Book: Ruby Redfort: Look into my Eyes

Summary: Ruby Redfort is a genius code-cracker, a daring detective, and a gadget-laden special agent who just happens to be a 13-year-old girl. She and her slick side-kick butler, Hitch, foil crimes and get into loads of scrapes with evil villains, but they're always ice-cool in a crisis.

What I Thought:

Book: Maximum Security

Summary: In Maximum Security, 280 child criminals live in the sun-baked desert prison Arizona Max. One of them is the son of a weapons dealer who has been selling U.S. missiles to terrorists. If CHERUB can get the kid, they have a chance to stop his father. Getting into the prison is easy. Breaking out is the hard part.

What I Thought: Really enjoyed this. Bring on book 4!

Book: Stockman's Secret

Summary: In the small town of Little Heart, Juliette Kerr and Joel Hunter are drawn together by their shared experience being targeted by school bullies. But when the bullying takes a drastic turn, Juliette can see no other way to protect Joel from the aftermath than to break his heart and make him leave her behind. Devastated and confused, Joel packs his bags, heading far away in the heart of the outback to jackaroo at Rosalee Station for as long as it takes his heart to heal. A decade later, Joel returns to mend fences with his family and to offer Juliette support. He's no longer the hot-tempered young man who left, but he's never stopped loving her. Is it finally time to make things right between them? Will these two lovers find a way to make peace with the past and regain their future together?


What I Thought: This was ok - not one of her best.

Book: Sure Fire

Summary: For twins Rich and Jade, their lives have just been turned upside down. When their mother is tragically killed in a car crash, their long-lost father, John Chance, appears to collect them at the funeral. He's a bachelor who lives on his own, and it's clear that Rich and Jade aren't welcome. But when Chance suddenly disappears, Rich and Jade uncover the truth: He's a spy. And now, whoever kidnapped their father is after them, too...

What I Thought: Really enjoyable. A new teenage 'spy" type series. Off to get book 2!

Book: The Country Singer

Summary: It's been years since Gemma visited the small country town where she grew up. She probably wouldn't have returned at all if it weren't for her father's passing. Seeing the town's dusty old buildings and her parent's run-down house reminds her of events in her childhood that she's tried to keep in the past, even though they colour her every decision in the present.

Memories of strained silences and reproving looks overwhelm her, as do fragments of things her mother said to her father before she died –  things that have haunted her forever, like 'Why didn't you let me go?'

Discovering a music score as she cleans through her parent's belongings, she learns about a love story so heartbreakingly beautiful that it changes her mind about love.

What I Thought: Enjoyed this one.

Book: Out of Alice

Summary:  When Sara Blake takes up a position as governess on Redhill Station in Central Australia, she isn't expecting to encounter a family in crisis, or to uncover a tragedy of her own. With the owners' son critically ill, Sara is called upon to take care of their young daughter. As the family struggles to make a living from the drought-stricken land, everyone pitches in - and Sara finds herself letting people in to the empty spaces in her heart. But the longer she spends out bush, the more she becomes plagued by elusive visions of her dark and troubled childhood. The fragments of memory lead her deep into the red centre of Australia, where at picturesque Kings Canyon she must confront the horrifying secrets of her past. 


What I Thought: Absolutely loved this one. Probably my fav of hers so far!

Book: Silverfin (Young Bond)

Summary: James Bond will one day become the world’s most famous spy, but at the moment his challenge is to fit in at his new school - making friends, learning the rules and facing up to bullies. Unknown to James though, there is an even tougher challenge awaiting him- something mysterious and deadly lurking in the water. Something called SilverFin.

What I Thought: Loved this. Just brilliant. Bring on book 2!

Book: Wind in the Willows

Summary: This book focuses on four anthropomorphized animals in a pastoral village meant to represent Edwardian England.


What I Thought: Loved it. A fabulous little tale and another book scratched off my poster.  I'm sure this was read to be as a kid - certainly watched it on TV (probably some BBC version)!

Book: Heist

Summary: Left for dead in the desert, framed as the inside man in a bullion robbery at the remote mine site where he works, and fearing that his daughter and ex-wife have been abducted from their home in Perth, Ford must cross a thousand miles of wilderness to find his family.

Ford forms a fragile alliance with Doc and Banjo, a pair of fugitive bikers, and Kavanagh, a cop from the Gold Stealing Detection Unit who's found herself shut out of the case. As this unlikely team sets out across the Outback, they are pursued by cops, mercenaries and bikers, each group with its own agenda for preventing Ford from reaching Perth and uncovering a conspiracy that spreads through the upper strata of Western Australian life.


What I Thought: I enjoyed this - great setting. Bit disjointed in parts but I'll read book 2 still.

Book: Cedar Tree

Summary: In the spring of 1949, Stella O’Riain flees her home – a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind the graves of her husband Joe and her baby daughter.

With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry’s offer to live at the O’Riain cane farm in the Richmond Valley. There she hopes to get answers to the questions that plague her about her marriage. However Harry refuses to discuss Joe or the family’s secrets, even forbidding her to speak to the owner of the neighbouring property.

Nearly a century earlier in County Tipperary, Irish cousins Brandon and Sean O’Riain also fled their homes – as wanted criminals. By 1867, they are working as cedar-cutters in New South Wales’s lush green Richmond Valley.

But while Brandon embraces the opportunities this new country offers, Sean refuses to let go of the past. And one cousin is about to make a dangerous choice that will have devastating consequences down the generations . . .




What I Thought: I enjoyed this but not as much as her last few. Just didn't quite hot the mark in some spots.