Thursday, January 31, 2013

Book: The Reef


Summary: Ambitious Blair Towse is appointed assistant manager of a Branch Island resort with his university graduate wife Jennifer, who finds herself isolated, lonely and forced to confront her childhood fear of the sea.   On the surface, the island is all you could wish for: a lush resort, a naturalist's dream, a diver's delight. But Jennifer begins to discover the island holds secrets and dangers.  When world famous oceanographer Maria Belitas arrives, she teaches Jennifer to come to terms with the phobias of her widowed mother as well as her own disintegrating marriage.

What I thought: I really enjoyed this. Definitely one of her better ones :)

Book: Blackwattle Lake

Summary: For Eve Nicholls, walking up the driveway of her childhood home brings up many emotions, and not all good. The horses that she loved still dot the paddocks but the house is empty, and the silence inside allows her memories to flood back. She s glad to have her best friend Banjo the kelpie with her . . . and a bottle of bourbon. Her plan is simple: sell the farm, grab the cash and get the hell out.


Despite Eve s desire to keep a low profile, within days of her return she runs into all the people she hoped to avoid. At the house she is surrounded by memories and worse. But with a lifetime of clutter to sort out, there s plenty to take her mind off it all. Slowly, she begins to discover the girl she used to be: Angie Flanagan adventurous, animal-loving, vulnerable. When tragedy strikes, Eve realises that changing her name all those years ago in an attempt to hide from her past has not changed the truth of what happened or who she really is.

What I thought: Loved this. Another new rural author on the scene! Simple easy read and slightly different from most in that the romance wasn't to the forefront. It was more about Eve finding herself.

Book: Letters to eBay


Summary: Paul Meadors lives in Fresno, California with his wife and three daughters and was once given detention in high school for making hawk calls while perched on a desk. He is a fifth grade teacher who started writing crazy, wacky questions to eBay vendors concerning their items. It quickly steamrolled into an obsession and is now chronicled in the book.

What I thought: Hit and miss. Some funny little stories and some boring. Great idea though! 

Monday night bookgroup: Sarah Thornhill


Summary: This is the story of the youngest child of the family at the heart of The Secret River. Although this is a sequel to the earlier book, you don’t need to have read The Secret River to enjoy Sarah Thornhill – this is a stand-alone novel.  Sarah is born in 1816, her father an ex-convict who’s made good in the new colony of Australia. Three hundred acres, a fine stone house, the money rolling in – William Thornhill is a man who’s re-invented himself. As he tells his daughter, he never looks back, and Sarah grows up learning not to ask about the past.

Her stepmother calls her wilful, but handsome Jack Langland loves Sarah and she loves him. Me and Jack, she thinks, what could go wrong? But there’s a secret in the Thornhill family. It comes out, as secrets will, and draws everything into its tangles. It casts a long chill shadow over life in the Hawkesbury valley.

That secret propels Sarah backwards, into the darkness of her family’s past. And it propels her forwards, into a future very different from the one she’d imagined for herself. She travels across the ocean to the wild coasts of New Zealand, and among the strangers of that other place she sees the way things truly are.

What I thought: This was great. Not quite as good as The Secret River but much better than The Lieutenant.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Monday Night Bookgroup: Tears of the Giraffe


Summary: Mma Ramotswe has become engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the garage owner, but his rude and exploitative maid has other ideas, and tries to frame her for a serious offense. Mma Ramotswe helps an American woman whose son disappeared in Botswana some years previously, and deals with a paternity case. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni adopts two orphans, and Mma Makutsi is promoted.


What I thought: Another lovely quirky read. I think I might continue to read more in the series :)

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Book: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency


Summary: Wayward daughters. Missing Husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you've got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective. Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she's got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J.L.B. Maketoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger . . .

What I thought: A nice easy read. Rather far-fetched but lots of little giggles. Looking forward to the 2nd one in the series.

Book: My journey - Jim Stynes


Summary: When Jim was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 43, he was given nine months to live. The diagnosis caught him by surprise – and he didn't have time for illness. He was a busy father, husband, brother, mentor and businessman.  Jim Stynes never took the easy road, on or off the field. He loved a challenge. He pushed himself, and worked hard to help others realise their potential. The same could be said about his cancer journey. Knowing his odds weren't good, Jim gave his all to trying to beat the disease. He embraced life, and made his journey public. His ability to use mind over matter, to never give in, to overcome pain, to believe in himself and his will to succeed gave him two extra years on the prognosis.

He worked hard to keep hope alive for himself and his family, and for other cancer sufferers too, defying expectations time and time again. Jim died on 27 March 2012, a month shy of his forty-sixth birthday. A state funeral was held at St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, with thousands of mourners watching from Federation Square. A memorial service was also held at his local Ballyroan parish church in Dublin.

What I thought: Great (yet very sad) read.

