Book Review: The Dry by Jane Harper

 The Dry

by

Jane Harper

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Publication date: 31st May 2016

Series: Aaron Falk #1

Genre: Crime

Pages: 339

Source: Own book

 

Review: the Dry

My enjoyment of this book was probably ruined by seeing the movie before reading the book. And with almost 222,000 rating on Goodreads I think I may be the only person, in Australia, who hasn't read the book.

Aaron Falk arrives back in his hometown of Kiewarra to attend the funeral of his friend Luke, Luke's wife and son. It has been deemed by all as a murder-suicide. It's been hard times for farmers and many have reached breaking point.

The Dry is set during a lengthy drought and Harper never lets her readers forget how stifling hot it is and how dangerously dry the land is.

As Falk spends more time in his hometown and delves further into Luke's life he is also forced to confront his past and the reason he left town 20 years ago.

Harper shows us the darker side of a close-knit community, with lies and secrets being held for decades, victimisation and bullying by police.

With flashbacks in italics the story moves smoothly between now and then.

I would have liked there to be more people to suspect as I couldn't see anyone had a motive to murder the family. Some strategically placed red herrings would have made the story more immersive.

My rating 4 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

#dymocksreadingchallenge

#tbrchallenge

About the author

Jane Harper is the internationally bestselling author of the The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors. Her books are published in forty territories worldwide, and The Dry has been adapted into a major motion picture starring Eric Bana. Jane has won numerous top awards including the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year, the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, and the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK, and now lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.

Giveaway: July 2023 Winter Book Giveaway

 I've been promising to post a giveaway for some time now and as Australia Post are increasing their postage prices yet again I'm doing a quick giveaway before prices go up.

I've gone through all my shelves and I had quite a few doubles where the publisher had sent me two books and also a couple of books that I have purchased twice in error.

Below is a wonderful selection from some of our fabulous Aussie authors.

I will be picking 5 winners who will each receive two books from their list. Please check the books on the list you are interested in winning and list in order of preference. First winner will receive their first preferences and so on.

Good luck everyone!!

 

Within the treacherous caves of Undara, a betrayal will test the bonds of friendship and family. A page-turning new eco-adventure for readers who love Di Morrissey.
When entomologist Emlyn Rees arrives at Hidden Valley she wants nothing more than to escape her marriage breakdown by burying herself in the research team's hunt for new species of insects in the depths of the dramatic Undara lava tubes. However, little does she suspect she will be the key to solving a mystery that's more than one hundred years old. Travis Carlyle is initially resistant to letting some city folks tramp over his cattle station, but soon the researchers' findings and a growing friendship with Emlyn bring opportunities to turn around his struggling farm. With a broken marriage behind him and children to care for, Travis needs to plan for the future and this could be his family's best chance. But when things start going wrong for the farm and around the dig site, Emlyn and Travis are at a loss to understand why. Are they cursed with bad luck, or is there a more sinister force at play? Are the tall tales of enigmatic stockman Bluey turning true? As the unseen saboteur grows bolder, Emlyn and Travis are caught in a race against time to save the station ... and their lives.

 

Her family offered her a neat life of privilege and power, until Lotti turned away from her father’s plans – and toward what she really wanted. Now happy as a primary school teacher, Lotti may even have found the right man, a single dad, not the kind of guy who will fit in with her family, but who nonetheless feels like home.

But Lotti isn’t the only one running from her past. August’s strong silent demeanour may be part of his attraction, but as they get closer, his inability to talk about his past begins to interfere with their future.

When August receives a cryptic text message that prompts an immediate departure, Lotti and Augie’s six-year-old son Otto follow him to his small hometown where decades of lies begin to unravel. When details of a shocking crime emerge, Lotti will have to decide if she trusts the man August has become more than she fears the man he once was.

 

Excitable girls rush out to meet life; what could go wrong? A masterful debut about the terrifying thrills of innocence from a voice of experience.

Teenagers sneak out to the creek for a wild New Year's Eve party. A sleep-deprived woman who imagines she is pregnant to a Viking faces her scathing sixteen-year-old self. A woman in love wakes up in a van Gogh painting.

These gem-like stories are about the desire to rush out and meet life; about getting in over your head; about danger, and damage, and what it means to survive – and not always survive – the risk of being young. They chart the borderlands between girls and women, daughters and mothers, freedom and fear.

Emerging fully-formed and singing songs of both innocence and experience, Anne Casey-Hardy is the rarest of new voices: at the same time reckless and entirely in control; funny and frightening; wise and full-blooded.

 

A Chinese astronaut is found dead in a NASA training environment in Houston, Texas. No one can explain how he got there. Amid fears of a diplomatic catastrophe, the CIA dispatches Timothy 'Hangman' Blake to investigate, because a convicted kidnapper works in the facility - someone Blake put away a long time ago.

