Book Review: Wasp Season by Jennifer Scoullar

Wasp Season

by

Jennifer Scoullar

Publisher: Pilyara Press
Publication date:  20th July 2020
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 294
Format read: eBook
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

About the book 

When Beth’s marriage ends, she’s determined to build a new life in the country for herself and her children. A quiet life lived closer to nature. She thinks she’s achieved the impossible – a civilised separation, a happy home and a cordial relationship with her estranged husband, Mark. There's even the promise of new love on the horizon. But when Mark tries to change the rules, Beth’s peaceful world is turned upside down.

Disturbingly, she also discovers that European wasps have invaded her garden. Beth’s obsession with them and their queen holds up a distorted mirror to the human drama. As the chaos in Beth’s life gathers momentum, connections between the two worlds come sharply into focus. The lives of Beth and the others are neither separate to, nor safe from, the natural world.

My review

Jennifer Scoullar's love and reverence of the nature that surrounds us shines through in her writing, making the daily lives of the wasps and other insects fascinating and evocative reading.

Wasp Season is narrated in multiple points of view. Scoullar anthropomorphises the wasps and bees thus invoking sympathy. Naming the insects and giving their POV brings the reader right into their lives and thoughts and gives a perspective I'd never contemplated before.
Fairy wrens, potter wasps, paper wasps, assassin flys, black cockatoos, European wasps, platypus, wombats, wallabies, kookaburras, dragonflies, eastern spinebill, hummingbird, cicadas, spiders; all this beautiful and diverse fauna of Australia is seamlessly spread throughout the story without being one bit contrived.

The humans are just as fascinating as the insects. Mark, a delusional narcissist, separated from wife Beth and now living with girlfriend Lena and their baby son, has a life is always greener on the other side attitude. Bored with his young girlfriend he decides he wants his wife back.

Lena feeling alone and worthless turns to the allure and bright lights of poker machines to get her highs. Predators are lurking to pounce on the weak and unwary.
Beth and her two children have settled into a tranquil life on a property in the mountains. However there is a European Wasp colony developing that will threaten them and the whole surrounding ecosystem.

With themes of the natural balance of the ecosystem, introduced pests, regrets, narcissism, gambling addiction and befriending strangers, Wasp Season is fascinating and emotional. As human lives and insect lives cross over and intertwine Scoullar builds the story to a suspense filled conclusion.

4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

 About the author

 

Photo: Goodreads

Bestselling Aussie author Jennifer Scoullar writes page-turning fiction about the land, people and wildlife that she loves.

Scoullar is a lapsed lawyer who harbours a deep appreciation and respect for the natural world. She lives on a farm in Australia's southern Victorian ranges, and has ridden and bred horses all her life. Her passion for animals and the bush is the inspiration behind her best-selling books.

 

Mailbox Monday & Life This Week - August 17th

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog.

Life This Week is a meme created by Denyse Whelan Blogs where bloggers share snaps of what is currently happening in their lives.

Happy Monday!

What has been happening over the last few weeks!

It's been a while now since I did a life this week post because we have been pretty much staying at home and reading books or watching TV. 

We had a some beautiful days last week and ventured out into the garden to do some prep for spring planting. But then it was back to winds and rain. The weather can be unpredictable in the change over from winter to spring although the days and nights are getting noticeably warmer.

Our sandwich maker was looking worse for wear and needed replacing. I found one online with interchangeable plates that made both toasted sandwiches and waffles. We love the waffles so much we haven't even made the toasted sandwiches yet. 😃

Son #3 surprised us with the announcement of his engagement. It's so nice to have some positives to look back on for 2020 with two of our children getting engaged this year.

We celebrated my husband's birthday recently and I decided to make a cake rather than buy one. One less trip to the shops.

I spent a day recently organising my kindle books. It's amazing how books can hide on there and multiply. I was amazed that I had 260 books downloaded. And I found some little gems and other books I didn't even know I had. A few of them are short stories under 200 pages and I'm trying to get through those first.

Books received over the last few weeks:

I've only received one new book which is giving me a chance to catch up on some outstanding review reads.

Who is ready for The Grand Tour by Olivia Wearne?

When Ruby and Angela embark on a Grey Nomads road trip, the last thing they expect is a tiny stowaway; one who will turn them from unsuspecting tourists into wanted kidnappers and land them in a world of trouble. As their leisurely retirement plans unravel, Angela's relationship with her brother Bernard goes from bad to worse.

