Theresa Smith's Blog, page 41

The Week That Was…

This coming week is a birthday week in my house. Youngest son turns 16 on Wednesday and eldest son/middle child turns 18 on Saturday, so this last week has been spent planning, finalising presents and cake requests, and looking back at little boy photos whilst wistfully sighing about the passage of time.

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Joke of the week:

Pretty sure we can all relate to this…

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What Zeus has been up to:

Seems like he’s trying to show he’s not on the couch whilst still almost being on the couch…

Man cave rules do not apply in my lounge room Zeus!

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What I’ve been reading:

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Until next week…

Book Review: Love and Other Puzzles by Kimberley Allsopp

About the Book:

Rory’s life is perfectly predictable, ordered and on track – just the way she likes it. She walks her 12,000 steps a day, writes her to-do list and each night she prepares her breakfast chia pods and lays out her clothes for the next day. She’s doing everything right. So why does everything feel so wrong?

Deep down, she knows her life and career – not to mention her relationship – are going nowhere, and so Rory, in a moment of desperation, takes an uncharacteristic step: letting the clues of The New York Times crossword puzzle dictate all her decisions for a week. Just for a week, she reasons. Just to shake things up a bit. What’s the worst that could happen?

A delightfully witty, deliciously original and astringently refreshing rom-com that reads like you’re inhaling a zingy citrus cocktail made by Nora Ephron, at a party thrown by Dolly Alderton and Beth O’Leary.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Released 2nd February 2022

My Thoughts:

This novel was an absolute delight. Witty, relatable, and so life affirming. I loved the references to rom com movies, particularly the Meg Ryan ones, of which I am a huge fan, and could recognise them all. It really took me back and now I’m filled with this need to start watching them all over again. It’s been too long. While I’m not one for a crossword, I still enjoyed the way in which they were woven into the story. The whole notion of using crossword clues to determine your own destiny was fresh and unique. I could also appreciate how crosswords had become akin to a security blanket for Rory and how something another person might regard as bonkers (using clues to make life decisions) would actually make perfect sense to her.

‘For every 24-hour period, I’m going to base my decisions on a maximum of three answers in The New York Times crossword. They won’t all be life changing. It could be about what to have for lunch. It could be about whether I go to a gallery opening that wasn’t already in my diary. It could be about whether or not I fudge the truth slightly, in order to be taken more seriously at work…’

Rory’s need for an ordered universe struck a chord with me. I am very much the same, I’d like to think I have a bit more flexibility in me than Rory did, but those who are close to me might beg to differ. As far as character’s go, Rory is pretty memorable and one of my favourites out of a book in a long time. I loved her internal thoughts; they were so entertaining and on point. This really is an excellent novel and there’s nothing whatsoever that I didn’t like about it. I think I just found my go to book for present giving this year.

‘A shoe basket signalled an organised life. A permanence and sense of order. The only thing I hadn’t consistently been able to get from my two homes growing up.’

Thanks to my lovely fellow book blogger, Great Reads and Tea Leaves, who recommended this one to me.

*Book 3 in my 22 in 2022 challenge*

Book Review: All’s Well by Mona Awad

About the Book:

Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating, chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised, and cost, her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.

That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible, doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.

With prose Margaret Atwood has described as “no punches pulled, no hilarities dodged…genius,” Mona Awad has concocted her most potent, subversive novel yet. All’s Well is the story of a woman at her breaking point and a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain.

Published by Simon & Schuster Australia – Scribner UK

Released 2nd March 2022

My Thoughts:

All’s Well is the story of Miranda, a former theatre actress who now lives her days and nights in excruciating pain, a legacy left to her from a fall off the stage followed by a bad recovery after what sounds like a bit of a botched surgery. She hobbles around, barely able to move, certainly unable to sleep restfully, drugged on a cocktail of painkillers prescribed by various doctors, washing these down with alcohol while trying to appear as though everything is fine, because while it is obvious to all around her that it isn’t, Miranda is cuttingly aware that no one really wants to know about it, do they?

And here is the key theme of this novel and the reason I loved it so much. It tackles chronic pain head on, specifically, chronic pain in ageing and fading women, who, whether you want to believe it or not, are dismissed more than they are taken seriously. While I’m not where Miranda was, both with her level of pain and the way she was dealing with it, I could relate to so many of her experiences as a person who suffers from chronic pain. Particularly the way in which her physical therapists were treating her. I once had a PT session where a physio who I had been seeing for months for pain in my left foot treated my right foot instead of my left, and when I queried what she was doing, she questioned whether I was sure she had the wrong foot. Her dismissal, not only of the pain I had been in for months, but of my cognitive ability, was both infuriating and distressing. The author articulated this feeling so well through Miranda’s experiences, where each appointment would see her second guessing herself as she was gaslighted over and over by health professionals who in the end, were doing nothing but causing her more pain and emptying her wallet.

