Book Review: Red Can Origami by Madelaine Dickie #BRPreview

Red Can Origami

by

Madelaine Dickie

Publisher: Fremantle Press
Publication date: 1st December 2019
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 224
RRP: $29.99 AU
Format read: Paperback B+
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Better Reading 

 

Ava has just landed a job as a reporter in Gubinge, a tiny tropical town in Australia's north.

Gubinge has a way of getting under the skin. Ava is hooked on the thrill of going hand-to-hand with barramundi, awed by country, and stunned by pindan sunsets. But a bitter collision between a native title group and a Japanese-owned uranium mining company is ripping the community in half.

From the rodeos and fishing holes of northern Australia, to the dazzling streets of night-time Tokyo, Ava is swept in pursuit of the story. Will Gerro Blue destroy Burrika country? Or will a uranium mine lift its people from poverty? And can Ava hold on to her principles if she gives in to her desire for Noah, the local Burrika boss?

Red Can Origami is a powerful story of country and Australia’s indigenous people.

Dickie shows how big corporations, intent only on their own purpose, destroy the land with no regard to its original owners or their history.

Ava moves to Gubinge, in North Western Australia, to take up a low key journalist position. She is soon poached by the Japanese owned mining company, Gerro Blue, as the go between for the company and the indigenous owners of the land they intend to mine.

Red Can Origami is a beautiful story about the Kimberley region encapsulating the lifestyle and the different people who live and work in the region. Highlighting how big corporations don’t respect the cultural heritage of the area or the original land owners.

The plot was a slow burn and I didn’t see Ava as competent enough to do her job properly. She hadn’t lived in the area long and knew nothing of the local indigenous Burrika tribe’s culture or history which in turn did cause problems.

I recommend you grab a beer and read this story for the pure joy of Dickie’s vivid descriptions bringing to life the fishing, the weather, the heat, the residents of Gubinge and the whole desolation and beauty of the area.

Putting aside the talk of nuclear fallout (because we only get one side of that story) I read this with a heavy heart and deep concern for our country when big money is preferred over cultural heritage and ethical ramifications.

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My rating  4/5 

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

and book #35 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

 Madelaine's first book Troppo won the City of Fremantle T.A.G Hungerford Award. It was also shortlisted for the 2018 Dobbie Literary Award and the 2018 Barbara Jefferis Award. Madelaine's next book Red Can Origami will be published by Fremantle Press in 2019.

  

 

Book Review: The Great Divide by L.J.M. Owen

The Great Divide

by

L.J.M. Owen

Twisted secrets, Hidden victims, Monstrous crimes

Publisher: Echo Publishing

Publication date: 4th November 2019

Genre: Crime / Mystery

Pages: 294

RRP: $29.99 AUD

Format read: C-Format Paperback 

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

In the rural Tasmanian town of Dunton, the body of a former headmistress of a children’s home is discovered, revealing a tortured life and death.

Detective Jake Hunter, newly-arrived, searches for her killer among past residents of the home. He unearths pain, secrets and broken adults. Pushing aside memories of his own treacherous past, Jake focuses all his energy on the investigation.

Why are some of the children untraceable? What caused such damage among the survivors?

The identity of the murderer seems hidden from Jake by Dunton’s fog of prejudice and lies, until he is forced to confront not only the town’s history but his own nature…

Detective Jake Hunter has moved from Melbourne to Dunton, a small country town in Tasmania. He wanted an easy country post to sit back and re-evaluate his life. However only a week in and he is on a murder case when an elderly resident is found dead in a vineyard. Ava O’Brien had run a girls home on the property for many years and appeared to be liked by everyone.

As Hunter continues his investigation more questions are raised about the girls home and a pool of potential suspects starts to mount. The more information Hunter gets the more baffling the case becomes. A murder investigation soon escalates to so much more. This small town is harbouring some shocking secrets.

The Great Divide is an atmospheric tale featuring small town mentality where everyone seems to be related in some way and the town has grissly secrets simmering below the surface. With themes of crimes against children, childhood trauma, PTSD, triggers for mental relapse and nepotism the story is hard to read at times.

This is not a thriller; it’s an intricate and cleverly plotted mystery that slowly unfolds, building on the suspense until its chilling ending.

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My rating  5/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

and book #34 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

Photo credit: Goodreads

  Dr L.J.M. Owen has escaped dark and shadowy days as a public servant to explore the comparatively lighter side of life: murder, mystery and forgotten women's history. An Australian author, archaeologist and librarian with a PhD in palaeogenetics, L.J. speaks five languages and has travelled extensively through Europe and Asia.

L.J. is the Festival Director of the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival, a celebration of literature and literacy in southern Tasmania.

In addition to writing and festival directing, L.J. is a panellist, interviewer, workshop provider and public speaker. Rare moments of free time are spent experimenting with ancient recipes…under strict feline supervision.

