Shelter from the Storm in Aussie Readers

Jan 04, 2023 Brenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own-read, arc, aussie-authors, sent-by-publisher, reviewing-by-request, 3500-2023, 2023-release, contemporary-fiction, mystery, rural

When Lieutenant Patience Cartwright took a secondment after her latest blunder with a superior officer, she found herself not far from her childhood home in Horseshoe Hill, as well as being part of the team her best friend from when she was young also worked with. Determined to keep a handle on things, her work with Associate Professor Richard Lipman and biologist Dr Hugo Halstead progressed well. Working with and for the environment and everything it entailed meant Patience was content, as long ...more

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Dec 13, 2022 Helen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: review-copy-from-netgalley

WOW I have been waiting for Hugo’s story since Starting from Scratch and pairing him with Patience Cartwright, who I got to know a bit about in Clouds on the Horizon was just perfect, Hugo and Patience have a past, one that had many ups and downs, but will they finally find their happiness?

Patience is a naval officer and extremely independent this comes from the childhood she had were she stood up for her sisters to protect them, home is where she lays her hat is her saying, after leaving Horses WOW I have been waiting for Hugo’s story since Starting from Scratch and pairing him with Patience Cartwright, who I got to know a bit about in Clouds on the Horizon was just perfect, Hugo and Patience have a past, one that had many ups and downs, but will they finally find their happiness?

Patience is a naval officer and extremely independent this comes from the childhood she had were she stood up for her sisters to protect them, home is where she lays her hat is her saying, after leaving Horseshoe Hill years ago with a broken heart she vows never to return. But her career is on the line at the moment and she is offered a secondment to help out a group of biologists and scientists as they research water and the environment. This though will take her back to Horseshoe Hill and Hugo and his wonderful family, how will she protect her heart.

Hugo has bought a property in Horseshoe and is working hard with the environment team but when he learns that Patience will be helping them out he is not happy at all there are requirements of this secondment that he knows Patience does not have but he has no say in the matter and is drawn to his Imp where will this lead them?

Patience is working hard and getting on with the team when she falls dreadfully ill and ends up in hospital and needs time to heal, Hugo’s mother insists on taking her in to care for her, this brings her closer to Hugo but their relationship is still turbulent but as a reader I could feel the love between them they had so many issues to get over from the past, Hugo is so protective and Patience so independent and with the secrets Patience must keep this adds to the angst between them.

I loved this story, I have never missed a Penelope Janu story and I just think they keep getting better with each one, as I said Hugo has been a favourite of mine for a while and I loved Patience and being back in Horseshoe Hill. The research that must have been done is clearly seen in the story, the maths never my favourite subject was so interesting, hearing about Hugo’s favourite reptiles frogs the best, there are some wonderful characters in this one that also add to the story, this one is beautifully told with caring and love and it is a story that I would highly recommend, can’t wait for the next book MS Janu thank you for so many hours of reading pleasure and Hugo’s story.

My thanks to Netgally for my digital copy to read and review.
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Dec 31, 2022 Bree T rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, arc, australian, rural, contemporary

This is the third year in a row that my first read has been Penelope Janu’s new release and it’s always a perfect way to start the reading year. All her books exist in the same world and the characters are generally connected to at least one of the characters from the previous book (or one before that). In this book, we meet Patience, who is Phoebe’s sister (Phoebe was in Clouds On The Horizon which detailed the troubled childhood of the three sisters, Phoebe, Patience and Prim) and Hugo, who wa This is the third year in a row that my first read has been Penelope Janu’s new release and it’s always a perfect way to start the reading year. All her books exist in the same world and the characters are generally connected to at least one of the characters from the previous book (or one before that). In this book, we meet Patience, who is Phoebe’s sister (Phoebe was in Clouds On The Horizon which detailed the troubled childhood of the three sisters, Phoebe, Patience and Prim) and Hugo, who was Sapphie’s close friend from Starting From Scratch. Patience is in the Navy and has often been posted to boats overseas, some disciplinary issues lead to her being seconded to an environmental team as an assistant with an added role known to no one else in the team. Working on that project is Hugo Halstead, someone from Patience’s younger years. They swam in the same swim team and like everyone else who knew Hugo, Patience developed a crush on him – that seemed reciprocated until he broke her heart. Patience has avoided him ever since and when she’s injured and needs care, the only place for her to go is with Hugo’s parents who have a farm. For Patience, that means she won’t be able to avoid him and what happened between them years ago, any longer.

