The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots in Aussie Readers

Dec 13, 2011 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it really liked it

Shelves: aussie-author

The Girl in The Steel Capped Boots is a light contemporary novel that has a distinct Australian feel. It makes the most of it's unique setting, I love that it is set in the Pilbara in Western Australia. A sparsely populated and isolated area of the country, the Pilbara's stunning landscape has unique physical and emotional challenges for those that live and work in it.

I enjoyed the story and the characters. Lena Todd isn't exactly looking forward to spending months in the isolated Pilbara region The Girl in The Steel Capped Boots is a light contemporary novel that has a distinct Australian feel. It makes the most of it's unique setting, I love that it is set in the Pilbara in Western Australia. A sparsely populated and isolated area of the country, the Pilbara's stunning landscape has unique physical and emotional challenges for those that live and work in it.

I enjoyed the story and the characters. Lena Todd isn't exactly looking forward to spending months in the isolated Pilbara region building a massive wharf but she is determined to prove herself as a skilled engineer. As one of only five women amongst 350 men, Lena's designer label outfits and good looks don't make the good first impression she hoped for and being mistaken for a cleaner on her first day in the office shakes her confidence. Overcoming the sexist attitudes of the crew, and her own doubts about her abilities is a challenge but Lena surprises everyone, especially the client, when she proves she is capable of not only doing her job, but much more.

I was impressed with the way in which the author revealed the depth of Lena's character as the story progresses. My initial impression of Lena as a flaky party girl was repeatedly challenged as Lena demonstrated intelligence, courage and determination. It is wonderful that Lena not only survives but flourishes in the harsh and difficult conditions. Lena faces realistic situations in her new role, adjusting to living in a field of converted shipping containers (dongars), facing daily sexual harassment and the challenges of working on a massive building project.

While much of of the story explores Lena's adjustment to her unique environment, her relationship with Dan ‘Bulldog’ Hullog adds another layer to the plot. Dan is the demanding client, determined to keep the project on time and on budget, he is not a popular man amongst the crew and Lena is both intimidated by and wary of him. Their relationship is fraught with tension that slowly blossoms into heated attraction, especially when Lena learns of the tragic secret he is hiding.

In a place like the Barnes Inc camp it is not surprising that it has its share of characters. Lena's boss, Carl uses profanity as a noun, verb and adjective but for all his bluster he is a fair man with a soft heart. Gavin, young and cocksure, is a determined suitor who needs taking down a peg or two. Lena's wharf crew which includes men named Leg, Fish and Radar become her champions. Most importantly for Lena she befriends Sharon, one of the few women in the camp, who is the bus driver ferrying the men to the site and back. Lena also has her enemies, Mike is not going to listen to some girl and delights in sabotaging her where possible and she is the continued target of unwelcome harassment. Then there are the kangaroo's that seem determined to get in her way.

I was born in Western Australia and though it has been more than twenty years since I had no choice but to move to the other side of Australia, I still get pangs of homesickness when I read about my home state. Well written, funny and fascinating The Girl in the Steel Capped Boots is a wonderfully entertaining novel.
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Dec 19, 2013 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aussie-authors, borrowed-from-library, 2012-release, women-s-fiction, contemporary-fiction

When Lena Todd learned from her boss Ivan, that she was to be sent to the site on the Pilbara as the engineer for the construction team, she was bereft. She was a city girl through and through and the thought of no restaurants, no shops, no hair salons – she almost had a panic attack. But she knew she had no choice but to go – her future as an engineer depended on it. With her uni degree creating turmoil in her mind, she gritted her teeth and packed her suitcase.

Arriving on the site was an eye-o When Lena Todd learned from her boss Ivan, that she was to be sent to the site on the Pilbara as the engineer for the construction team, she was bereft. She was a city girl through and through and the thought of no restaurants, no shops, no hair salons – she almost had a panic attack. But she knew she had no choice but to go – her future as an engineer depended on it. With her uni degree creating turmoil in her mind, she gritted her teeth and packed her suitcase.

