All the Reviews

As the blurb puts it, "It isn't easy, being a teenage pharaoh. You're not allowed to carry money, uninhibited young women peel your grapes for you, everyone thinks you're responsible for making the sun rise and the corn grow, you keep dreaming about seven thin cows and seven fat cows (one of them playing the trombone), and on top of everything else, the Great Pyramid has just exploded because of paracosmic instability."

I'm not sure you could call this the sort of First World problems that confront your average great leader, especially when the rest of the blurb states " ... Read review

Hands up those of us raised on a reading diet of Trixie Belden and the Famous Five, who sneakily always wondered why nothing "interesting" ever happened at home. RAIN FALL is a young adult novel set in rural, green, lush New Zealand, in a place that did seem strikingly similar to the green hills of England.

Annie lives with her parents in the small, isolated community, a horse obsessed teenager, who loves her glorious Chestnut gelding. When she meets young professional rodeo rider Jack Robertson, a romantic attachment starts to build, complicated by the fact that Jack's ... Read review

The abuse, stalking, and/or terrorising of young women is something we read about in the news these days with depressing regularity. It's always about the consequences, often of events that were downplayed, covered up or ignored by victims and the authorities. What is it about the way women have been raised in this day and age that makes everyone, even from a young age, assume that the behaviour of others is their fault? (Rhetorical question obviously - victim blaming / shaming / female behaviour controlling / avoiding talking about the perpetrator's sense of entitlement ....).  ... Read review

ONE SINGLE THING is the second in the Hunter Grant series from NZ author Tina Clough. You don't have to have read the earlier book (THE CHINESE PROVERB, 2017) to get this outing to work, but this series is developing into something a bit special, and it's always best to get in at the start when that's going on.

Somehow I managed completely and utterly to miss posting a review of THE CHINESE PROVERB when I read it, so this is now a combined thing. The first book in the series was released in 2017, after an earlier standalone novel by the same author.

THE ... Read review

The second in the Unreliable Memoirs set of books sees Clive James newly arrived in post-war England, a Sydney boy trying to make good in the bright lights, high(er) society and learned sets of English society. Don't read this, however, if you're expecting the really breezy, cleverly observant, self-deprecating ways of his childhood. Young adult Clive James is a different beast and he's out of place, out of step and seemingly somewhat out of clues in this world.

Moving from self-deprecation clearly into a form of almost self-loathing, the Clive James that is trying to ... Read review

Tapping into the guilt of parents everywhere who have all had their days where it simply went to hell on public transport, Little White Lies is a novel about repercussions, regret and the tangled webs we weave.

The life of the White family moved on, as it had to, after the disappearance of young Abigail from a busy London subway platform.  Anne has kept her family together whilst managing her grief, attending to the necessary tasks of raising her twins and being a supportive spouse to her husband Robert. Receiving a call that Abigail has walked into a suburban police ... Read review

Every now and then we meet a literary villain who is both villain and victim.  Meet Bella, a young woman who does not take kindly to being sidelined or left behind.  You might recognize her. Someone who once worked in your office.  Someone who once dated one of your friends.  Someone you’d like never to meet again.  This is She.

After being so inexplicably dumped by the ebullient Charlotte, Ben was not expecting to bounce into rebound quite so soon.  Sweet successful relationship revenge comes in the form of Bella, a drop dead gorgeous young professional who rides into ... Read review

You know those books that pop up so often on your feeds that you begin to feel that the universe (and lots of very savvy literary publicists) would really like you to read them?  This is how I came to read THE HUNTING PARTY by Lucy Foley.  Having heard many good things, and with Foley’s second crime novel now in the pipeline for a February release, it was time to find out why so many people latched onto Foley’s first intriguing crime thriller.   

Seven friends, most of which went to college together, gather for their traditional New Year’s vacation.  It’s a time to catch ... Read review

A comment often made about BRUNY is that readers going in did not know it was going to be such a political read.  BRUNY is one of those works that very effectively puts the frighteners on for many fronts; climate change, politics, foreign investment, cultural divides – swing the proverbial, you’ll find it here. 

The building of a bridge between mainland Tasmania and Bruny Island is a contentious issue with many island residents not seeing the point of making a part of the world that should be protected that so much more accessible.  Called back home by the twin powers ... Read review