Theresa Smith's Blog, page 97
August 15, 2019
The Week That Was…
Birds of Tokyo…thank you very much! So close, so good.
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TV in review:
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Loved this short series. Read why here.
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#rebeccabuddyread wraps up on Sunday. Will definitely be doing something like this again with the Page by Page book club. The response has been fabulous.
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Joke of the Week:
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Book of the Week:
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What I’m reading right now:
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Until next week…
August 13, 2019
Book Review: Where the Dead Go by Sarah Bailey
About the Book:
Four years after the events of Into the Night, DS Gemma Woodstock is on the trail of a missing girl in a small coastal town.
A fifteen-year-old girl has gone missing after a party in the middle of the night. The following morning her boyfriend is found brutally murdered in his home. Was the girl responsible for the murder, or is she also a victim of the killer? But who would want two teenagers dead?
The aftermath of a personal tragedy finds police detective Gemma Woodstock in the coastal town of Fairhaven with her son Ben in tow. She has begged to be part of a murder investigation so she can bury herself in work rather than taking the time to grieve and figure out how to handle the next stage of her life – she now has serious family responsibilities she can no longer avoid. But Gemma also has ghosts she must lay to rest.
Gemma searches for answers, while navigating her son’s grief and trying to overcome the hostility of her new colleagues. As the mystery deepens and old tensions and secrets come to light, Gemma is increasingly haunted by a similar missing persons case she worked on not long before. A case that ended in tragedy and made her question her instincts as a cop. Can she trust herself again?
A riveting thriller by the author of the international bestseller The Dark Lake, winner of both the Ned Kelly Award and the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for a debut crime novel.
My Thoughts:
“My relationship with death is solid. We go way back.”
They say all good things must come to an end but I must say, a trilogy seems just a bit too short when it comes to Detective Gemma Woodstock. A series seems more fitting. Maybe when we get to book fifteen you can think of winding it up Sarah, but until then, we’re not quite ready to let go. I’ll just leave that with you for now and you can get back to me with a date for book four.
Well, where do I begin? What a book! It seemed a tad longer than the previous two, but wow! Every page mattered. Where the Dead Go is next level crime fiction, and I’ve said it twice already, but seriously, police procedural at its finest. There’s a four year gap between Into the Night and Where the Dead Go. At first, I felt this gap a bit. Gemma was in a different place with different people and being haunted by a case I knew nothing about. Once the pieces began to slide into place, and the picture began to form, all was good, but it reminded me how interlocked these books are – definitely better read as a set, preferably close together.
We’ve seen Gemma grow throughout this trilogy. She’s gone from bad to worse and back again several times but this time, I feel she was at her best. This doesn’t make much sense when you consider that she was largely an emotional wreck for 98% of the novel, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. I mean, her character growth had driven her to this point of brilliance inside her career, possessing more self-control than what I’ve ever seen before, determined, sharp, and stepping up to her maternal yearning for Ben. With Scott gone, as well as being removed from Smithson, Gemma was able to be Ben’s mother without interference. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the two of them getting by.
Whilst investigating two cases side by side, which may or may not have been related, Gemma is haunted by the case of another missing girl – the one she didn’t solve in time. It’s a harrowing cross to bear and she’s determined all the way through this current investigation to not mirror her ‘mistakes’ from before – even though there was nothing at all she could have done to alter the outcome of the previous case. I really like how the author unwrapped this for us, layer by layer as the tension mounted with the current case. It was skilfully done, heightening our awareness of the short distance from missing to dead. I kept thinking, as the pieces all slotted together, of innocent bystanders. The far reaching grip of evil when the circle of crime widens beyond control.
Where the Dead Go is compelling reading. Gritty, realistic, atmospheric and chilling. An absolute cracker of a read that I can’t even begin to recommend highly enough.
