Saturday 7 September 2019

Book Review: The One by Kaneana May

The One
by
Kaneana May


Publisher: Harper Collins Australia 
Imprint: Mira
Publication date: 17th June 2019
Genre: Romance
Pages: 405
Format read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher


On the wrong side of thirty, Bonnie Yates wants a happily ever after. Problem is, she keeps choosing the wrong guys. When an ex returns to town with a fiance in tow, history and temptation collide. Unable to shake her inappropriate feelings Bonnie flees, becoming an unlikely contestant on popular dating show The One. Will she find what she's looking for?

Working behind the scenes, Darcy Reed is a driven young producer, dealing with a tyrant of a boss. Despite being surrounded by love at work, her own love-life with long-term boyfriend Drew is floundering. Producing a flawless season is her best chance at a promotion. But with the unrelenting demands of the show, how will she save their relationship while making that shot?

Penelope Baker has relocated to a small seaside town to hide away with her secrets and nurse a broken heart. But with The One beaming across the nation's televisions, she can't seem to quite escape the life she left behind...




I will start by saying I’m a bit of a Bachelor tragic. I like getting right into the drama of the show and trying to guess who will be going home each night, checking Twitter every few minutes to see what other viewers are thinking, which contestants everyone likes or dislikes. We viewers have very distinct opinions about everything that is said and done on the show.


I originally rated the book 4.5 stars because, for me, there wasn’t enough viewer participation in the story. However over the next few weeks I kept talking about The One to anyone within earshot and especially while I was watching episodes of The Bachelor. Which made me think this is definitely 5 star worthy.

The One follows three women during the screening of a reality TV series where an eligible bachelor dates a number of carefully chosen women, eliminating one each episode until he is left with ‘the one’ he chooses to spend his life with.
Darcy is a producer on the show, Bonnie a contestant and Penelope a viewer.

I loved all the behind the scenes producing of the show and all the drama between the contestants. It was exactly as I imagined it would be.

This is a cute and funny RomCom that highlights the ups and downs of love and the strain of long distance relationships and shows all we really want is our own happily ever after.

Kaneana May touches on topics of miscarriage, IVF and cancer with deep sensitivity.
The three main characters were very relatable. Darcy hides behind her work rather than taking the time to re-evaluate her relationship with boyfriend Drew. Bonnie’s anxiety and self loathing cause her to run rather than stand up for herself. Penelope shuts herself off from people as she has already suffered too much pain and loss.

The One is a romantic novel that reminds us that love may be where you least expect it. A story that had me laughing out loud and surreptitiously trying to hide my tears as I read the last few pages in a busy coffee shop.

I am eagerly looking forward to seeing what Kaneana May comes up with next.

                                                                                    
                            🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

My rating  5/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge
and book #29 in the Australian Women Writers challenge
 
 

Photo credit: Harper Collins
Kaneana May studied television production at university, graduating with first-class honours in screenwriting. She went on to work in television, including roles as a script assistant on All Saints, a storyliner on Headland and a scriptwriter on Home and Away. Since becoming a mother, Kaneana has turned her attention to fiction writing. Kaneana loves to read—mostly YA, romance and women's fiction—and also loves watching TV and films. Writing, boot camp, coffee, chocolate and champagne are just some of her favourite things. Kaneana lives on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales with her husband and three children.

  



 

Cover Reveal: Cradle to Grave (Crime/Mystery)

Cradle to Grave
by 
Rachel Amphlett

DETECTIVE KAY HUNTER RETURNS 


Publisher: Saxon Publishing
Publication date: 6th October 2019
Series: Detective Kay Hunter #8 
Pages: 370 



When a faceless body is found floating in the river on a summer’s morning, Detective Kay Hunter and her team are tasked with finding out the man’s identity – and where he came from.

The investigation takes a sinister turn when an abandoned boat is found, covered in blood stains and containing a child’s belongings.

Under mounting pressure from a distraught family and an unforgiving media, the police are in a race against time – but they have no leads, and no motive for the events that have taken place.

Will Kay be able to find a ruthless killer and a missing child before it’s too late?

Cradle to Grave is the eighth book in the Detective Kay Hunter series by USA Today bestselling author Rachel Amphlett, and perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves, Peter James and Stuart MacBride.


Other books in The Detective Kay Hunter series:

1. Scared to Death
2. Will to Live
3. One to Watch
4. Hell to Pay
5. Call to Arms
6. Gone to Ground
7. Bridge to Burn
8. Cradle to Grave
 


Thursday 5 September 2019

Winner of a copy of The Silk Road Wars announced

A big thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for a copy of The Silk Road Wars . The giveaway closed on 3rd September and the winner was randomly selected (using Random org) from all correct entries. 

Congratulations to..


  Brenda


Your book will be sent directly to you by WMC Public Relations

Please see my Giveaway tab for more chances to win great books.
 