Book: Twenties Girl


Summary: Lara is a twenty-seven-year-old girl who has always had an overactive imagination. At the funeral of her great-aunt Sadie, she gets visited by her ghost, in form of a bold, demanding, Charleston-dancing girl. Sadie has one particular request: she can't rest without her precious dragonfly necklace, and demands that Lara is to find it for her. But Lara is besieged with problems of her own, such as her uncertain future as co-founder of her own headhunting agency, and the fact that she was recently dumped by Josh, the love of her life.


Lara, coerced by Sadie, embarks upon an arduous journey to find said necklace, but in the process of doing so ends up accomplishing so much more. Unraveling the ugly truth behind her uncle's enormous success, inadvertently unearthing a long-lost love story enshrouded by the cobwebs of time, and even managing to get entangled in a love story of her own...

What I thought: This was some great chick lit. Nice and easy. Funny. great characters. Rather predictable. But all in all an enjoyable book.

Tuesday Night Bookgroup: Three Cups of Tea


Summary: Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.


What I thought: Highly recommend. Just a brilliantly uplifting (yet at times scary) books that restores your faith in human nature.

Book: Is that thing diesel?


Summary: At forty years old, a successful writer, husband and father, no longer toiling on offshore drilling rigs, was Paul Carter happily nestled in the cotton wool of suburban life enjoying the fruits of his labour? Was he f**k!  With his manic life left far behind and the perfect opportunity to take it easy stretched before him what else would a middle-aged, bike obsessed, man want?

Yes, that's right, he'd want to be the first guy to ride around Australia on an underpowered experimental motorcycle that runs on used cooking oil, wouldn't he? Preferably without getting hit by a semi-trailer full of bridge parts. Is he out of his mind? Quite possibly. Embark on a rollickingly, downright dangerous and often unhinged quest that starts on an environmentally friendly motorcycle built on a shoestring budget by students, and ends with a plan to break the motorcycle land speed record for bio fuel.

What I thought: I enjoyed this. Have read better travel type humour but still good.

Book: Mallawindy


Summary: Ann Burton was born on a river bank the night her father tried to burn their house down. Six years later her sister Liza disappears while they are staying at their uncle's property. What Ann sees that day robs her of her memory and her speech. Ann escapes her anguished childhood, finding love and a new life away from Mallawindy.  But there is no escape from the Burton family and its dark secrets and Ann must return to Mallawindy and confront the past if she is ever to be free.

What I thought: Brilliant. I love Joy Dettman. This is only the second one of hers that I have read but I will be devouring more soon!

Tuesday Night Bookgroup: Mister Pip


Summary: After the trouble starts and the soldiers arrive on Matilda’s tropical island, only one white person stays behind. Mr Watts wears a red nose and pulls his wife around on a trolley. The kids call him Pop Eye. But there is no one else to teach them their lessons. Mr Watts begins to read aloud to the class from his battered copy of Great Expectations, a book by his friend Mr Dickens.  Soon Dickens' hero Pip starts to come alive for Matilda. She writes his name in the sand and decorates it with shells. Pip becomes as real to her as her own mother, and the greatest friendship of her life has begun. But Matilda is not the only one who believes in Pip. And, on an island at war, the power of the imagination can be a dangerously provocative thing.

What I thought: Absolutely brilliant. And tragic. And amazing. Well worth the read.

Book: The Plantation


Summary: When Australian Julie Reagan discovers a book written about wild Malaysia in the 1970s, she decides to find out more about the author – her great aunt. Why did her grandmother refuse to speak about her sister who disappeared from the family, 60 years before? What caused such a severe rift?
Julie is invited to stay with her cousins who run the plantation founded by her great grandfather in Malaya a hundred years ago, and she decides to visit in the hope of finding clues to this family mystery. What Julie finds sends her spiralling through generations of loves, deaths, tragedy and the challenges of the present until she discovers her grandmother's shocking secret.

What I thought: I did enjoy this but once again I defintely prefer to read about Australia..



Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Book: King of Cane Valley


First of 2013!

Summary: After her mother′s death, Rani Ashiramsi must leave her home in Bombay and join her father in the African village of Saringal. There she loses her heart to sugar cane plantation manager Willem Dewar - but Willem is married and when Rani discovers she is pregnant, she has no option but to make a new life for herself and her child. Graeme Carruthers comes to Rani′s rescue, offering a marriage of convenience and a new life in Australia on his family′s sugar cane farm. The birth of her son, Davin, helps to heal Rani′s broken heart and she hopes to find happiness with Graeme in Queensland′s cane valley. But there is one big cloud on the horizon: Eddie O′Roarke and his determination to buy up every cane farm in the area and become king of cane valley. So when Davin grows up and falls in love with O′Roarke′s daughter Moira, it′s more than Eddie′s temper that catches fire...

What I thought: This was an OK read. I much preferred her other one. But still it's nice to escape to unknown places and to learn about other countries.