Arriving on the site was an eye-opener in itself – the animosity coming from Mike as he drove her from the airport to the offices was hard to take, but seeing what she would be living in – things called dongars; little boxes with room for a bit of furniture and not much else – what had she done! Then meeting her project manager Carl, whose vocabulary was different, to say the least! At least Sharon, who drove the bus from the offices to the wharf end and back every hour, seemed friendly. But 350 men and only one friendly woman? Her battle was uphill before she started.

As Lena began to introduce her ideas for improving production on the site, she was met with resistance at every turn. The client, Dan Hullog, or Bulldog as he was known by everyone, was an obnoxious, surly and hard to please man – so why did her pulse accelerate each time she saw him? The men harassed and tormented her – half the time she wasn’t sure if they were having a go or serious. Suddenly she decided enough was enough. She was about to take a stand! The red dust, the lonely men, the outback, even the kangaroos – all seemed out to get Lena! Would Lena head back to Perth with her tail between her legs, or would she succeed in her venture?

This is Loretta Hill’s debut novel, and as I’d read books two and three, I decided this one had to be read next. I thoroughly enjoyed it, Loretta’s writing is great – she took me through the outback of Australia, the scenes of the whales and dolphins frolicking in the ocean and the streets of Perth with ease; an absolute entertainment delight. A book I have no hesitation in recommending highly.
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Oct 19, 2017 Kathryn rated it it was ok

Shelves: australian-authors, fiction, reading-list-2017

2.5★ I did like elements of this story - the descriptions of the Pilbara were great.

But I didn’t fully believe in the main character, Lena. She is portrayed as a very girly-girl who colour-coordinates her nail polish with her clothes, and seems to be quite a ditzy person in many respects, and yet we are expected to believe that she likes working with steel on construction sites and has the common sense and skills required to be an engineer - the two parts just didn’t seem to gel, for me at leas ...more

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Mar 24, 2012 Paula Phillips rated it it was amazing

Review: The Girl in the Steel-Capped Boots - Loretta Hill - January 2012
Wow , where to begin but to say I LOVED this book, it's funny I never used to be too much of an Australian Outback type writer but after reading North Star by Karly Lane, I became hooked -so I blame it on Karly, but then if it wasn't for Karly and all the wonderful Australian novels that she promotes on her site , I wouldn't have met Loretta and heard about her new novel "The Girl in the Steel-Capped Boots". The Girl in the ...more

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Jan 06, 2012 Helene Young rated it really liked it

A humorous and wry look at life in the Pilbara through the eyes of a city girl. I enjoyed it enormously!

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Jan 28, 2012 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: aww2012, romance, australian, contemporary, series, library-reads, chick-lit, women-s-fiction

Lena Todd is a city girl from the top of her head down to her toes. Fresh out of university armed with an engineering degree, she is thrown into panic when her boss tells her that she’s green so they’re sending her up north to get some experience on one of their sites. The Pilbarra, in fact. She’ll be trading her lattes, shopping dates and city apartment for khakis, safety hats and a dongar – basically nothing more than a demountable building a couple metres long by a couple metres wide.

She’s ut Lena Todd is a city girl from the top of her head down to her toes. Fresh out of university armed with an engineering degree, she is thrown into panic when her boss tells her that she’s green so they’re sending her up north to get some experience on one of their sites. The Pilbarra, in fact. She’ll be trading her lattes, shopping dates and city apartment for khakis, safety hats and a dongar – basically nothing more than a demountable building a couple metres long by a couple metres wide.

She’s utterly horrified but she’s also paranoid. An ill-advised decision in university has made her doubt the legitimacy of her degree and she’s desperate for some experience and to prove herself as worthy of her job and her career choice. But she’s totally unprepared for what she finds when she lands on site – she’s one of 4 women in a camp of about 400 men and they’re condescending, dismissive and often downright rude. They come onto her, they laugh at her, they make life difficult for her whether by accident or design. But Lena is determined not to go home with her tail between her legs – she will crack this job.

She forms a friendship with one of the few other women on site – Sharon, a bus driver who drives the loop bus from the site offices to the project and back. The ‘project’ is a massive wharf that extends kilometres out into the sea and takes the iron ore mined in the state out the ships for exportation around the world. Lena’s job is to oversee the widening of the wharf and also to speed up productivity, which as the client keeps reminding them, is behind on just about everything.

