Monthly Archives: September 2023

Book Review Silver

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Chris Hammer

Synopsis

For half a lifetime, journalist Martin Scarsden has run from his past. But now there is no escaping.

He’d vowed never to return to his hometown, Port Silver, and its traumatic memories. But now his new partner, Mandy Blonde, has inherited an old house in the seaside town and Martin knows their chance of a new life together won’t come again.

Martin arrives to find his best friend from school days has been brutally murdered, and Mandy is the chief suspect. With the police curiously reluctant to pursue other suspects, Martin goes searching for the killer. And finds the past waiting for him.

He’s making little progress when a terrible new crime starts to reveal the truth. The media descend on Port Silver, attracted by a story that has it all: sex, drugs, celebrity and religion. Once again, Martin finds himself in the front line of reporting.

Yet the demands of deadlines and his desire to clear Mandy are not enough: the past is ever present.

Comments

A page-turning thrilling crime novel set on the NSW East Coast of Australia, where Chris Hammers’ character Martin, from his previous book, Scrublands, grew up. His partner Mandy, inherits a house in the same town, prompting their move. They attempt to start a new life together, but when Martin arrives, he finds the dead body of a childhood friend. And Mandy seems to be the main suspect!

This clever style of writing draws the reader in from the start, wanting to know who did it! However, in order for Martin to solve the mystery he must confront his past. We meet a plethora of characters along the way, people that Martin had grown up with and people who have arrived while he was away being an award-winning journalist. All of which, kept us turning pages, eager to find more clues. We feel the ending may have been a little over thought; got a little confusing around the second murder. However, we still really enjoyed this book.   Another great holiday read for us!

Rating – 8/10

Read by Cultcha Club

Book Review All the light we cannot see

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By Anthony Doer

Summary

Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret.

Werner is a German orphan, destined to labour in the same mine that claimed his father’s life, until he discovers a knack for engineering. His talent wins him a place at a brutal military academy, but his way out of obscurity is built on suffering.

At the same time, far away in a walled city by the sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in.

Comments

Our readers very much enjoyed this book. Some are highly recommending this book to others for a “good read.”

The reader follows two storylines in this book. One set in Germany with an orphan boy, Werner Pfennig, the other set in France with a young blind girl, Marie-Laure. Their stories are told in parallel from very different childhoods in 1934 to their eventual meeting in 1944.

Some readers did find the style of writing difficult to adjust to, jumping from timeframes and countries then back. These readers did not become as attached to the story and abandoned the book but most found they adjusted to this style of writing once the characters were established.

This style was described by one reader as “laying layer upon layer of information” steadily throughout the story.

There were many emotionally attaching characters throughout this novel, both French and German. The struggles for some young German boys and girls with a world that was rapidly evolving around them, a world they had no control over and were powerless against. One reader described this well as “a clash of the individual on the machine around them.”

The group felt that the two main characters, and many of the supporting characters, were beautifully written. Their individual life situations were very emotionally moving and thought provoking. This was achieved so well by the beautiful prose by the author.

Along with the stories of Marie-Laure and Walter there is a third dramatic suspenseful mystery story line following their paths. This story itself is also intriguing.

There was much discussion about World War 2 and how so much of this war was waged through the airwaves. Beginning with Nazi propaganda, their use of radio station and programme control in the brainwashing of the German people, particularly German youth. This was so engagingly written in the life of Werner and his sister in the German orphanage just before the war. The story then follows the use of radios by partisans in invaded countries bravely attempting to alert the allies to German troop and munitions movements.

Readers also commented on how they enjoyed the resolution of events after the war and how well it was managed by the author.

A highly recommended read. 

Read by MJ Readers

Book Review A Spool of Blue Thread

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Anne Tyler

Summary

This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before.

From that porch we spool back through the generations, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define the family. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century – four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their home…

Comments

Many of our readers really enjoyed this book while some were disappointed by the structure of the story. There was real division within our readers with this structural format.

The story centres around three generations of the Whitshank family and the house in which they live in Baltimore. The Whitshanks are an average family and the house itself is presented as a real character in the book. Each generation’s connection to the house is quite well detailed and each of the key inhabitant’s special feelings toward the house outlined.

Most readers agreed the book is well written. The author’s use of dialogue was excellent and the attention to descriptive character detail all throughout the book was very good. Some readers were transported easily to the time and place in the story while other readers found the abrupt transitions in time confusing and irritating, distracting them from the story line.

Some readers also found the story line laboured on and on at times and was really not taking them to anywhere that they felt was interesting.

There was also a feeling by many that the story had an anticlimactic ending with some readers feeling unfulfilled by the story.

There is definite humour frequently throughout the book and moments that are emotionally very touching. There is also one very big shock incident in the middle of the book that none of us saw coming.

For those readers who had read Anne Tyler before it was a good book but not her best.

Many readers however did enjoy the story, the characters involved and the descriptive skill of the writer.

A recommended read.

Read by MJ Readers