As Miranda’s pain intensifies, she finds herself propped up at a bar one night, and three strangers make her a deal. This is where the novel turns into something quite different, more of a magical realism ride that is both funny, in the darkest of ways, and incredibly brilliant. As Miranda becomes well again, people around her are not so lucky and as time goes on, a type of mania seems to take hold of Miranda, rendering her untouchable to all types of pain and distress. She feels fantastic, all the time, and begins to not see the effects of this on those around her. She becomes dismissive of the suffering of others, impatient with them, too busy to check in on them; an eerie turn of events that takes her some time to wake up to.

This novel was a solid five stars for me until the end. I just felt that there wasn’t a real sense of finishing to it, too many magical loose ends left fluttering in the wind. Despite this, I still rate the novel highly. Unique and darkly funny with a brilliant cast of characters, All’s Well kept me entertained (and guessing) from start to finish. A great one for theatre lovers too.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Book Review: Violeta by Isabel Allende

About the Book:

One extraordinary woman.

One hundred years of history.

One unforgettable story.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life – of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss, and immense joy. Bearing witness to a century of history, it is a life shaped by the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

Published by Bloomsbury

Released 25th January 2022

My Thoughts:

‘I was born in 1920, during the influenza pandemic, and I’m going to die in 2020, during the outbreak of coronavirus. What an elegant name for such a terrible scourge. I’ve lived a century and I have a good memory, in addition to seventy-something diaries and thousands of letters as evidence of my passage through this world. I’ve witnessed many events, I’ve amassed a lot of experience, but either because I was too distracted or too busy, I haven’t acquired much wisdom. If reincarnation is real, I’ll have to return to Earth to make up for what I’m lacking. It’s a terrifying prospect. The world is paralysed, and humanity is in quarantine. It is a strange symmetry that I was born in one pandemic and will die during another.’

Few authors mean as much to me as Isabel Allende. I read my first novel by her in my early 20s (The House of Spirits) and I have fiercely loved her books since then. This means I have zero objectivity when it comes to reviewing her books because I love them all. She is a magnificent writer.

The style of Violeta is intimate and absorbing, reading like a letter/life story recount. It’s not until about two-thirds of the way through that we find out who Violeta is telling her story to. I like how that wasn’t held out until the end. As you would expect from Allende, this novel is so much more than the story of one woman, no matter how interesting and passionate and adventurous she was. This is a sweeping political and social history of Uruguay, Argentina, and Cuba. The turmoil and violent civil unrest that swept through Latin America throughout the 20th century is recounted through the lives of Violeta and her family and friends.

This is a novel that just gives and gives and gives some more right up until its beautiful last line. I had wondered how she was going to follow up on A Long Petal of the Sea, which totally blew my mind and shattered my heart, but I needn’t have dwelled on it. Violeta is just as wonderful, and just as absorbing. Of course, this gets five stars.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Book Review: When We Fall by Aoife Clifford

About the Book:

In the wild, coastal town of Merritt, Alex Tillerson and her mother make a shocking find on the beach. The police claim it’s an accidental death but there are whispers of murder and that it is not the first.

Bella Greggs was found dead at the bottom of a ravine but drowned in salt water. Maxine McFarlane was pulled from the ocean but with no water in her lungs. Black feathers were found with both bodies but what do they mean?

As Alex fights for answers to honour the dead, and to discover why her mother fled town as a teenager, good people keep looking the other way, memories become unreliable, and secrets threaten to reveal the past.

Alex discovers the truth never dies but it can kill…

Published by Ultimo Press

Released 2nd March 2022

My Thoughts:

With its moody and atmospheric cover, the scene is immediately set within Aoife Clifford’s latest release, When We Fall, and it’s a slow burning, yet entirely addictive read. This was my first taste of her writing, although a fellow blogger and friend had nothing but praise to share with me about her, so my expectations going in were high. I am happy to say, they were definitely met.

I’m not usually a fan of the amateur detective, preferring my crime fiction to be more police procedural, but perhaps it was Alex’s foot in the law that swayed me, I’m not sure, but I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and found Alex’s personal interest and layman investigations entirely credible.

There are plenty of red herrings within this story, doubt cast left, right, and centre. I actually guessed the killer, not my usual talent, I’ll admit. I almost never see it coming, but in this case, something rang a bell for me, and I was pleased to discover that my hunch was right. Although, there is more than one crime within these pages and more than one perpetrator, and I didn’t guess the full story!

