many times they say no. And it’s about vulnerability, how incredibly vulnerable young people are when they are addicted to drugs and live on the streets. It’s this vulnerability that has remained with me, etching itself into my consciousness. We think we know all about predators, but what we know, from our cosy homes with locking doors and safely tucked up children is nothing compared to what street kids face. That’s the powerful punch this novel packs, you think you know the story, but then the story actually shows itself to you, in all its glory, and you want to look away but you can’t.
Dani, our protagonist, was a girl I wanted to both shake and hug in equal measure. She was held within the grasp of heroine so tightly, but she’d give her money away to another homeless man who she deemed worse off than herself. She slept on the streets instead of in shelters because she’d adopted a dog and wouldn’t part from him. She was loyal to her best friend, to the point of endangering herself. And because of her addiction, she couldn’t process just how much her life was at risk; she could sense it, but not fully realise and translate those feelings of fear into action. Dani is the product of a welfare system that has let down the kids who depend upon it. When you read between the lines of her story, it’s a shameful, awful thing to contemplate that some children may in fact be safer on the streets than placed in foster homes. And that’s saying something.
The Rip was an edge of your seat read and I couldn’t put it down, I read it straight through in one evening. It really is a novel for our times. Highly recommended.
‘That’s the thing – when you’re on the street, it’s important not to be too conspicuous, to make yourself disappear a bit. Because if you get in the way of what normal people are doing, that’s when you get into trouble. But if you’re just in the background, an inconvenience, or a bit of an eyesore, it’s not so bad. People can live with that. Mostly.’
March 12, 2019
New Release Book Review: Good Man, Dalton by Karen McQuestion
About the Book:
A chance encounter leads to an unpredictable Manhattan romance in an irresistible and heartwarming novel from the author of Hello Love.
Greta Hansen has arrived in Manhattan to intern with the Vanderhaven Corporation, a company owned by distant and very wealthy relatives. But she soon realizes she’s actually been hired to keep watch on their capricious daughter, social media celebrity Cece. No last name required. Why bother? The entire Twitterverse already watches every fabulous move she makes. Including an unfortunate shoplifting mishap when Cece decides to go off script. It’s then that a handsome—and homeless—stranger comes to the rescue.
Dalton Bishop has a secret. A man of privilege, he’s been living on the streets as a social experiment. Now, in gracious payback for his chivalry, Cece invites him to an elegant fund-raiser called the Forgotten Man Ball. It’s Greta he’s taken with, however—and to Greta’s surprise, she’s taken right back. But Dalton has one more secret up his tattered sleeve. For right now, though, he’s just happy embracing the woman of his dreams. It’s only the beginning of a romantic and revealing adventure that will take them to a place where money, class, and fame matter far less than true love.
My Thoughts:
Fans of romantic comedy will love this sparkling new offering by Karen McQuestion. Good Man, Dalton has a feel to it that harks back to those great romance movies of the 1990s, like Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. That genuine vibe of romance without the overblown comedy or erotic overtures – just good, clean romance with a fun storyline. Perfect to escape with!
Dalton is a good guy through and through (how refreshing!) and he’s embarked on an undercover investigation, living as a homeless person for two weeks. Now, I was at first quite dubious about this, because all of Dalton’s privileges mean he doesn’t really get the full ‘homeless experience’, and the fact that he was pretending really irritated me in the beginning. He never goes hungry, because he has money and when he does begin to run low on funds, he begins to busk with a harmonica and only two songs to his repertoire. Maybe things are different in America, but in Australia you need a license to busk and if you don’t have one, the police move you on. But Dalton seemed to not have these issues (or any at all really), and along with a big sturdy backpack and a device that he could press if he needed help, Dalton’s ‘homeless experience’ was a privileged version. However, his intent was true, and he came through in the end by putting what he learnt into a real, tangible plan for improving the lives of homeless veterans.
Dalton had one last question for Diego, and it was the question that had started his two-week homeless experiment. “What would help ? What would turn things around for you so you could get off the streets and into the life you want?”
Greta’s story was a little less interesting for me, although I did like her. I just found the whole celebrity rich girl needing a babysitter angle more irritating than enticing, but I will freely admit that’s more to do with me than anything else. I’m not a celebrity watcher, nor am I even the slightest bit interested in reality programs and celebrity endorsements. However, that is the age we are living in, and the author captures that essence really well within this story.
Karen McQuestion has put together a tightly plotted story that is overall entertaining and really rather cute. It would translate well to the screen. Recommended for fans of light romantic comedy and contemporary fiction.
March 11, 2019
New Release Book Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
About the Book:
From the internationally bestselling author of The Bone Season, a trailblazing, epic high fantasy about a world on the brink of war with dragons – and the women who must lead the fight to save it.
A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
My Thoughts:
Epic fantasy just got a new masterpiece added to its shelf! The Priory of the Orange Tree is Samantha Shannon’s first foray into fiction outside the world of The Bone Season series, and she has hands down proven that she has everything it takes to build worlds, bring them crashing down, and piece them all back together again. The Priory of the Orange Tree is epic in scope and length, clocking in at just over 800 pages, but once the scene was set, my attention never wavered. This is fantasy with an adrenalin shot of feminism, a world where women take centre stage, lead and fight, rule and usurp, win and lose, but always, without fail, never stand in the shadow of a man.
The world within The Priory of the Orange Tree is on the cusp of annihilation, a beast that has been held captive for a thousand years is about to rise; all nations are at odds and are ruled by beliefs that prevent cooperation. As the truth is revealed and the urgency for cohesion mounts, two women, a dragonrider and a dragonslayer, must unite and fight together to crush an ancient beast and break a curse that will rewrite history.
