Book: Land of Fences

Summary: There are lights on the horizon. Electricity. Order. A return to civilisation.
After three years cut off, living by their wits in the bush, Finn and Kas might at last find a life without danger and threat.
But the tracking device beneath Kas’s skin begins to buzz—she can’t ignore that she is a Siley, a slave, and will never be free. And when the search parties arrive, with brutal force, Finn and Kas face a new reality—a world divided by fences, a world where they can’t be together.
But after everything they’ve been through, they’re not about to play by the rules.


What I Thought: Great end to a brilliant series. Timely too considering the COVID environment. Highly recommend reading these.

Book: Into the Night

Summary: 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.


What I Thought: Loving good Aussie crime at the minute. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

Book: Maralinga

Summary: During the darkest days of the Cold War, in the remote wilderness of a South Australian desert, the future of an infant nation is being decided ... without its people’s knowledge.

A British airbase in the middle of nowhere; an atomic weapons testing ground; an army of raw youth led by powerful, ambitious men - a cocktail for disaster. Such is Maralinga in the spring of 1956.

MARALINGA is the story of British Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a twelve-month posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI6 and his undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all find themselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates.

MARALINGA is also a story of love; a love so strong that it draws the adventurous young English journalist Elizabeth Hoffmann halfway around the world in search of the truth. And MARALINGA is a story of heartbreak; heartbreak brought to the innocent First Australians who had walked their land unhindered for 40,000 years.

Maralinga ... a desolate place where history demands an emerging nation choose between hell and reason.


What I Thought: WOW! I've never read a Judy Nunn and had always wanted to read this. Brilliant. I feel like I've learnt so much about our shameful past.

Book: The Waddi Tree

Summary: Two branches of the McAllister family lead very different lives on cattle stations in Central Australia. Rob, a stickler for correctness, manages a wealthy, company-owned property, while his easygoing brother, Sandy, struggles to support his wife and son on an impoverished leasehold. When tragedy throws the families together, before ultimately driving them even further apart, it's Sandy's young son Jim who suffers most. Left to rebuild his shattered world, he depends on the larger-than-life station characters and the comfort of horses.

This is tough country, where personal heartache is kept in perspective by drought, fire and isolation. The times are just as unforgiving, and as the years pass, Jim discovers that he must pay for his father's mistakes as well as his own. Yet this harshly beautiful land is full of promise, a source of strength to Jim on his road from innocence to independence.

What I Thought: Brilliant - just loved it. Off to find more of her books!

Book: Conspiracy 365 - January

Summary: On New Year’s Eve, Cal is chased down the street by a crazed man with a deadly warning: They killed your father. They’ll kill you. You must survive the next 365 days!

Forced into a life on the run, Cal finds himself hunted by ruthless criminals and the police. Somehow he must uncover the truth about his father’s mysterious death and solve the Ormond Singularity, a secret from the past, before the year is up.

But who can he turn to when the whole world seems to want him dead? The clock is ticking. Any second could be his last.

What I Thought: Really enjoyed this. Will be hunting down the next in the series.

Book: Missing

Summary: In this second book, the cadets are sent to North Korea. A British agent investigating the rogue state's nuclear capabilities has gone missing. The secretive nature of life in Pyongyang means that unfamiliar adults would be attract suspicion and fall under immediate surveillance. So the cadets form part of a young pioneers tour to the North Korean capital. Once there, they must use their skills and training to find out more about the missing agent.

In the course of their investigations, they forget the one rule every undercover operator must obey: trust nobody. When a local teenager they befriend betrays his suspicions to the North Korean secret police, the young cadets must use all their skill to escape the authorities and the country. But can they locate the British agent at the same time?


What I Thought: Great little series - off to listen to book 3.