Bernard has his own problems to contend with. Adrift in life, his career as a news presenter has been reduced to opening fetes and reading Voss as an audio book (a seemingly impossible task). His troubles are compounded when his wife starts dating a younger man and a drink-driving incident turns him into a celebrity offender.

As Angela and Ruby set about repairing burnt bridges and helping their unexpected guest, and Bernard attempts to patch together his broken life, they discover that even after a lifetime of experience, you're never too old to know better.

I would love to hear what books you received in the mail lately!

Book Review: There's a Zoo in My Poo by Prof. Felice Jacka

There's a Zoo in My Poo

by

Professor Felice Jacka

Illustrated by Rob Craw

 

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Publication date: 28th July 2020

Genre: Children's / Non Fiction

Pages: 64

RRP: $24.99 AUD

Format read: Hardcover

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

About the book:

There's a Zoo in your Poo!
It needs a Zookeeper
And that Keeper is YOU! 

Did you know that trillions of tiny bugs live in and on all of us? And there's a Zoo of bugs in our poo. But which are the good bugs and which are the bad? What should we eat to keep our good bugs happy and our body strong?

Get to the guts of what you need to know about you and your poo.

Professor Felice Jacka is a world expert in the field of Nutritional Psychiatry and gut health. Teacher and musician Rob Craw is a world expert at drawing bugs!

They want kids to know all about the amazing stuff going on in their bodies.

Get ready for a journey inside the most exciting of places ... YOU! 

My review: 

It’s no secret that kids love books about bodily functions. There are a plethora of books to choose from about poos and farts. These books tend to be more fun than educational emphasising the fact that poos and farts are a normal part of life.

Professor Felice Jacka goes a whole lot further with her educational and fun children’s book There’s a Zoo in My Poo to explain gut health with zany illustrations and catchy rhymes. The book tells us all about the bugs that live in our gut, both good and bad, the food that we eat and the effect it has on these bugs, what the good bugs feed on, healthy food for a healthy body and brain.

 

Six year old Dot really enjoyed the concept of being the zookeeper of her body and once I explained that the bugs inside your body aren’t like insect type bugs but tiny invisible bugs you can’t see, she was much more receptive to the idea of how they lived inside you.

 

There is quite a lot of information in this 64 page book and I found it better to concentrate on a small area of the book at a time. The catchy rhyming poems were a great feeder into the more in-depth ins and outs of the workings of the gastrointestinal tract.

 

I knew the book was having some effect when Dot was asking me if the food she was eating was feeding her good bugs or bad bugs. That’s a win!

 

There’s a Zoo in My Poo focuses on the principles of gut health with colourful microbes and entertaining prose making this complex topic easier for children, and adults, to understand. gut health is an important topic and you can never start too young to teach children about healthy eating. It is great to see a children’s book addressing the ‘why’ of healthy eating. It’s a book that can be pulled out whenever your children’s eating habits go off track.

Read together from 6+

 

Read alone from 8+

⭐⭐⭐⭐ from Dot

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐from me

About the author: 

Professor Felice Jacka is an international expert in the field of Nutritional Psychiatry and gut health and leads a research field examining how individuals' diets affect mental and brain health.

About the illustrator:

Rob Craw is a teacher, musician, and illustrator, who shares Jacka's passion for educating everyone, especially kids, about the importance of healthy eating.

 

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

  the Australian Women Writers challenge  and the Non Fiction reader challenge

 

 

 

Book Review: The Long Shadow by Anne Buist

The Long Shadow

by

Anne Buist

 

Publisher: Text Publishing

Publication date: 28th April 2020

Genre: Crime / Mystery

Pages: 318

Format read: Paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

About the Book

Psychologist Isabel Harris has come to the outback town of Riley because her husband Dean is assessing the hospital—the hub of the community—with a view to closing it down. Isabel, mostly occupied with her toddler, will run a mother–baby therapy group. But on the first day she gets an anonymous note from one of the mothers:

The baby killer is going to strike again. Soon.

Then a series of small harassments begins.

Is it an attempt to warn Dean off? Or could the threat be serious? A child was murdered in Riley once before.

As Isabel discovers more about the mothers in her group, she begins to believe the twenty-five-year-old mystery of a baby’s death may be the key to preventing another tragedy.

My Review

 

Isabel Harris and husband Dean along with their young son Noah have temporarily moved to Riley whilst Dean audits the hospital, with a view to its potential closure. Isabel, a psychologist, is asked to run a mother-baby group. There is some dissension between the mothers in the group and all are harbouring secrets and fears.