“As a detective I’ve touched death with my bare hands. I’ve circled it, smelled it and looked it straight in the eye. I know it’s never far away. I spend a lot of my life thinking about it, talking about it, even expecting it – and when you confront something over and over, your brain eventually relaxes around it.”
Thanks is extended to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a copy of Where the Dead Go for review.
About the Author:
Sarah Bailey is a Melbourne-based writer with a background in advertising and communications. She has two young children and is currently the Managing Partner of advertising agency VMLY&R in Melbourne. Over the past five years she has written a number of short stories and opinion pieces. Her first novel, the bestselling The Dark Lake, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2017, followed by Into the Night in 2018. Where the Dead Go is her third novel in the Gemma Woodstock series.
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Where the Dead Go
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released August 2019
August 11, 2019
Book Review: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
About the Book:
A heart-warming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there’s not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.
Stella Lane thinks mathematics is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases, a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with and far less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.
It doesn’t help that Stella has Asperger’s and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice – with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. Gorgeous and conflicted, Michael can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan, from foreplay to more-than-missionary position.
Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses but to crave all of the other things he’s making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic . . .
My Thoughts:
‘I like you better than calculus…’
After reading The Bride Test recently, and absolutely loving it, a friend offered to lend me her copy of The Kiss Quotient. I jumped at the offer…and read it immediately. It was exactly what I felt like reading mid-week after a few busy days at work. The Kiss Quotient is a romance of sorts, a rom-com, and it contains a heavy amount of steamy sex scenes, probably even more so than The Bride Test, but it definitely has a lot more to it than just sex and laughs.
When it comes to economics and mathematics, Stella Lane is brilliant. Social skills, less so, but she is not unaware of this, and in a bid to improve her chances of success with dating and relationships, she hires an escort. A very attractive escort that reminds her of her favourite Korean TV star. The job she has for him? Teach her how to date, kiss, have sex, and be in a relationship. Despite his rules about seeing a client more than once, Michael has pressing financial concerns, so he agrees. And then the fun begins.
‘She needed to think at all times, to weigh her actions and her words. When she let go, she always made mistakes. She did the wrong thing, hurt people, mortified herself.’
I loved both Stella and Michael, who were particularly well suited to each other. Miscommunication abounds as their involvement with each other becomes more entangled, but true love is in the air, and their relationship gradually becomes more than a physical experiment. This is unconventional romance, and it might not sit well with everyone, particularly the high sex content, but I really enjoyed it. Through these two novels, The Kiss Quotient and The Bride Test, Helen Hoang is making great inroads at deconstructing labels and chipping away at preconceived notions about Autism Spectrum Disorder. She is redefining the base line for romance, and I am very much in favour of it.
‘All was silence but for their hearts trying to synchronize their crashing.’
About the Author:
Helen Hoang is that shy person who never talks. Until she does. And the worst things fly out of her mouth. She read her first romance novel in eighth grade and has been addicted ever since. In 2016, she was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in line with what was previously known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Her journey inspired The Kiss Quotient. She currently lives in San Diego, California with her husband, two kids, and pet fish.
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The Kiss Quotient
Published by Allen & Unwin
B Format Edition Released June 2019
August 10, 2019
Bookish TV: Z The Beginning of Everything
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Z The Beginning of Everything tells the story of the early years between Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s based on the novel, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler. I haven’t read the book but I am familiar with Fowler’s work having read the novel she wrote about the Vanderbilts. Her writing focuses on examining the wives of key people from American history, a trend that’s been emerging in recent years of which I quite like.
So, this series spans the years from Zelda and Scott first meeting through to the early days of Zelda’s pregnancy with their only child. In fact, the series finishes with Scott not yet even knowing that Zelda is pregnant, so there was definitely room to move into a second series but, I’ve read that the second series was cancelled before it even began, so I guess I’m just going to be left wanting on this one. It has spurred me to mark some books to read though, ones written about Zelda, and I’d also like to read some of Zelda’s own work too, now that I have an impression of her.