Blake is deeply insane, afflicted by terrible urges he can barely control - but he's also brilliant. Zara, his beautiful and deadly CIA handler, suspects a secret Chinese spacecraft is surveilling the United States, but Blake can see something much more sinister is going on. Something connected to the kidnapping seven years ago, to the technologies being developed at NASA, and to the serial killer known as the Texas Reaper.

Will Blake survive long enough to uncover the truth? And if he does, will anyone even believe him?

 

Troubled and brilliant, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone after a recent move to Melbourne, brokenhearted by the decisions she's had to make. Her new workplace is a minefield and Detective Sergeant Nick Fleet, the partner she has been assigned, is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and his lonely, isolated existence.

Then Sterling Wade, an up-and-coming actor filming his breakout performance in a closed-off city street, is murdered in the middle of an action-packed shot, and Gemma and Nick have to put aside their differences to unravel the mysteries surrounding the actor's life and death. Who could commit such a brazen crime? Who stands to profit from it? Far too many people, and none of them can be trusted. Gemma can't imagine a pair of victims with less in common--and yet as Gemma and Fleet soon learn, both men were keeping secrets that may have led to their deaths. 

 

A gritty YA novel about family secrets, hope and healing. Based on a true story.

Lisa’s father has six months to live. And a story to tell about a boy sent to Auschwitz. A boy who lost everything and started again. A story he has kept hidden – until now.

But Lisa doesn’t want to hear it, because she has secrets too. No one at school knows she is Jewish or that her dad is sick. Not even her boyfriend.

But that’s all about to change. And so is she.

 

 

Two deaths, eighteen years apart. A tension-filled mystery by debut author Joanna Morrison.

Gracie Flynn may be dead, but she's not gone. Three university friends are divided by a tragic death. Eighteen years later, chance reunites them. Robyn is still haunted by memories of her best friend Gracie, and Cohen's heart has never healed. Only Sam seems to have moved on and found success and happiness. But death rocks their lives again when Sam's body is found in mysterious circumstances. And the ghost of Gracie Flynn has a story to tell about the night that changed their lives forever.

 

 

One fine March day in 1868, gunshots rang out at a society charity event in Sydney's harbourside suburb of Clontarf. In the aftermath, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh - son of Queen Victoria - lay close to death, while the assembled crowd seized and beat his attacker, Irish-born Henry James O'Farrell. Who was this character who began the day a complete unknown and ended it as the young colony's most hated man?
A Man of Honour is a richly textured, lyrical reimagining of O'Farrell's life, before and after the would-be assassination. Simon Smith paints a portrait of a very modern anti-hero: a man whose love for his family, his God, his birth country and his Fenian brotherhood is strong, but whose life is ultimately skewed by illness and by the cruelty of some of those closest to him. Drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts and on O'Farrell's actual words as revealed in gaol-cell interviews, court transcripts and his own writings, Smith asks: What makes a charming, sensitive and erudite man want to arm himself and shoot the son of the world's most powerful ruler? Is he a terrorist, a patriot, a hero?

 

At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother vanishing into the crowds.

A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems.

Between Falk’s closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge.

An outstanding novel, a brilliant mystery and a heart-pounding read from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors.

 

Fiercely independent naval officer, Patience Cartwright has never had a place to call home, but she knows where she doesn't belong. After an unhappy childhood and a badly broken heart, she'll never return to the country.

But to save her career, Patience is forced to accept a secondment - to an environmental team working near the town where she grew up. There she encounters once more the infuriatingly attractive biologist Hugo Halstead - the very man she's sworn never to forgive.

Given their history, Hugo, as self-assured and honest as Patience is secretive and self-contained, has vowed never to trust her again, but that doesn't stop him feeling just as helplessly drawn to her complicated mix of courage and fragility as he ever was.

As Patience recuperates from a life-threatening illness in the small country town of Horseshoe Hill, she realises the beauty of the landscape and close-knit community promise something very different to the future she's mapped out.

But could the secrets she keeps and the shadows of her past, send her adrift all over again?

 

This giveaway is now closed and the winners were announced here: https://theburgeoningbookshelf.blogspot.com/2023/07/winners-of-my-july-2023-giveaway.html

Book Review: One More Time by Mandy Magro

One More Time

by

Mandy Magro

Publisher: Harlequin Australia

Publication date: 7th June 2023

Genre: Romance

Pages: 352

RRP: $32.99AU (paperback)

Source: courtesy of the publisher

 

Review: One More Time

Mandy Magro has written a heart-wrenching and meaningful story about life, love and second chances.

Charlie Wilson is attending his ex-wife's 70th birthday party. His life has not been easy, he has many regrets and the 'what ifs' play heavily on his mind. fate steps in and magically gives Charlie a second chance at life.