A decades old murder rears its head via a threatening message and believing her own child may be in danger, Isabel starts to do some digging of her own. 

 

Isabel was quite an unlikable character for me. her paranoia was out of proportion to her circumstances. She was a psychologist but had so many issues of her own that needed addressing.

 

Anne Buist covers topics such as post natal depression, being accepted into a small close-knit community, Government closing a business that provides employment for many choosing profit over people. 

I'm finding it hard to put my thoughts down about this book.

 

What I didn't like:

Isabel was unlikable, jumping to conclusions and making outlandish accusations

Although a serious condition, I found there was too much talk on postpartum psychosis.

I'm tired of characters with mother issues.

2½ year old Noah felt like a prop, always being pushed in a stroller, or stuck in a playpen, or put to bed. He never felt like a real child. 

I guessed the twist early in the story.

I was left with unanswered questions.

 

What I liked:  

I loved the small town politics.

Bringing to light companies putting profit before people.

How the people of Riley stuck together when their livelihood was threatened.

The thing that I loved the most in this story were the evocative and beautifully drawn descriptions of the setting and the ambience of the Australian bush.

My rating 3/5   ⭐⭐⭐ 

 

photo credit Goodreads

 

Anne Buist is the Chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and has over 25 years clinical and research experience in perinatal psychiatry. She works with Protective Services and the legal system in cases of abuse, kidnapping, infanticide and murder. Her Natalie King series of thrillers is published by Text. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

  and the Australian Women Writers challenge

 

 

Book Bingo - Round 8: Set in a Time of War

 War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott

 This week I have chosen the category 'Set in a Time of War'

The book I have chosen for this category is: The War Doctor.

Normally when I think of a book set during a war I immediately turn to books on WWI or WWII however I thought outside my usual genre and picked a non-fiction / biography. David Nott has written a compassionate story of his years as a volunteer surgeon working in hospitals around the world in war torn areas in Afghanistan, Sarajevo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Darfur, Yemen and Gaza. Operating in poorly equipped hospitals with the most basic of instruments.

You can read my full review HERE 

__________________________________________________________

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. The second Saturday of each month book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose.  

#BOOKBINGO2020 

Book Review: Reasonable Doubt by Dr Xanthe Mallett

Reasonable Doubt

by

Dr Xanthe Mallett

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Publication date: 28th July 2020

Genre: Non Fiction / Crime

Pages: 272

RRP: $32.99AUD

Format read: Trade paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

About the book

We all put our faith in the criminal justice system. We trust the professionals: the police, the lawyers, the judges, the expert witnesses. But what happens when the process lets us down and the wrong person ends up in jail?

Henry Keogh spent almost twenty years locked away for a murder that never even happened. Khalid Baker was imprisoned for the death of a man his best friend has openly admitted to causing. And the exposure of 'Lawyer X' Nicola Gobbo's double-dealing could lead to some of Australia's most notorious convictions being overturned.

Forensic scientist Xanthé Mallett is used to dealing with the darker side of humanity. Now she's turning her skills and insight to miscarriages of justice and cases of Australians who have been wrongfully convicted.

Exposing false confessions, polices biases, misplaced evidence and dodgy science, Reasonable Doubt is an expert's account of the murky underbelly of our justice system - and the way it affects us all.

My Review

I don't read a lot of non-fiction but crime fiction is one of my favourite reads so I was very interested in Dr Xanthe Mallett's book Reasonable Doubt.

Dr Xanthe Mallett has delivered a story that is both informative and interesting. One of the catch phrases on the cover is: exposing Australia's worst wrongful convictions. I am sure everyone can think of at least one case where the justice system got it all wrong. Lindy Chamberlain's conviction of the murder of her daughter comes to mind, but I was surprised how many times they get it wrong. Mallett covers five cases and also the case of lawyer X (Nicola Gobbo).

"When evidence focuses on guilt testing, to the exclusion of innocence testing, miscarriages of justice occur."

Reasonable  Doubt is a fascinating read. We put our faith in the justice system to protect the innocent but sometimes it goes terribly wrong - coerced confessions, lab errors, prejudice, unreliable evidence, incompetence and corruption are all discussed in the cases covered.

I would rather see the odd criminal go free than to see an innocent person in prison.

The CSI element is engrossing. Dr Mallett explains the introduction of DNA testing which helps to prove both guilt and innocence but even this can sometimes go wrong when human error is included in the mix.