I just love her books and this one is no exception. I enjoyed Patience’s personality – she’s not exactly what old school military people might see as Navy material. She’s a bit rebellious, she’s a bit more tolerant when her recruits act up and break the rules and she’s not the type to take bad behaviour from superiors. However she’s being punished for speaking out and one of her commanding officers is disapproving of her and wants her out of the service. This secondment to the environmental project is really Patience’s last chance to stay in a job that she desperately values. She’s something of a genius with mathematics and numbers but isn’t suited to teaching and without the Navy, it seems she feels like she’d be lost. She definitely has trauma from their childhood, much like Phoebe. Each of the sisters process it in a different way and it impacts them in different ways as well.

As with most (if not all?) of Penelope Janu’s other books, there’s a strong environmental theme running throughout this book. Hugo is a biologist who specialises in amphibians so there’s a lot of information about some species or types of frogs and their habitats and different breeding and statistics. Patience can learn and memorise pretty much anything and when she takes over writing blog posts about Hugo’s work, it gives her an opportunity to reproduce what she has learned. I love frogs – I think they’re amazing. I was always the one that had to rescue them out of my parent’s pool, because my dad has a phobia of frogs. There are some really interesting types and this book mentions a few we’ve learned about through being members of the Zoo here, like the southern corroboree frog. There’s also quite a bit of talk about farming sustainably and Hugo has bought a particular property with the sole focus of rehabilitating parts of it. During her secondment, Patience works with a very particular-in-his-ways scientist, who was against her being chosen for the role but Patience proves herself to be very competent and the two of them build this little friendship which is very sweet. Patience has that ability, to endear herself to almost anyone and she’s genuinely very competent at many things. And the things that she cannot do, she is determined to be able to do, in order to fulfil her role, even when it’s something that legitimately terrifies her. I also love the animals that appear in these books – quite often recently it’s been horses and it’s made me revisit my childhood days as a frustrated horse-obsessed pre-teen and teen, who never was able to own a horse!

Hugo is also lovely – I liked him in Sapphie’s book and suspected we’d see him again and I thought his backstory with Patience was done very well. There were good reasons for why what happened, happened and even though it has been years since they have interacted meaningfully, Hugo knows her so well and has known her for so long. He’s the sort of calm and steady person that will tether Patience, provide the sort of stability for her that she’s lacked in her life and his family love her and care for her. The three sisters are close and have had to be everything for each other for various reasons but you can tell how much Patience enjoys her connection with Hugo’s mother, who cooks for everyone like it’s an Olympic sport and who takes care of Patience when she’s been injured and sick, with a lot of love.

Reading this has made me want to re-read all the previous books – we get a brief glimpse of what Phoebe is up to and a cameo or two from Sapphie and I love that so much! It’s one of my favourite things about reading a linked series, that as well as getting new characters to enjoy, we get those little updates from previous ones. And we got a bit of Prim in this one (the youngest sister) so I’m very much looking forward to her getting her own story in the future.

Really enjoyable.

***A copy of this book was provided by the publisher/author for the purpose of an honest review*** ...more

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Dec 30, 2022 Cathleen Ross rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2023

Patience Cartwright is removed from her naval ship to investigate some financial anomalies on a country water project.
The last person she wants to work with is her first love, biologist Hugo Halstead.

She has to conquer her fear of horses, her fear of going back to the country and all the old memories of her rotten home life resurfacing.
When ends up in hospital, she gets stuck back in Horseshoe Creek, living in her old love's parents' Granny Flat. She doesn't want to fall in love again as the wo ...more

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