Category Archives: Fiction

Dreamer’s Pool

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Dreamer’s Pool by Juliet Marillier

Book Summary

Embittered healer Blackthorn, wrongly condemned to death, is offered a lifeline by a mysterious stranger. In return, she must set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once loved. Not only that: for seven years she must agree to help anyone who asks for her aid. She and her companion Grim settle on the fringes of a mysterious forest in Dalriada, far from the place of their incarceration, and start a new life.

Oran, the crown prince of Dalriada, is waiting for his bride-to-be, Lady Flidais. Her letters and sweet portrait have convinced him that she is his destined true love.

But letters can lie.

To save Oran from disaster, Blackthorn and Grim will need courage, ingenuity, and more than a little magic.

Review

Juliet Marillier is one author that only seems to get better with every book she writes. ‘Dreamer’s Pool’ is a beautiful, magical, amazing story. Juliet Marillier is one of those rare authors who has an almost magical quality to her writing. You actually feel like you are there in the story, lost in an long ago forgotten land. You can smell the woods, feel the warmth from the fire and the cold from the rain. You share the characters heartbreak and want give them comfort. Blackthorn, Grim and Oran, the main characters were easy to love and the way each chapter was told through from one of their perspectives added so much to the book. For those people out there who are thinking, no I don’t like that; stop right now. This only added depth to the story and allowed you to really understand the characters. From what I understand this book is the first in a new series and I must say I am really happy. I know I can come back and get lost in the magic of Juliet Marillier’s writing. If it sounds like I have gone on too much and that one book can not be so enchanting then I am sorry; but it is rare when you can really loose yourself in a book and absorb every word. This is one book that should be read slowly, so the beautiful descriptive writing can be savoured.

5/5 Stars

Reviewed by Jody

 

The Man Booker Prize Winner

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Congratulations Richard Flanagan.

WINNER of the 2104 Man Book Prize for ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’

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What would you do if you saw the love of your life, whom you thought dead for a quarter of a century, walking towards you? Richard Flanagan’s story, of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle’s wife, journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel; from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival; from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho’s travel journal, The Narrow Road To The Deep North is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

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the-rosie-effect-no-more-signed-copies-The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Book Summary

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant.

In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don’s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong, and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most.
Review

The Rosie Effect continues the story of Don and Rosie, now married and living in New York. While I enjoyed ‘The Rosie Project’, I found ‘The Rosie Effect’ BRILLANT!

Don and Rosie are settling into their new life in New York when Don is thrown a curve ball, Rosie announces; “We’re pregnant”.

This is the beginning of a hilarious and delightful story; one which I am sure everyone will find hard to put down.

There are some familiar characters Gene, Don’s best friend and Dave the American who Don met on his trip to New York. All the characters both old and new fitted so well together. Their stories and the way they interacted with Don added those special elements that made this book so AMAZING.

Graeme Simsion’s writing style is very engrossing; you feel like you are actually part of Don’s story. I found it hard to believe Don was not a real person and that I wasn’t his friend sharing his ups and downs.

‘The Rosie Effect’ will make you laugh; be prepared for strange looks if you are reading on the bus or train. You will also hold your breath and hope against hope that Don will triumph.

It would be very hard not to like ‘The Rosie Effect’. Instead I feel people cannot help but be sucked into the vortex that is Don Tillman.

I can already tell that ‘The Rosie Effect’ will be very high up on my list of books that I loved this year.

5 stars

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewed by

Jody

Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

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The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Book Summary

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a gentell Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as improvished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

Review

Sarah Waters novels are always eagerly anticipated by her many fans and  “Paying Guests” doesn’t disappoint.  All the familiar elements are there, a fastidious re-creation of  English  society  and the value of times and  an impeccable rendering of the historical period, in this case 1920’s London.  Add to that the usual twists and turns of the plot, where nothing is as it seems.  The main characters are France Wray and her mother, who are of the genteel class, but have fallen upon hard times as the saying goes.  They take in “paying guests” or lodgers from the new Clerk class, a young couple named Lillian and Leonard Barlow.  This signals the beginning of a friendship between the spinsterish Frances who is only 26 years old and the slightly  younger  but glamorous Lillian.

The  marriage of Lillian & Leonard seems  loving one minute and ambivalent the next , and then  a brutal murder occurs in the salubrious suburb of Camberwell.   It turns out that Leonard has been hiding something and Lillian has her own secrets, meanwhile the smitten Frances becomes embroiled in this web of deceit.  The Police start investigating the murder and it becomes a game of cat and mouse.  The tension is palpable and Waters cleverly manipulates the plot,  so that the story becomes a page turner that grips the reader to the end.

Enjoy!

Reviewed by: Katherine