I wasn’t overly keen on Denny, Alex’s mother, to be honest. I feel a bit bad admitting that I didn’t like a woman with dementia, hopefully that doesn’t cast too much of a murky light on me! My main issue with Denny was her silence about who Alex’s father was. I feel like this was the one area of the story that wasn’t resolved fully to my liking. But that is honestly the only sticky point for me.

The way in which art and environmental activism underpinned the story appealed to me greatly. I am fond of art and love books that can effectively incorporate that into the story with visual impact. Aoife did an amazing job with weaving art into her narrative. I could picture the paintings and works of art as they were described. I also really appreciated the intent of a character communicating what they know of a crime through a work of art. Visionary!

Fans of Australian crime fiction should add this one to their reading lists, I highly recommend it and will be eagerly awaiting Aoife Clifford’s next novel.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

A Month of Reading:

And that’s February gone. Already my numbers have dropped, and yes, it’s a shorter month, but it’s not THAT much shorter.

All up, I read eight books, four short of my target. My 22 in 2022 challenge is going okay though, I read another one for that, although I am aware that there are not 22 months in the year, so clearly, I’m going to have to start reading more than one book a month to have a hope of getting to 22 by the end of the year. As to my classics shelf, all I did was ADD to it, rather than actually read anything off of it. If I sound disappointed in myself, it’s because I kind of am. When I was consistently reading 12 books a month, I also still had three children requiring more parenting than what they need now and I was working almost full time as well as running the Australian Women Writers Challenge. I have more time on my hands now, and yet, I still keep falling short of 12 books a month. I am determined to get that average back, so watch this space.

Over to February:

Total Books Read for February – 8

Favourite book: Violeta by Isabel Allende, Loveland by Robert Lukins, and The Islands by Emily Brugman

Least favourite book: The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe

Until next month…good reading!

Book Review: Loveland by Robert Lukins

About the Book:

Two women stand in the shallows, a man dead at their feet, while around them buildings burn.

Amid the ruins of a fire-ravaged amusement park and destroyed waterfront dwellings, one boarded-up building still stands. May has come from Australia to Loveland, Nebraska, to claim the house on the poisoned lake as part of her grandmother’s will. Escaping the control of her husband, will she find refuge or danger?

As she starts repairing the old house, May is drawn to discover more about her silent, emotionally distant grandmother and unravel the secrets that Casey had moved halfway around the world to keep hidden. How she and Casey’s lives interconnect, and the price they both must pay for their courage, is gradually revealed as this mesmerising and lyrical novel unfolds.

Compelling, compassionate, and profoundly moving, this new novel by the acclaimed author of The Everlasting Sunday confirms Robert Lukins as one of our finest writers.

Published by Allen & Unwin

Released 1st March 2022

My Thoughts:

It’s been four years since the release of Robert Lukins’ debut novel, The Everlasting Sunday. In my review for that novel, I closed with this statement:

‘The Everlasting Sunday is a fine debut and I feel certain this is only the beginning of great literary endeavours for Robert Lukins.’

I was right. His latest release, Loveland, has been worth the wait. It is a stunning novel, rich in both beauty and brutality. No one writes quite like Robert Lukins. He is a master of words, lyrically weaving them all together with visual clarity, blunt force, and impeccable timing. I really believe sometimes that books find you at the right moment. This may sound strange, coming from a reviewer, because the books are sent to me, not discovered through another channel. But I get a lot of books, far more than I can read at the time of their release, so I have to be selective, and this is where the magic comes in. Sometimes, I pick up a book knowing that this is the one I have to read right now, and so it was with Loveland. Not because of the impending release date, not even because it is written by Robert Lukins, and I’ve been waiting on another release by him since five minutes past reading his debut novel. No, I had to read Loveland at that point in time because when I picked it up, looked at the cover, and read the description I knew, really knew, that this novel had something to say that I needed to hear at that particular time. And it did. It spoke to me on a whole other level, whispered in my ear and reeled me in. It is the most magnificent novel of losing oneself, giving up, giving in, and then rising again, quite literally from out of the ashes.

‘It was the unending struggle for air. This was the worst of it and the thing that never passed. The fear that stole her every breath.’

Robert is so intimately acquainted with all the many shades of humanity and seems blessed with an ability to articulate this with such realism. And I am not sure how he understands women so well, it is a rare gift for a male writer to be able to write women with such precision and insight. Loveland is a dual storyline that demonstrates with painful clarity the way in which violence can cross generations with eerie repetitiveness. As both stories unfolded and overlapped, the intended destination for both women, grandmother and granddaughter, merged with a stunning symmetry that stole my breath. And while much of this story is character driven, there are other themes running through the story, shaping the plot, and directing the focus. In some ways, Loveland is almost like a love letter to Nebraska, the changing face of it, the way in which economics and environment ceased to cohabit and instead began to clash. Loveland’s dying lake and bitter depressed economy are a microcosm of the American mid-west. The scene that Robert has set as the backdrop for his story is atmospheric, oppressive, and familiar.

