Ooh, I do love a good thriller. Louise Candlish has outdone herself with this one. It has twists and turns and had me hungry to know the story from the perspectives of the other characters. When a young man is killed in a car accident, his mother’s grief leads her to plot revenge on the […]

Wow, this is such a powerful story. It’s a riveting read about Martha, who knows her mental health is not right but she doesn’t know what’s wrong. By the time she finds out, her illness has influenced her life in so many ways that it doesn’t matter anymore. This story absorbed me and I kept […]

I love that we can experience the changing seasons in our area. We’ve had two frosts this week and another one is forecast for tomorrow. Most deciduous trees have discarded their leaves although many are just hanging on, at least until the next winds blow. I’ve lost track of how many piles of leaves I’ve […]

When people are taken out of their usual environment they often re-examine aspects of their lives. The characters in Vanessa McCausland’s novel soon discover this when they visit Capertree Valley. The four friends and their children visit a restored Art Deco hotel in a remote former mining town. Soon everything starts to unravel as secrets […]

Novels teach us a lot about human interaction: how we behave in particular situations, how we react to crises, and how we deal with our emotions. I have learned so much from fictional characters – thank you to all the authors who have created them. I have cried while reading many novels. Here are five […]

The leaves on local deciduous trees have turned the most glorious colours and the temperatures have dropped. We have had two frosts this month! I love that we have distinct seasons here and that they don’t just merge into each other. Autumn is the most glorious time. Here are some of the things I’ve been […]

I wish I’d discovered this book when it was published in 2019. That was a busy and stressful year for me so I guess that’s why I missed it. But now I’ve read it and wow – it is the most astonishingly poignant story I have read in a long time. Immediately I started reading […]

We’ve had one complete week of constant rain (294 mm) followed by a week of gloriously sunny days. Of course, it would have been better if the rain had been spread out but weather systems don’t work like that, do they? Many plants in my garden drowned. That means plenty of tidying up to do […]

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. My garden club is meeting again and so is my quilting group, so I’m enjoying meeting new people with common interests and getting involved. The state government suspended our local council and replaced it with an interim administrator, initially for three months. There’s been lots of rain and […]