2019 - Books in Review

In 2019 I had an excellent reading year with 74 books read. Would have to be my best ever.


So a quick breakdown:

Non-fiction - 4 (all about rural stuff)
Teen - 13 (finished Alex Rider and Agent 21 both awesome teen series. And started The Debt - also great)
Rural Romance - 49 (it's all I read)
General Fiction - 8 (a few Grishams/Picoults/Baldaccis and bookclub books)

I did manage a few Bookclub books - but not many...

Incredibly I listened to 42 audiobooks - generally while driving or re-finding my love of jigsaw puzzles.

For Christmas I got a scratchable book poster - 100 to read before you die. Hopefully I can manage 3 in 2020...

So 2020 is here and I will aim again for 52 books - fingers crossed I get there - just so many other competing demands :)

Book: House at the End of the Street

Summary: Gemma Munroe loves hard, laughs hard and plays hard. Or at least she did before today. Her dream is finally within her grasp – owning the toy shop in Swallow’s Fall and establishing herself permanently. Only one person has the power to get in her way: Josh Rutherford – the love of her life who kissed her and left her ten years ago is coming home.

Josh will be in town for five days. Only five days. He’ll finally sever the ties to a youth filled with poverty by selling the properties that are now his. He’s returning healthy, wealthy and emotionally stable, and then he’ll leave forever. It’s all in the plan. Everything…except for Gem. He never forgot her, but he definitely forgot the effect she has on him. Now she’s got problems, and he can’t seem to leave without trying to help her solve them.

The town itself also has its own plans: Gemma and Josh are thrown together in Speed-Date fiascos, kissing experiments, bar fights and an issue with the North Star – Josh’s compass and the road to his next adventure. Seven weeks later Josh is still in town. Gem has to get through her best friends’ wedding and Josh has to get over Gem. Because he’s not staying. Is he?


What I Thought: A nice enjoyable read. One to go in the series.

Book: Undara

Summary: 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 as 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.


What I Thought: Brilliant - sucked in. Great read and some amazing history learnt too. Definitely on my "to visit" list!

Book: Agent 21 - Endgame (Agent 22)

Summary: For some time now, Zack Darke has been operating solo, in total secrecy, for a shadowy government organisation. When his handlers are abducted by somebody with a serious personal vendetta against him, Zak has no choice but to go after them. And heading across the world to find them - into danger like he's never known - is something that, this time, he cannot do alone . . .

What I Thought: Loved it. Shame the series ended as I would love it to keep going.

Book: Stone Country

Summary: South Australia, 1919. Ross Grant has always felt like the black sheep of his wealthy Scottish family. An explorer by nature, he dreams of life on Waybell, their remote cattle station in Australia’s last remaining wilderness, the Northern Territory. But when his brother Alastair is branded a deserter after going missing during the Great War, to help restore the Grants’ damaged reputation, Ross is coerced into marrying Darcey Thomas, a woman he has never met.

Disgusted by his manipulative family, he turns his back on his unwanted wife just hours after the ceremony, and heads to Waybell with no plans to return. He carries with him the hope of carving his own empire in the far north.

But Ross has not counted on Darcey’s determination to be his wife in more than just name. Nor did he anticipate meeting Maria, a young woman who will change his life. And he certainly wasn’t prepared for how this beautiful yet savage land will both captivate and destroy his soul . . .

From nineteenth-century Adelaide and the red dirt of mid-north South Australia, to the cattle stations and buffalo plains of the far north, Ross’s journey is one of desire, adventure and determination, to the heart of stone country and beyond.

What I Thought: This sucked me in - I really enjoyed it.

Book: Agent 21 - Under Cover (Agent 22)

Summary: Zak Darke is sent on what seems like a straightforward surveillance op in South Africa but it soon turns into the toughest, most dangerous mission he has ever faced. An old enemy has teamed up with a terrifying gang of child soldiers and Zak is caught in the middle. Having travelled to the heart of the African jungle, will he make it out alive . . . ?


What I Thought: Loved it - a new Agent is introduced and I was totally sucked in!

Book: Agent 21 - Deadfall

Summary: Zak Darke is sent on what seems like a straightforward surveillance op in South Africa but it soon turns into the toughest, most dangerous mission he has ever faced. An old enemy has teamed up with a terrifying gang of child soldiers and Zak is caught in the middle. Having travelled to the heart of the African jungle, will he make it out alive . . . ?


What I Thought: Sucked in - another great read.

Book: Central to Nowhere

Summary: When Ivy steps over the cattle grid, reality hits. Capricorn Station is vast, desolate and Central to Nowhere. But Ivy has come too far to back out now. She’s left her past behind her and is desperate to make this work.

Stockman Adam O’Rourke is equally determined she’s going home ASAP. This girl is not the jillaroo he was expecting to help on his station over the summer. She can’t even handle a horse.

It isn’t long before Ivy realises there’s more between her and Adam than the job. But Ivy has only one summer on Capricorn Station. One season that’s passing way too fast.

And when Adam’s past blows in unexpectedly, Ivy realises too late that falling for him is bringing back everything she is running from.


What I Thought: A nice easy read. New author - will try again. Didn't hook me in like others.

Book: Love Song

Summary: At age seventeen, Beth Paterson was determined to study medicine at university, despite the heartache of losing her mother. Tutoring Charlie Campbell worked well with her plan – but falling in love with him sure didn’t, and neither did getting her heart broken when he abruptly left town.
Now Charlie is a big star on the alternative rock scene, while Beth is a respected doctor in her hometown. When Charlie comes back to fight for the tiny community where he was raised, neither one of them can ignore the wild attraction they once shared.
Beth swore no man would ever hurt her again – least of all this man. But some love songs can never be forgotten, especially when they were written for you…




What I Thought: Enjoyed the ending of this trilogy.

Book: The Land Girls

Summary: Melbourne,1942. War has engulfed Europe and now the Pacific, and Australia is fighting for its future. For spinster Flora Atkins, however, nothing much has changed. Tending her dull office job and beloved brother and father, as well as knitting socks for the troops, leaves her relatively content. Then one day a stranger gives her brother a white feather and Flora's anger propels her out of her safe life and into the vineyards of the idyllic Mildura countryside, a member of the Australian Women's Land Army.
There she meets Betty, a 17-year-old former shopgirl keen to do her bit for the war effort and support her beloved, and the unlikely Lilian, a well-to-do Adelaide girl fleeing her overbearing family and theworld's expectations for her. As the Land Girls embrace their new world of close-knit community and backbreaking work, they begin to find pride in their roles. More than that, they start to find a kind of liberation. For Flora, new friendships and the singular joy derived from working the land offer new meaning to her life, and even the possibility of love.
But as the clouds of war darken the horizon, and their fears for loved ones - brothers, husbands, lovers - fighting at the front grow, the Land Girls' hold on their world and their new-found freedoms is fragile. Even if they make it through unscathed, they will not come through unchanged...


What I Thought: Absolutely LOVED this book. A beautiful story and I feel like I've learnt so much about our history.