This is a novel I wanted to both savour and devour. It will remain on my shelf as a favourite. Five stars just doesn’t seem enough.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

The Week That Was…

As I sit here in my sunny and dry region of Queensland, much of the South East of the state is disappearing under flood water and torrential rain just keeps on falling. There are dangerous storms that just keep on hitting, some containing tornadoes. It’s horrifying and devastating to watch unfold. It appears that it’s only going to get worse.

And of course, then there’s Russia invading Ukraine. I feel like I’m in a past reality with that one. It just beggars belief that we are seeing this particular form of history repeat itself.

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Joke of the week:

I wasn’t going to post a joke this week because, well, see above. But this one fits and sometimes laughter is a tonic.

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What Zeus has been up to:

Zeus has been incognito this week. Spending his days lolling about on eldest son’s couch in the man cave bingeing on Breaking Bad and possibly eating tacos. Last night he made an appearance beside my chair and put on this performance:

By way of apology for trading affection, it’s pretty dismal.

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Gardening news:

I have the beginnings of a tomato! It’s terribly exciting and completely insignificant, but even so, look at it!

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What I’ve been reading:

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Until next week…

Book Review: Verity by Colleen Hoover

About the Book:

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity’s recollection of the night their family was forever altered.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already-grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Published by Hachette Australia – Sphere

Released 25th January 2022

My Thoughts:

Verity was first published in 2018 as an eBook and has only just become available worldwide in paperback. In between this, it has exploded into an internet sensation and made Colleen Hoover the biggest star on BookTok – TikTok but about books. I don’t follow it, but I know about it. I have read Colleen Hoover for a long time now, starting back when she was still exclusively self-publishing. I only reviewed another of her new release’s mere weeks ago. She is prolific and enormously talented. I said in that last review I wrote, that I had never yet met a Colleen Hoover book I hadn’t read in a day and here I am again: I started Verity at breakfast and was finished by mid-afternoon. So. Readable.

Verity is different to Colleen’s usual style and genre, but this just goes to show her skill as a writer, working within a completely different genre and absolutely nailing it. This novel is a twisting, unsettling, violent, creepy, sinister, sexy, psychologically mind-bending read that fully consumed me. I could not put it down. My daughter read it before me and devoured it in a day. With shades of Gillian Flynn blending with classics along the lines of Jane Eyre and Rebecca, our protagonist finds herself uncovering a story so horrifying, it beggars’ belief, and of course, all the while, she’s in a house in a remote area, falling for a grieving man…utter perfection.

‘It’s what you do when you’ve experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you…people worse off than you…and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you.’

The twist at the end to cast doubt over all that had come before only confirmed to me that my theory on Verity was correct. In other words, I didn’t fall for the twist. I still think she’s utterly deranged, but I’m happy to debate on it with you if you feel otherwise. Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Book Review: To the Sea by Nikki Crutchley

About the Book:

Keep a secret. Tell a lie. Protect the family. At all costs.

A compulsively readable suspense thriller from Ngaio Marsh Award shortlisted author, Nikki Crutchley, which will keep you guessing and reading up until late into the night.

Iluka has been the only home that 18-year-old Ana has ever known. The beautiful wild pine plantation overlooking the Pacific Ocean where her grandfather builds furniture, her aunt runs an artists’ retreat and her uncle tends the land, is paradise, a private idyll safe from the outside world.

But the place holds a violent secret and when a stranger arrives, Ana will need to make a choice: to protect everything – and everyone – she holds dear or tell the truth and destroy it all.

An atmospheric, suspenseful, dark, and twisty thriller in the tradition of Daphne du Maurier, Paula Hawkins, Anna Downes and JP Pomare.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Released December 2021

My Thoughts:

This is without doubt one of the most sinister psychological thrillers I have read in an awfully long time. It’s one of those novels that mines a very dark terrain: control, coercion, intimidation, brainwashing, violence, and murder. This is one family whose secrets you do not want to dig into.

Hurley, the patriarch of this family, was a seriously deranged individual. However, it was his daughter, Anahita, who frightened me more. There was something missing in that child that allowed Hurley to take over her mind and nurture her into the destructive woman she became. This area of the story put me in mind of cults and how leaders can reshape the minds of their followers and influence them in ways that seems incredible to an outsider.

I do recommend this, particularly to those who like a very twisted and sinister psychological thriller. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before, and it would make a brilliant movie within the right hands.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.