One More Time is not your normal love story. There are lots of I love yous and sweet endearments however Mandy Magro has thrown everything at her characters to test the bounds of their love and sometimes they break.

I love that one of the main characters is a Vietnam veteran, there aren't enough stories about these brave and underrated soldiers.

With themes of PTSD, survivors guilt and alcoholism and the effect this has on relationships. PTSD and survivors guilt not only destroys the sufferer's life but also the lives of those who love them and Magro shows this with candour and compassion. There are also strong themes of love, forgiveness and not giving up on each other.

My rating 4 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

About the author

Mandy Magro lives in Cairns, Far North Queensland, with her fiance, Des, their daughter, Chloe Rose, and their two adorable pooches, Sophie and Sherlock. With pristine aqua-blue coastline in one direction and sweeping rural landscapes in the other, she describes her home as heaven on earth. A passionate woman and a romantic at heart, Mandy loves writing about soul-deep love, the Australian way of life, and the wonderful characters who call the country home.

 

Book Review: The Stolen Hours by Karen Swan

 The Stolen Hours

by

Karen Swan

A reluctant bride. A forbidden romance.

 

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Publication date: 26th April 2023

Series: The Wild Isle #2

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 415

RRP: $34.99AU (paperback)

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

Review: The Stolen Hours

The Stolen Hours is the second book in The Wild Isle series and is just as fabulously intriguing as the first. I love that Karen Swan has added a note to the reader in the front of the book giving a quick recap of the first book, The Last Summer.

I thought I had it all worked out at the end of the first book however this startling new story, set over the same time period, only from a different character's POV, left me with more questions and serious doubt as to my previous thoughts.

The Stolen Hours is from Effie's good friend Mhairi's point of view. Mhairi takes a trip to the island of Harris to meet a farmer in need of a wife. Whilst away from her family Mhairi falls in love; but not with the man she is now obligated to marry. Christianity and God's wrath weigh in heavily in this novel and Mhairi's concerns for her virtue are real. She feels like a fallen woman, through no fault of her own, and these feelings go on to manufacture the course of her last few months on St Kilda.

I loved seeing Effie from a different point of view and since this book's focus is on Mhairi I was feeling a compulsion to reread The Last Summer to see what hints I had missed about Mhairi's life.

Even though this book is set over the same time period with the same characters it is a whole separate story. So don't think this will be a rehash of a plot you have read before.

A bitter winter in a harsh unforgiving land and a village that works as one; betrothals, secrets, death, superstitions, loyalty and friendships, The Stolen Hours is a must read.

I finished this book eager for more!

My rating 5 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

About the author

Karen Swan is the Sunday Times top three bestselling author of twenty-four books and her novels sell all over the world. She writes two books each year - one for the summer period and one for the Christmas season. 

Previously a fashion editor, she lives in Sussex with her husband, three children and two dogs.

The Stolen Hours is the second of a five-book historical series called The Wild Isle, based on the dramatic evacuation of Scottish island St Kilda in the summer of 1930.

My review of the first book in this series The Last Summer: https://theburgeoningbookshelf.blogspot.com/2022/09/book-review-last-summer-by-karen-swan.html

Book Review: After the Smoke Clears by Kylie Kaden

 After the Smoke Clears

by

Kylie Kaden

A family. A small town. A lifetime of secrets.

 

Publisher: Pantera Press

Publication date: 2nd May 2023

Genre: Crime / Rural

Pages: 320

RRP: $32.99AU (paperback)

Source: courtesy of Beauty & Lace Book Club

This review first appeared on Beauty and Lace Book Club

 

Review: After the Smoke Clears

School teacher Lotti finds herself falling for August Nash and his 6 year old son Otto. Auggie has a bad boy outer shell but a mushy and gentle heart although he refuses to open up about his past. When August heads back to his hometown after receiving an urgent call for help from a friend, Lotti along with Otto decides to follow him.

As she asks around in Auggie’s hometown she starts to wonder if she really knows the man at all. What dark secrets is he hiding?

After the Smoke Clears, narrated by both Auggie and Lotti in present day 2009 and also by Auggie in 1989, is a compelling mystery read that slowly unfolds over both timelines.

Kylie Kaden has written a small country town mystery with themes of institutionalised abuse, mental illness, feeling of shame and victimisation.

I loved all the 80’s nostalgia throughout the story and Kaden’s depiction of small town policing and bullying were well portrayed. I did however find the story a bit too angst ridden for my liking and I felt the plot kept running round in circles and not moving forward fast enough for me. Still, a compelling read.

 

My rating 3.5 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐½ 

About the author

Kylie Kaden has an honours degree in psychology, was a columnist at My Child Magazine, and now works in the disability sector.

She knew writing was in her blood from a young age when she snuck onto her brother's Commodore 64 to invent stories as a child. Raised in Queensland, she spent holidays camping with her family on the Sunshine Coast.