Book Club Book Review: Taking Tom Murray Home by Tim Slee

Taking Tom Murray Home

by

Tim Slee

Publisher: Harper Collins Australia 
Publication date: 22 July 2019
Pages:304
RRP: $32.99 AUD
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Format Read: Trade paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Beauty and Lace 

 

Bankrupt dairy farmer Tom Murray decides he'd rather sell off his herd and burn down his own house than hand them over to the bank. But something goes tragically wrong, and Tom dies in the blaze. His wife, Dawn, doesn't want him to have died for nothing and decides to hold a funeral procession for Tom as a protest, driving 350km from Yardley in country Victoria to bury him in Melbourne where he was born. To make a bigger impact she agrees with some neighbours to put his coffin on a horse and cart and take it slow - real slow.
But on the night of their departure, someone burns down the local bank. And as the motley funeral procession passes through Victoria, there are more mysterious arson attacks. Dawn has five days to get to Melbourne. Five days, five more towns, and a state ready to explode in flames...

Told with a laconic, deadpan wit, Taking Tom Murray Home is a timely, thought-provoking, heart-warming, quintessentially Australian story like no other. It's a novel about grief, pain, anger and loss, yes, but it's also about hope - and how community, friends and love trump pain and anger, every time.

 

Taking Tom Murray Home has a true Australian feel. The small farming community of Yardley bands together after Tom Murray is accidentally killed whilst burning down his own home. This was Tom’s act of defiance when the bank threatened to foreclose on his mortgage.

Narrated through 13 year old Jack Murray the story is heart-felt as Jack tries to understand his father’s death in his own way. We quite often get jack’s somewhat naive look on events.

Dawn Murray decides to pack Tom’s coffin on a milk cart drawn by a draft horse and take the trip to Melbourne, a journey of six days, where he will be buried. They garner much support along the way and with the inclusion of media and police Dawn has to remind everyone this is a funeral procession not a protest.

I quite enjoyed this story about people coming together to support each other but I’m not sure they achieved much. Told through the eyes of a thirteen year old the story is slow going and there isn’t much description of the surrounds. The inclusion of the condition of Analgesia was well plotted and believable. I don’t think I’ve come across this in a book before.

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 My rating  4/5 

This review is from the Beauty & Lace Book Club 

@beautyandlacemag #beautyandlacebookclub 

and part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge 

 

 

Tim Slee is an Australian journalist with a wanderlust. Born in Papua New Guinea to Australian parents who sprang from sheep country in the Mid-North and Far North of South Australia, he worked for several years for the Stock Journal in Adelaide before moving to Canberra and then Sydney where he worked for the Attorney General's Department. Since then he has lived in Denmark, Canada, Australia and is currently on contract in Denmark again with a multinational pharmaceutical company. Although, according to his favourite airline, he has been around the world with them 22 times and visited 54 countries, Australia is still his physical and emotional home base. Taking Tom Murray Home is his first novel, and the winner of the inaugural Banjo Prize 

 

Book Review: Rogue by A.J. Betts

Rogue

by

A.J. Betts

The thrilling sequel to HIVE

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Aus

Publication date: 25th June 2019

Series: The Vault #2

Genre: Science Fiction/Young Adult

Pages: 368

RRP: $16.99 AUD

Format read: B-Format uncorrected proof Paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 

Hayley has gone rogue.

She's left everything she's ever known - her friends, her bees, her whole world - all because her curiosity was too big to fit within the walls of the underwater home she was forced to flee.

But what is this new world she's come to? Has Hayley finally found somewhere she can belong?

Or will she have to keep running?

 

“I’d chosen out and this was it: hot-cold, dry-wet, bright-dark and lonely.”

Book 1 Hive ends with Hayley escaping her underwater world built with hexagonal rooms connecting like a bee hive.

In Rogue Hayley emerges into a new dystopian world. It is 2119, the ocean has risen cutting off small land masses turning them into islands. She comes ashore on a small island situated east of Tasmania, now called Terrafirma. Hayley is taken in by the caretakers of the island but a tragic accident forces them to leave the island placing them all in grave danger.

I loved this book even more than book1, Hive. Hayley’s wonder at the world around her is lusciously described and I could feel her awe at seeing a world that was bigger than the walls that had surrounded her all her life.

In a world with blood codes that can be traced Hayley’s unmarked blood becomes a precious commodity that is hunted down. Hayley wanders the land, sometimes finding the help of strangers, as she searches for a place where she can belong. Although she never forgets Will, the boy she left behind.

I rated Hive 15+ because of one graphic scene of a body being dismembered. However the writing in Rogue is simple and the storyline, although action packed, is not complex. Suited to age 10+ or younger mature readers.

“This world above the ocean isn’t perfect. What world is? It can be moody, savage and fearsome. It can be unsafe.

But it can be magnificent too. Surprising and wondrous.”

I’m looking forward to seeing what Betts comes up with next!

Read my review of Hive HERE

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My rating   5/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

book #33 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

A. J. Betts is an Australian author, speaker, teacher and cyclist, and has a PhD on the topic of wonder, in life and in reading. She has written four novels for young adults. Her third novel, Zac & Mia, won the 2012 Text Prize, the 2014 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award, and the 2014 Ethel Turner prize for young adults at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, was shortlisted for the 2014 Queensland Literary Award, and is available in 14 countries. It was adapted for American television by AwesomenessTV, and will soon be available globally. 

Her fourth novel, Hive, was shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Awards and 2019 ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children, and is a notable book in the Children's Book Council of Australia awards. A. J. is originally from Queensland but has lived in Fremantle since 2004.