The client. Dan Hullog, tall, dark, very ruggedly handsome, referred to as ‘Bulldog’ behind his back by the site workers. He’s a stickler for safety and the rules and regulations and isn’t afraid to let anyone know it. And he and Lena can’t seem to see eye to eye on much, or anything at all, actually. Rumour has it he never takes his R&R, he spends hours glued to his phone (mystery girlfriend, proclaims the camp) and he’s rude, not to mention not particularly well liked by the site crew. There’s a bit of a rivalry between the site crew and the client organisation and Lena knows that life is tough enough for her on site as it is. If everyone were to find out that she was harbouring a crush on ‘Bulldog’ – then things would get even worse than unbearable. Dan also has his own secrets and when Lena finds out what they are, she wants to help… To be his friend. Only Dan won’t stop pushing her away.

The Girl In Steel-Capped Boots first came to my attention via Danielle over at the ALPHA Reader’s excellent review and I knew there and then I immediately wanted to read it. It’s since also been reviewed favourably by Shelleyrae at Book’d Out and by the time I finally grabbed it from the library, I couldn’t wait to start it. And this is one of those books that makes you so glad to be excited, so happy to be finally reading it, because it’s worth it. I absolutely loved this book.

Lena is responsible for a lot of my enjoyment of this book. I really liked her and admired her the way she dug in and dealt with the obstacles in her way when she arrived in The Pilbarra. She’s young, fresh out of university but doubting herself due to something that happened while she was still a student, so she’s doubly determined not to fail at this job. She has to deal with men up there thinking she’s the new cleaner, ignoring her, leering at her, asking her out, borderline molesting her, talking about her, following her, gossiping about her, being condescending to her, the works. And somehow she always finds ways to deal with them, to put them in their place or earn their grudging respect in ways that are just awesome. She thinks about things, she doesn’t lose her temper and scream to give them even more of an excuse to judge her or look down on her.

This book excels in many areas but one of my favourites was the cast of supporting characters. From Sharon, the bus driver Lena enters into a friendship with, to Carl, her boss who can’t stop swearing, to the likable guys down at the wharf to Dan Hullog, aka Bulldog, there is a host of likable and colourful Australian characters that don’t fail to provoke a reaction with their relationships with Lena, be it frustration when the men are being macho, humour when they’re gently ribbing her or warm and fuzzies when she makes friends. The chemistry between Lena and Dan is also sizzling – I so enjoyed their journey! Their very reluctant mutual attraction, Lena’s stumbling attempts at friendship and not wanting to repeat past mistakes, Dan desperately attempting to resist his feelings and keep his stand-offish manner in tact makes for a rollercoaster read and an awesome one at that.

I mention often that I have an awesome library and I read quite frequently from there and I know books are there if I need to re-read them as I’m an avid re-reader! But every now and then something comes along that I enjoy so much that I have to run out and buy it (or stay in and click a button) and add it to my personal collection so that I know it’s right there whenever I feel the urge to pick it up and read a favourite section. And The Girl In The Steel-Capped Boots is one of these books. ...more

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Jan 23, 2016 Janine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

This book is set in WA and tells the story of Lena who is a new graduate with a degree in Engineering. Her boss sends her to this area to get some experience working in the sparsely populated and remote Pilbara region. She is pretty green when she arrives and has to fit in and gain respect of her co-workers who are all Aussie blokes. It took me a while to get into this book, as believe it or not the narrator sounded too Australian!! But as it went on it was actually quite a funny book. Of course ...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Tanya rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed this book. It was a lot of fun, quick and easy to read. I don't think I stopped smiling and laughing throughout most of the book!
Lena is a very likable character, and so great to get to know. The support characters were also great, they worked so well together and the story was just so well done. More than that though, it was refreshing to read Australian characters and an Australian story.
This was quite different to my usual fare, but I am so glad I read it. Definitely worth ch ...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Marg rated it really liked it

4.5/5

Loved the setting, the secondary characters, the feeling of warmth that radiated from the page.

With a hero nicknamed Bulldog how could you go wrong.

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