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Here’s the show synopsis:
Christina Ricci plays the role of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, a brilliant, beautiful and talented Southern belle, the original flapper and an icon of the Jazz Age in the flamboyant 1920s. Zelda is a free spirit, who longs for a bigger and better life. When Zelda meets an unpublished writer named F. Scott Fitzgerald, a passionate, turbulent and notorious love affair emerges. This fictionalized biography pulls back the curtain on the wild parties and the music, as well the struggles, adultery, dark secrets and dashed dreams.
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I’m not too sure about the adultery and dark secrets bit, but certainly the struggles and dashed dreams feature heavily. Apart from one interlude with a woman at a party where Scott appeared to have consumed gin for several days without pause, adultery was not an issue portrayed within the show. Perhaps it came later within their marriage, but it didn’t feature in the early years covered here. What was featured, and also of great interest to me, was the way in which Scott mined Zelda for material. He struck me right from the beginning as a man who wrote to be famous, not because he had any burning need to write. Indeed, after the successful release of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, he only seriously began writing another novel when sales for this one dwindled down to nothing and he had effectively run out of money. But even when he and Zelda removed themselves from the party scene so he could write, he penned a few short stories for bread and butter money but the next novel alluded him. Zelda, on the other hand, had long kept a journal filled with her thoughts, musings, passages of prose, dreams. Scott would read this daily for ‘inspiration’ but in reality, he was mining her creativity because he appeared to have very little of his own. He made an error of judgement in showing this journal to his publisher as evidence he was working hard, using Zelda’s material. His publisher then became interested in Zelda’s work from a publishing standpoint, which of course didn’t sit well with Scott. As well as a creative thief, he was also one of those people who can’t handle criticism, who crave adulation yet are besieged by insecurities that hark back to growing up with less when they felt entitled to more. In short, he was the ‘famous writer’, not Zelda.
‘What does Zelda do, Scott?’
‘Do? Why Zelda is my wife. She doesn’t have to do anything but that.’
Indeed. By the time this show wraps up, you can clearly see where everything was headed. They loved each other deeply, but Scott’s dismissal of Zelda as anything other than his muse was rather tragic. She was such a creative, effervescent, illuminated woman. Possibly more talented than her husband. I’ll have to read some of her work and come back to this thought.
Z The Beginning of Everything: 7/10
August 8, 2019
The Week That Was…
I’m off to see Birds of Tokyo tonight, who are performing an exclusive set at the 60th anniversary Mount Isa Rodeo. Very excited! 
August 7, 2019
Series Feature: The Belleville Family Saga by J Mary Masters
Spanning three books and set from 1942 through to the 1950s, the Belleville family series is classic Australian town and country drama, with a distinctive atmosphere of bygone days. Dramatic and absorbing, this series will take you on an emotional journey through the lives of one family, offering up a true saga opportunity that you can really sink into and get lost in for the duration. Fans of Downton Abbey and A Place to Call Home will delight in this series. It also reminded me to a certain degree of the family sagas written by the late Penny Vincenzi, but with an old world Australian feel. This series is best read back to back, in order to fully immerse yourself in the lives of the Belleville family. Highly recommended reading for fans of historical fiction and family sagas, and for those who appreciate quality Australian fiction.
About the Series:
Julia’s Story – Book 1:
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Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, this is the heartbreaking story of a young girl in love, the secret she must never reveal and the family who betrayed her trust.
It is 1942. The world is at war. Julia Belleville, the headstrong only daughter of the wealthy Belleville family, falls hopelessly in love with American Army surgeon Dr Philippe Duval. When he is suddenly posted away, Julia is devastated, fearing she will never see him again.
Half a world away, Julia’s elder brother Richard is fighting for Britain, flying dangerous missions across the Channel knowing the next mission could be his last. He meets the beautiful Catherine Cavendish whose aristocratic parents disapprove strongly of the brash young Australian officer. Is he destined to find happiness with Catherine or will he be haunted forever by, Jane, the woman he left behind?