With a surfer-lawyer for a husband and three spirited sons, Kylie can typically be found venting the day's thoughts on her laptop, sometimes in the laundry so she can't be found.

After the Smoke Clears is her fifth novel.

You can read my review of One of Us by Kylie Kaden at this link: https://theburgeoningbookshelf.blogspot.com/2022/07/spotlight-on-other-books-ive-read-this.html

 

Book Review: O2 by Nic D'Alessandro

 O2

by

Nic D'Alessandro

ONE SECOND     ONE BREATH   ONE CHANCE

 

Publisher: Self Published

 

Publication date: 22nd June 2023

 

Series: Dylan Malloy #1

 

Genre: Thriller

 

Pages: 260

 

RRP: $26.00 (paperback on Booktopia)

 

Source: Courtesy of the author

 

My review of O2

O2, the first book in the Dylan Malloy series, is a taut medical drama and aviation thriller combination. 

Nic D'Alessandro explores the concept of how we cope when life throws us consistent curve balls.

 

I was pulled straight into the story from the prologue with a life or death situation and Dylan hanging in the balance. The story then goes back to what led to this event.

Dylan has had a troubled upbringing with no real stability. He is often left with his aunt when his mother is working overseas. His aunt's partner is abusive and makes it clear he doesn't want Dylan around. I found him to be an angry young man and I had trouble warming to him. Maybe it was his disease that made him this way, but he was handed plenty of opportunities and it took him well into his 20's to realise this. That aside, Nic's portrayal of Dylan's slow decline in health and his denial that he was seriously ill, and his eventual character growth, was well written.

The in-air flight drama was up there with T.J. Newman's Falling and had me on the edge of my seat. It was a compelling ending to the novel.

O2 is a story of human endurance, overcoming adversity, re-imagining your dreams when life doesn't go as you planned and accepting the things you cannot change.

There are some truly memorable supporting characters in this story who I would love to see again in future novels; pothole the truck driver, Nancy, and Dylan's friend Allie.

I'm hoping Dylan will be less cynical and learn some empathy in future novels.

My rating 3 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐

About the author

Born and bred on an island state, Nic D'Alessandro is passionate about the wilderness, sea, and sky. He's a writer, photographer, and education consultant who is fascinated by human condition, and anything that floats or flies.

Nic is a keen sailor, and when he is not on the water, he takes to the sky in aircraft whenever he can. He obtained his pilots licence at age seventeen, and later celebrated his forties by building a full-size 737 flight simulator in his garage.

Prior to writing fiction, Nic forged a career as an education leader,  manager in the public sector, and specialist in the aviation industry.

Nic lives in Tasmania, Australia with his wife, and extended family.

  https://nicdalessandro.com/o2-novel/

Book Review: Inkflower by Suzy Zail

 Inkflower

by

Suzy Zail

I think there is no better day than Global MND Day to post my review of Inkflower

 

Publisher: Walker Books

 

Publication date: 5th July 2023

 

Genre: Young Adult / Historical Fiction

 

Pages: 384

 

RRP: $22.99AU (paperback)

 

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 

My review of Inkflower

Fifteen year old Lisa's father has Motor Neurone Disease and only six months to live. He gathers the family together to tell them the story of his childhood. A story of a young boy who fought against all odds to survive.

 

Lisa battles with the idea of this new version of her father; a dying man with a devastating childhood. His stories bring to life the grandparents, aunts and uncles she never had the chance to meet.

 

Inkflower unfolds in a dual time-line narration. The now, set in the 1980's, is narrated by Lisa as she navigates school and friendships whilst coming to grips with her father's illness and also who she is. The then, is narrated by Lisa's father Emil as he tells his family the harrowing story of a young boy bullied at school for being Jewish, taken from his home in Czechoslovakia and the horrors of his years in Auschwitz.

 

The balance and parallels between Emil's years of fighting for survival in Auschwitz and his battle against the debilitating effects of MND were astutely portrayed.

 

Inkflower is a deeply moving story of survival inspired by the true events of the author and her family.

Suzy Zail has written an honest and candid story of love, courage, family and resilience.

There can never be too many stories detailing the horrors of Auschwitz and they need to be recorded now because soon there won't be any survivors left.

 

My rating 5 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Publisher's recommended age: 14+

About the author

Suzy Zail has worked as a litigation lawyer, specialising in family law, but now writes full time. Among other titles, she has written The Tattooed Flower, a memoir about her father's time as a child survivor of the holocaust, the story which inspired this novel. Her first novel for young adults, the Wrong Boy, was short listed for the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards, the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, the WAYRBA, USBBY and YABBA awards. 

You can visit Suzy online at suzyzail.com.au and on Instagram @authorsuzyzail