After recently divorced Rose McHugh leaves Sydney to start a new life in the Southern Highlands area, she finds a roll of film buried in her backyard. She has the film developed (I’m not sure many people would do that but she’s an historian and also nosy, which helps make her actions more believable), and […]

This is the first novel by Salley Vickers I have read and, after finishing it, I am keen to read her others. It transported me to the Welsh Marches, that area along the border between Wales and England. Any writer who can evoke such a strong sense of place engages me. Hassie Days, an illustrator, […]

The seven skins of Esther Wilding is an astonishing novel; a novel of grief and self-discovery underpinned with shimmering layers of stories from Indigenous Australia and Scandinavia. After Esther’s sister Aura disappears in the sea near their hometown in Lutruwita Tasmania, Esther eventually realises she needs to embark on a journey to understand what had […]

What a twisty story! Nothing is what it seems in this new book by Louise Candlish, as character after character is revealed as not what they seem. Alex lives with his wife Beth in the suburb of Silver Vale. He prefers to live a quiet life and keep his life private but, when Beth tells […]

This is the eighth story in Vicki Delany’s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery series and, as you would expect, there’s a murder investigation to solve. Gemma Doyle, the owner of the bookshop, is a level-headed English woman living in West London, Massachusetts. When strange things start happening in Scarlet House, an historical re-enactment museum, the board […]

I read this, the latest novel from Maya Linnell, a few months ago and it was just what I needed at the time. We were in a period of constant rain and, from inside the house, I could see many plants in my garden drowning. It was difficult to believe that my dahlia tubers would […]

I’m fortunate that the Friends of our local library organise monthly author talks. I’ve been to several this year and have benefitted from listening to the authors’ stories. Some share how they became writers, some talk about their writing processes, while others share the research work that goes into their books. This morning, at the […]

This is an absorbing story that challenges as it unravels. With its strong feminist focus, the storylines are played out against the myths about powerful women (aka ‘witches’) in remote Scottish islands. Luda is a photographer who moves with her two teenaged children from drought-stricken Australia to a collection of islands in Scotland’s harsh north […]