Dragons? Yes, THERE ARE DRAGONS! So many dragons, both good and evil, and wow, Samantha Shannon has such amazing skills as a writer, bringing these beasts to life in such a way that I could picture them perfectly. And dragons aren’t the only mythical creatures to grace the pages of this novel. It’s utterly fantastic.
There are so many stories within this story as well. Legends and myths, tales of old, all woven into the narrative with precision. Fantasy is not always easy to read, but The Priory of the Orange Tree is highly accessible and if you’re in need of a fantasy read for a challenge or you just want to try something new, this is the one! On the front of the cover, there is a quote that reads: ‘Deserves to be as big as Game of Thrones.’ Yes! It most definitely does. I have read all of the Game of Thrones novels, and lets be frank, I liked them, don’t get me wrong, big fan, but there are hundreds of pages that just waffle, on and on. Samantha Shannon has given us a series within the one novel: concise, epic, highly imaginative and extremely readable fantasy that offers a contemporary twist within an old world setting. Outstanding!
‘The eruption of water rose high enough to obliterate the stars. Amidst the chaos, a shape took form.
No artist had captured the magnitude of the enemy, or the way the fire inside him made him smoulder. They had never seen it for themselves. His wingspan was the length of two Lacustrine treasure ships. His teeth were as black as his eyes. The waves crashed and the thunder rolled.’
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I read this novel so voraciously that I have worn the blue foil off of the lettering on the cover! Such a shame too, because the cover is spectacular. The Priory of the Orange Tree is also ideal for a buddy read (it might be too big of a commitment for a book club). I read it with Brooke from 1girl2manybooks, which was a lot of fun. The Priory of the Orange Tree deserves to get a big following which will hopefully push it onto our TV screens. I can live in hope, anyway!
March 10, 2019
New Release Book Review: The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer
About the Book:
Model. Muse. Lover. Artist.
One cool day in 1929, Lee Miller arrives in bohemian Paris to pursue her dream of being an artist, having left behind a successful modelling career at Vogue. Gorgeous and talented, she catches the eye of renowned Surrealist artist Man Ray and convinces him to hire her as his assistant. Man is an egotistical, charismatic force, and soon their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined.
As Lee begins to assert herself, and moves from being a muse to an artist, Man’s jealousy spirals out of control, and their mutual betrayals threaten to destroy them both . . .
The Age of Light is a powerfully sensuous tale of ambition, love, and the personal price of making art. In this immersive debut novel, Whitney Scharer has brought a brilliant and pioneering artist out of the shadow of a man’s story and into the light.
My Thoughts:
Let’s just cut to the chase: how stunning is this cover?! And for a novel that is largely about photographic art, it’s utterly perfect. As to the novel itself, The Age of Light is biographical historical fiction, a sub-genre I tend to gravitate towards.
For the most part, The Age of Light delivers on what it promises. And it’s stunningly written in places, truly lyrical. Take this passage about Lee’s depression, the picture it paints is so vivid it’s tangible:
‘Lee has never been very good at being by herself: left to her own devices, she can easily sink into sadness and inactivity. As the weeks have passed, her loneliness has gained heft and power: it has contours now, almost a physical shape, and she imagines it sitting in the corner of her room, waiting for her, a sucking, spongy thing.’
The arrangement of the novel itself was also well thought out. We meet Lee in the 1960s, overweight, depressed, alcoholic, her career in tatters. We then swing back to the late 1920s where Lee is in Paris, determined to break free from modelling and find herself through exploring different forms of art. We finish up in 1974, nearing the end of Lee’s life. The 1920s part of the novel, which forms the bulk, is bracketed by short, gripping chapters that provide a window into Lee’s experiences covering parts of WWII, including the liberation of Dachau. For someone who was already prone to depression, these experiences left their mark quite vividly on Lee. I believe she suffered PTS on top of unresolved trauma left over from her childhood. It was little wonder she was in the state she was when we met her in the prologue.
Lee’s childhood is divulged throughout the 1920s chapters in fits and bursts. Raped when she was only seven by a family friend, and voyeuristically abused by her father throughout her entire childhood right into her teenage years, it was little wonder Lee was afraid of commitment and drawn to self-sabotage. Her relationship with her father was creepy. She claimed to love him, yet wanted to distance herself while still craving his approval and affection. Her father was a hobby photographer and used to take photos of his daughter nude. He even took photos of her with a friend, both of the girls nude, arranging them in sexualised poses. And this was after Lee had been raped! What a depraved man. No wonder his wife, Lee’s mother, was a drug addict. I don’t know how much of this childhood aspect of the story is truth versus fiction, but it really did go a long way towards explaining who Lee was at the time of her relationship with Man.
Understanding why a person is the way they are doesn’t necessarily translate to liking them. Lee really got on my nerves as the novel progressed and I began to feel bogged down by her self-sabotage for the last one hundred pages or so. Her relationship with Man Ray did so much for her. He taught her a lot about photography and they worked so well together that there was a mutual trading of ideas that benefited them both. From my perspective, Man adored Lee, but as soon as he showed her how much, she set out to distance herself and sabotage their relationship. She really did some crappy things. And while there is a ‘betrayal’ on Man’s part, when taken within the context of the era, and the way their working relationship was set up, I am not convinced he acted with malice. I’m not saying he was in the right, but I don’t think that he considered that what he’d done was anything other than above board. Sadly, I think the love affair between Man and Lee was mostly on his side. I think his jealousy paled in comparison to her self-sabotage, in terms of what caused their relationship to flounder.
As far as novels go, The Age of Light provides a window into the life of Lee Miller at the beginning of her career as a photographer, but there is a lot of attention given to her moods and whims, to her alcohol consumption, her relationship with Man, and the many ways she would put people offside and indulge in toxic behaviour. There’s a lot of gaps in this history, but it does offer a launching pad for further reading on Lee Miller.
