Erica Spinks

Stories, gardens, quilts.

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Book review: Already Dead

8 February 2022

Journalist Miranda Jack (Jax) is finally attempting to move on from the death of her husband by relocating up the coast with her young daughter, Zoe. Then a single carjacking by a gun-wielding man changes everything. Forced to drive at high speed up the motorway, Jax listens to the frantic rants of Brendan Walsh, a […]

Book review: The Fell

2 February 2022

At dusk on a November evening in 2020 Kate, in the middle of a two-week quarantine period, just can’t take it anymore. She feels claustrophobic in her small house and needs to walk. Surely no one will know if she slips outside for a quick solitary walk? But her neighbour sees her leaving and her […]

Book review: An Intriguing Deception

18 January 2022

This was a fun read, set in late Regency 1820s London. Enter Miss Olivia Featherstone, who is smart, adventurous, and skilled at throwing daggers at villians. When she seeks to right a slur on her family’s name, Delavel Chêne-Craven, a mysterious aristocrat with mysterious ties to both foreign and domestic governments, crosses her path. Soon […]

Book review: A Family of Strangers

7 January 2022

I am saying goodbye to ‘My book of the month’ in 2022. Instead, I’ll be adding more regular reviews of books I have read. This means you’ll see what an eclectic reader I am. There are certain types of novels I avoid (horror and fantasy – I’m looking at you) and there are certain genres […]

My book of the month: December 2021

29 December 2021

What an irresistible novel; a story full of stories. Start for the mystery but stay for the powerful words and the spaces between them. Jasmine is an Indigenous lawyer who takes her mother, Della, on a tour of English literary sites. Their relationship is, like those within most families, filled with unspoken thoughts. Triggered by […]

A story a day

15 December 2021

Sarah Addison Allen writes stories that, although ostensibly set in the real world, contain elements of the inexplicable – commonly thought of as magic. I’ve always enjoyed her novels because they always made me wonder ‘what if?’. Recently, I’ve discovered this type of story is part of the magical realism genre of books. These are […]

Reading in 2021

3 December 2021

For the past few years, I’ve set book reading targets for myself on Goodreads but it’s not really a goal for me to read that number. I know that sounds like a contradiction but I think of the targets more as records of my book reading in a particular year. I rarely write reviews on […]

My book of the month: November 2021

30 November 2021

I’ve always been interested in plants and, when I was young, toyed with the idea of studying botany. I’m not sure why that didn’t eventuate; perhaps it was simply that the attraction of other subjects was too strong. My interest in the subject has never left me, though. This was such a good read. Set […]

Why we need stories

13 November 2021

Stories sustain us. They allow us to encounter times and worlds we will never see for ourselves and experience the lives of other people. They can provide information and solace. They can take us away from our own lives and widen our perspectives. Stories can make us cry and laugh. They can provide relief from […]

My book of the month: October 2021

31 October 2021

Oh, this is a goody. Pamela Hart (who also writes as Pamela Freeman) has branched out into mysteries. This is the first in her Poppy McGowan series and the sentence on the front cover sums it up: “Renovations are hell – and that’s before you find the body beneath the floorboards”. I read this book […]

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