 
 
 

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Book Review: Zebra and other stories (short story compilation)

Zebra
and other stories
by
Debra Adelaide


Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Imprint: Picador Australia
Publication Date: 29th January 2019
Pages: 336
RRP: $29.99 AUD
Format read: paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher



A body buried in a suburban backyard.

A suicide pack worthy of Chekhov.

A love affair born in a bookshop.

The last days of Bennelong.

And a very strange gift for a most unusual Prime Minister...

Tantalising, poignant, wry, and just a little fantastical, this subversive collection of short fiction - and one singular novella - from bestselling author Debra Adelaide reminds us what twists of fate may be lurking just beneath the surface of the everyday.






Zebra and other stories is a compilation of thirteen short stories and a novella.

Adelaide’s writing is lyrical and perceptive, exploring human foibles in all its forms. She proves she can master any writing style; first person, second person and third person perspectives are all executed with perfection.

I’ve read a few anthologies and they have all had a linking element running through the stories. I couldn’t find that connection with Zebra. Some of the stories seemed like a chapter pulled from a bigger story.

In her short stories Adelaide explores love, loss and life. Some stories are humorous, some perceptive and others heart-breaking.

The title story, Zebra, is a novella featuring an unnamed female prime Minister. It is a fanciful tale of conflict solving and lost opportunities, with an ending that left me amused.

Zebra and other stories is an eclectic holiday read filled with beautiful writing however most of the stories left me wanting.


                                  🌟🌟🌟 

My rating  3/5

This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge
and book #28 in the Australian Women Writers challenge
 


 
Debra Adelaide is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels The Hotel Albatross, Serpent Dust, The Household Guide to Dying and The Women's Pages and the edited collections Motherlove, Cutting the Cord, Acts of Dog, A Bright and Fiery Troop and The Simple Act of Reading. She has been sold into several territories worldwide. In 2013,she published her first collection of short stories, Letter to George Clooney (longlisted for the Stella prize). Currently a associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney where she teaches creative writing. Adelaide has also held roles as a researcher, book reviewer and literary award judge and she is the founder and managing editor of the Empathy Poems, an online collection of poems of compassion for refugees and people seeking asylum around the world. 





   

Monday 2 September 2019

Book Review: Tidelands by Philippa Gregory

Tidelands
by 
Philippa Gregory

THE BRAND NEW SERIES FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BEST SELLING AUTHOR.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster AU 
Series: The Fairmile #1 
Publication date: 20th August 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 438
Format read: Uncorrected proof Paperback
Source: courtesy of the publisher via Better Reading


Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands – the marshy landscape of the south coast.

Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.

Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands.
  







England 1648 is a dangerous time for a woman especially if you have intelligence, beauty and determination.

Allinor is a herbalist, a healer just like her mother before her. However her skill with herbs and her outstanding beauty cause mistrust and jealousy. She is gossiped about as being a witch. With her husband missing she is left to bring up two children alone.
Tidelands is set during the last few months of King Charles I’s reign and a time of religious upheaval. It is troubled times in England and those troubles reach as far as the remote Tidelands.

The major part of the story is about the political unrest of the time and a plot to save the King. Allinor is unwittingly pulled into the danger when she helps a handsome stranger and falls in love.

Gregory deftly portrays the poverty and remoteness of Sealsea Island and through Allinor we see the life that women had to endure. With her husband missing she was neither wife nor widow. Her working hours were long and hard.

The plot is slow but immersive with the book spanning only 9 months it is a solid basis for the continuing saga. As the rest of the series unfolds we will have no doubt of the poverty and hardship these characters came from.

Philippa Gregory is a master story-teller. Her research and knowledge of the time period shines through in how effortlessly and smoothly the story flows.
A missing husband, a handsome priest; Tidelands is an unforgettable story of love, perseverance and danger. 

            

                            🌟🌟🌟🌟 

My rating  4/5


Photo credit: goodreads
 
Philippa Gregory was an established historian and writer when she discovered her interest in the Tudor period and wrote the novel The Other Boleyn Girl, which was made into a TV drama and a major film. Published in 2009, the bestselling The White Queen, the story of Elizabeth Woodville, ushered in a new series involving The Cousins’ War (now known as The War of the Roses) and a new era for the acclaimed author.

Gregory lives with her family on a small farm in Yorkshire, where she keeps horses, hens and ducks.

Her other great interest is the charity she founded nearly twenty years ago; Gardens for The Gambia. She has raised funds and paid for 140 wells in the primary schools of the dry, poverty stricken African country. Thousands of school children have learned market gardening, and drunk the fresh water in the school gardens around the wells.

A former student of Sussex University, and a PhD and Alumna of the Year 2009 of Edinburgh University, her love for history and her commitment to historical accuracy are the hallmarks of her writing. She also reviews for US and UK newspapers, and is a regular broadcaster on television, radio, and webcasts from her website.