Brought up in Richard’s shadow, William Belleville resents the popularity of his older brother and when there is an unexpected death in the family, it is William who attempts to usurp his older brother’s authority and take charge of the family fortune.
And then there is the matriarch Elizabeth Belleville, whose preference for her elder son is well known, but who must endure the fecklessness of her husband, Francis, and the disappointment of a failing marriage.
Into this mix comes James Fitzroy, handsome and charming, who sets his sights on Julia. But can she ever really love him?
To Love, Honour & Betray – Book 2
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A chance encounter. A secret from the grave. A brutal act of revenge. Ten years on and heartbreak threatens to tear the Belleville family apart as their deepest secrets are tragically exposed.
It’s 10 years since the end of book 1, Julia’s Story and the stresses are beginning to show in two marriages.
Julia Belleville, now Fitzroy, continues to mourn the daughter she was forced to give up, while her husband James begins to look elsewhere.
And Catherine, Richard Belleville’s wife, restless and unimpressed by her life in Australia, embraces the unexpected events in her family that draw her back to her English life.
Hundreds of miles from the Belleville family’s grand home Prior Park, a terrible accident robs a young girl of her parents. It is only later that the consequences of this tragedy become known.
And what of Alistair McGovern, the late Francis Belleville’s bastard son? Now a young adult, he demands his share of the Belleville fortune but is spurned by the two brothers, Richard and William, who will do anything to ensure this terrible secret never reaches their mother Elizabeth Belleville. When he is finally rejected, his anger and disappointment can only lead him in one direction.
And what of Dr Philippe Duval, the man Julia loved and lost. What news from the past brings him back to Australia, a country he thought he would never visit again?
Return to Prior Park – Book 3
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A final act of vengeance. An illicit liaison. A passionate affair. Against this backdrop, the Belleville family begin to rebuild their shattered lives and reclaim the future of Prior Park for the next generation.
As the Belleville family begin to rebuild their shattered lives, they believe they are safe from the madman Alistair McGovern. Yet he escapes from custody to attempt one final act of vengeance on the family. In the aftermath of this final desperate act, each of them must come to terms with the events of the past.
Julia Belleville begins to question whether she can recapture the romance of her first love, little knowing she may have a rival. Her elder brother Richard, determined to gain custody of his two sons, laments the failure of his marriage to Catherine, who is already looking elsewhere. Yet Richard too finds himself falling in love against his better judgement even as he confronts Julia’s first love Philippe Duval over his troubling behaviour.
Meanwhile, at their new home, it is William and Alice who provide the stability of a settled family life. Yet they too are caught up in the unsettled lives of the people they love.
About the Author:
Judith M Masters, writing as J Mary Masters, is an Australian novelist living on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Much of the setting for the three Belleville books derives from her early life in country Queensland. Before choosing to write full time, Judith was the publisher and founder of Australia’s most successful defence business magazine Australian Defence Magazine. Reflecting on her Belleville characters, she says: ‘I’ve become very emotionally engaged with the Belleville family. Even though they are fictional characters, they feel alive to me. I want my readers to feel the same emotional response I do.’
Thanks is extended to the author for providing me with a copy of all three titles in the Belleville family series for review.
Published by PMA Books
August 6, 2019
Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
About the Book:
Winner: 2019 Novel of the Year and Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, and the 2018 Costa Novel Award: Sally Rooney set the books world buzzing in 2017 with her debut Conversations With Friends.
Normal People is a girl-meets-boy story with a difference, interrogating the difficulties of sincere communication in a complicated, post-ironic world.
Long-listed Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 UK
Long-listed MAN Booker Prize 2018 UK
Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation – awkward but electrifying – something life-changing begins.
Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can’t.