Dr Mallett backs up her case studies with notes from experts in different fields of forensic science; Blood spatter, DNA profiling, forensic linguistics, false confessions, rules of disclosure, allowable evidence.

I read this book with astonishment and a whole lot of unease at how easily even the experts get it wrong sometimes. However, Dr Mallett leaves us with some final words of optimism.

"Don't be depressed, though. These cases are awful and the stories sad. But, generally, our justice system works, and those who have committed crimes are sent to prison, and the innocent are exonerated."

If you are a reader of crime fiction this book will fascinate you as fact is always stranger and much more compelling than fiction.

My Rating 4/ 5     ⭐⭐⭐⭐

About the author

Photo credit Macmillan Aus

Dr Xanthé Mallett is a forensic anthropologist and criminologist, author and television presenter. She has written two previous books: Mothers who Murder(2014) and Cold Case Investigations (2019).

Xanthé is also a forensic practitioner, and works with police forces across Australia assisting with the identification of persons of interest in criminal cases, as well as providing advanced DNA technologies that assist with the identification of long-term deceased victims and suspects.

In addition to her academic and professional work, Xanthé contributes to various true-crime television series, and is a regular contributor to crime news stories for television, radio and print media.

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

  the Australian Women Writers challenge  and the Non Fiction reader challenge

Book Review: Find Them Dead by Peter James

Find Them Dead

by

Peter James

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Publication date: 12th May 2020

Series; Roy Grace #16

Genre: Crime / Thriller

Pages: 400

RRP: $32.99

Format read: Trade paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

About the book

Ending his secondment to London's Met Police, Roy Grace gets a tip-off about a county lines drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton. On his first day back in his old job in Sussex, he is called to a seemingly senseless murder.

Separately, five years after the car crash that killed her husband and son, Meg Magellan feels she has her life back together. Her daughter Laura, now eighteen, is on her gap year travelling in South America with a friend, and she is all she has in the world.

When Meg receives a summons for jury service she's excited and feels this will distract her from constantly worrying about Laura. But when she is selected for the trial of a major Brighton drugs overlord, everything changes.

Gradually, Grace's investigation draws him into the sinister sphere of influence of the drug dealer on trial, a man prepared to order the death of anyone it takes to enable him to walk free.

When Meg arrives home one night, she finds a photograph lying on her kitchen table of Laura, in Ecuador. Then the phone rings.

The caller tells her that if she ever wants to see Laura alive again, at the end of the trial, all she has to do is make sure the jury says just two words....Not guilty.

My Review

Find Them Dead is the 16th book in the Roy Grace series. I had no idea this was part of a series and I was well into the book before something came up about Roy's past that appeared to be out of the blue. I'm happy to say it works well as a stand alone. However I think if I had of been following the series from the start it would have bumped my rating up to a 5 star read.

The main plot is the trial of respected lawyer Terence Gready who is suspected of running a major drug importation company, making this novel more legal thriller than police procedural. There are a few minor plot lines that involve cases that Roy is working on.

Peter James explores the theme of jury tampering as one of the jurors receives a call that her daughter will die unless she delivers a not guilty verdict. You may have to suspend disbelief at times as there are hidden cameras and mobile phones in the court room. I have never been on a jury but I'm sure these things would be monitored.

I was on the edge of my seat as Gready's men seemed to be everywhere and know everything. Their terror was far reaching and I couldn't see how Meg could possibly influence the jury.

Short chapters make for a quick read with many chapters ending on a cliff-hanger. I enjoyed the manipulation and the lengths the accused went to, to be assured of a not guilty verdict. Reading Find Them Dead has left me eager to start back at the beginning of the series with Dead Simple.

If you enjoy reading John Grisham you will love Peter James' Roy Grace series!

My rating 4/5     ⭐⭐⭐⭐

About the author

Peter James is one of the UK's most treasured crime and thriller novelists. His Roy Grace detective novels have sold over one and a half million in the UK alone and five million worldwide in total. The series is now translated into 33 languages. He has developed a close working relationship with the Sussex Police over many years, spending an average of one day a week with them and his writing reveals a unique insight into the reality of modern day police work. He has also carried out extensive research with police in Moscow, Munich, Paris, Melbourne, Sweden, New York and Romania, as well as attending international police conferences to ensure he is at the cutting edge of investigative police work. Peter, an established film producer and script writer, has produced numerous films, including The Merchant Of Venice, starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes. A TV adaptation of the Roy Grace series is currently in development, with Peter overseeing all aspects, including the scriptwriting. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Brighton in recognition of his services to literature and the community.