My Thoughts:
What can I say about Normal People that hasn’t already been said? It has almost 80,000 ratings on Goodreads, the majority of these three, four and five stars. I myself have given it four stars, but I only downgraded it from five stars when I got to the last page. That ending! No! I hate it when a book just stops like that. I just wanted to reach in and shake these two characters and say to them: “No. Not again!” – but enough about that. I’ve settled on four stars so that’s what it’s going to be – but in case you were wondering, it really is more like four and a half/four and three quarters.
I found Normal People to be one of those novels you just slip into and exist in for the duration. The absence of dialogue punctuation – usually something that would bother me greatly – added to this sense of intimacy. I also really liked the style of each chapter moving ahead a few weeks or months, with passages of recall to get you up to speed on the intervening moments. It takes a great deal of skill to write in this way, not everybody could pull this off. And then there’s the Irish wit and ironic humour. I suppose, in a way, given my love of Irish literature, this one was always going to be a winner for me.
If ever there was a couple destined to be together, Connell and Marianne are it. But this is not a love story, or at least, not in the traditional romantic sense. It’s more 80s angst, despite being set from 2011 through to 2015. 80s angst with a millennial edge – there you go! When Connell and Marianne first become involved whilst at high school, all of the power within their relationship seems to rest with Connell. When they connect again at college, the balance of power appears to have tilted in Marianne’s favour. But in reality, over time, we see how each of them are fully at the mercy of the other, and herein lies the truth about their relationship: they are better together than apart. Things never go right for the other whenever they are separated. Yet, an inability to fully communicate with each other that seemed rooted in that fear of judgement that seems to besiege young people these days, sees them stuck in a toxic cycle of pain and misunderstanding.
This is not just a story about Connell and Marianne as a couple though. It’s also their individual stories. I ached for them both as they navigated their way through life, desperately seeking the status of being normal. There’s heavy themes woven tightly into the lives of these two, things that many of us might be able to relate to on a more intimate level than we would ever have wished. But that’s life for you – you don’t always get the best hand dealt to you. I was on the verge of tears for a lot of this story, not because it’s overly sad but because sometimes really shitty things happen in life and Sally just seemed to nail this so well. To say I loved this novel is possibly an understatement. I’m starting to think now, after writing this review, that I need to just let go of my hang up about the ending and give it five stars. I have a definite book hangover from this one, and that doesn’t happen very often to me.
‘Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she’s aware of this now, while it’s happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.’
I love this review by Kate over at booksaremyfavouriteandbest, her literary mixtape for Normal People. So on point. She prompted me to just get on and read it already, but she also made me think about it in terms of music. I have just one track on repeat for this, my Normal People anthem if you like:
Powderfinger’s My Happiness, but this particular version covered by Ballpark Music last year for Triple J’s Like a Version.
Thanks is extended to Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of Normal People for review.
About the Author:
Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, The White Review, The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Kevin Barry’s Stonecutter and The Winter Page anthology. Her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, was the most popular debut in the 2017 end-of-year round-ups. Rooney was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for ‘Mr Salary’ and was the winner of the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award.
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Normal People
Published by Faber
B format edition released May 2019
August 4, 2019
Book Review: The Last Adventure of Napoleon Sunshine by Pascal Ruter
About the Book:
Set in Paris, a quirky novel about an inseparable grandfather and grandson who embark on a crazy adventure before life changes for good. For fans of THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS and THREE THINGS ABOUT ELSIE.
At the age of eighty-five my grandfather Napoleon decided he needed to try something new . . .
Everything starts to go south when Napoleon leaves his wife. An eighty-five-year-old former boxer with a restless, youthful spirit, Napoleon decides to say to hell with it all! He wants a new life. With his ten-year-old grandson Leonard Sunshine, he embarks on a moving adventure, a rebellion against everything that takes the fun out of life. Above all, Leonard is determined to spare his grandfather the fate of the elderly – his final years spent exiled in a retirement home.
The chaotic duo adopt a dog, drive a fake taxi, escape to the seaside, sabotage door-to-door salesmen and plot to kidnap a famous radio star.
From the heart of Paris to the coast of Normandy, THE LAST ADVENTURE OF NAPOLEON SUNSHINE is a moving, life-affirming and melancholy tale of new beginnings and the importance of family.
My Thoughts:
The Last Adventure of Napoleon Sunshine begins as equal parts absurd and delightful, told with a vigour that is wholly French. Napoleon seems determined to act in a manner that is entirely contrary to the expectations of what an elderly man should act like. At the age of 85, he divorces his beloved Josephine – don’t you just love this nod to French history? – and seems determined to live out every day in whatever manner he pleases, ridiculous be damned. His general, grandson Leonard, is happy to go along for the ride, although as an insightful ten year old, he knows that something is behind all of this, something bigger than anything that’s come before, but the knowledge of it is out of his reach.
‘You don’t get divorced at eighty-five, going on eighty-six. You don’t add to your house at that age and you do accept help with renovating and redecorating. In fact, you don’t redecorate at all at that age. You wait. You wait for the end to come.’
This story is funny, at times ridiculous, yet always entertaining. And then reality rears its head and we see, along with Leonard, the real reason behind Napoleon’s late change of life. There is a depth and meaning to this story that caused a lump to form and wedge itself firmly in my throat. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful, the way this story unfolds, and unexpectedly melancholic. It would make an absolutely splendid film, but only if it were made as a French film; anything different would certainly spoil it.
‘Once more he walked away from me. Without a backward glance he rode off into the vast empty plains of old age, his horse’s hooves drumming on the frozen ground.’
The characters within this story just popped right off the page, not just Napoleon, who was certainly larger than life and Leonard, who was an absolute darling. But Josephine as well, with her generous and forgiving nature, along with her sharp humour. Leonard’s parents, particularly his mother, intuitively drawing all that was too big to say, capturing the emotions of everyday in her life sketches. I felt so sorry for Leonard’s father at times, bearing the brunt of Napoleon’s insults, suffering the whims of both of his parents. But he bore it all with grace and the dedication of a loving and patient son. There is so much love in this story, it’s so ultimately uplifting. The Last Adventure of Napoleon Sunshine caught me by surprise, but in the very best of ways.
Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of The Last Adventure of Napoleon Sunshine for review.
About the Author:
Pascal Ruter grew up in the southern suburbs of Paris. He is the author of several books for young readers. The Last Adventure of Napoleon Sunshine is his first work of adult fiction. Ruter loves stories above everything, especially ones where the misfortune and severity of life are matched by the absurdity and humour of everyday situations. He currently lives in a tiny village in the middle of the forest of Fontainebleau.
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The Last Adventure of Napoleon Sunshine
Published by Hachette Australia – Little Brown
Released on 6th June 2019
August 3, 2019
Book Review (kind of, more like a chapter): White Horses by Rachael Treasure
About the Book:
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From one of Australia’s bestselling and much-loved authors comes a sweeping, powerful story of a young woman who has to overcome terrible loss and trauma to find the courage to live life on her terms.
Following the disappearance of her mother when she was just a young child, Drift has been raised by her father, growing up to work alongside him as an itinerant cattle drover along the beautiful coastline of remote Western Australia. It’s a tough life, but nurtured and taught by two wise women – Wilma, a gentle travelling librarian and straight-talking Charlie, the legendary mobile saddler – Drift grows up to become a confident, idealistic young woman.
But the world Drift lives in can be ugly and brutal. After a horrific sexual assault, Drift meets a handsome young stockman, but he is not all that he seems and she is drawn into a baffling world of lies and mysteries, centring on a lushly beautiful property called The Planet, run by a wealthy American woman. When Drift’s father is hospitalised following a tragic accident and the young man she loves disappears, Drift has to find the courage to make her own way in the world. Drawing upon the deep well of women’s wisdom taught her by Charlie and Wilma, Drift has to overcome heartbreak, betrayal, loneliness and pain in order to forge her path, own her truth, and create the kind of world that she wants to live in.
Drift is a heroine to cheer for, and White Horses is a novel full of authentic Australian heart and soul, warmth and humour, as big and as generous as those wide-open skies in Western Australia. Offering a vision of a vibrant and thriving rural Australia based on Treasure’s own experience and knowledge of regenerative agriculture, White Horses is both inspiring and captivating; another classic from the much-loved author of the iconic and bestselling novels Jillaroo and The Farmer’s Wife.
My Thoughts:
Okay, so I’ve read the first chapter of this one and here are the reasons why I’m not reading the rest of the book:
“Shaynene threw her phone down theatrically, her melon breasts wobbling in her low-cut red tank top, causing the tiger tattooed on her left boob to jiggle too. She interrupted her monologue and swung around to the pigeonhole mailboxes and gathered up a large bundle for Drift. ‘Your dad has two copies of his brainbox magazine in there — it means you must’ve been gone a while. What? Over four months? I’ve had two roots since. And not from the same bloke neither.’”
“Drift glanced at Shaynene’s short-as-short shorts, which bit into thighs as juicy as delicious Christmas hams.”
“And after work, I’d better go shave me legs and tizz up my southerly bits.”
I should point out, the first chapter is rather short, so this rot is condensed, making it even harder to stomach. The sexualised food analogy is weird enough, but coming from a female perspective, it’s downright strange. The cliché Aussie rural speech gives an impression that residents of rural Australia are not only uneducated, but possibly also have speech impediments, and no class whatsoever. Frankly, as a resident of rural Australia myself, this sort of rot is offensive and intolerable. And the author had the gall to preface this chapter with #metoo. Maybe this is an excellent book. But with a start like this, I have sub-zero interest in finding out.
Thanks is extended to HarperCollins Publishers Australia via NetGalley for providing me with a copy of White Horses and subsequently saving me from wasting my money on a copy, as I found the cover quite appealing and may have picked it up one time on a whim. #nearmiss
Released on 19th August 2019
August 2, 2019
Six Degrees of Separation from The Light Between Oceans to Sea Glass…
A new month means a new round of #6degrees and this month’s starting book is a wildcard – the book each of us ended with in July.
You can find the details and rules of the #6degrees meme at booksaremyfavouriteandbest, but in a nutshell, everyone has the same starting book and from there, you connect to other books. Some of the connections made are so impressive, it’s a lot of fun to follow.
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I ended July’s #6degrees with The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. A few different themes warred for my attention but I kept getting lost so I’m going with the obscenely obvious ‘Ocean’ in the title link.
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My first stop is with The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge by Kali Napier, which I read very early on, pre-publication. This one was a five star read for me. Incidentally, this novel is connected to my starting one in the era in which it’s set along with some similarity in post-war themes, so no matter which way my mind was going with this chain today, I was always coming back to these two books being linked.
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Next stop on the ocean tour is The Oceans Between Us by Gill Thompson, sitting on my TBR since before publication. Must get onto this one as reviews indicate it’s a book I’d like a lot.
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From TBR to wish list, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman will be released again in an illustrated edition in November. I’m looking forward to this release!
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Another book languishing on my TBR, but the electronic one this time, is The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Bought at some stage, likely on a Kindle deal, but I do really like the sound of it.
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While searching through my e-library with the keyword ‘ocean’, I came across Enslaved by the Ocean by Bella Jewel. I’d say this was a free book for Samsung users and I am unlikely to ever read it, but this is where my ocean linking began to unravel. Desperation was setting in! I had no more ocean books!
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Well, ever resourceful, my last book is Sea Glass by Anita Shreve. The sea is just a little ocean anyway, kind of – they’re both salt water covering the earth’s surface. I am a long time fan of Anita Shreve and Sea Glass was a top read, as all of hers are. It’s fitting to end on a favourite authour.
Next month we are linking to A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I better read it! Until then…
