Tag Archives: Book Club Kit

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

Book Review Apples Never Fall

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by Liane Moriarty

Summary

From the outside, the Delaneys appear to be an enviably contented family. Even after all these years, former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are still winning tournaments, and now that they’ve sold the family business they have all the time in the world to learn how to ‘relax’. Their four adult children are busy living their own lives, and while it could be argued they never quite achieved their destinies, no-one ever says that out loud.

But now Joy Delaney has disappeared and her children are re-examining their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh, frightened eyes. Is her disappearance related to their mysterious house guest from last year? Or were things never as rosy as they seemed in the Delaney household?

Comments

A long and rather tedious family saga/ psychological thriller. The Delaney family appear to be a normal happy family however when the mother, Joy, suddenly disappears the whole family is scrutinised and their underlying characters are revealed and found wanting. Has Joy been murdered and if so is her husband Stan the killer? To complicate matters a young woman named Savannah arrives on the Delaney’s doorstep in the middle of the night in a distressed state. She has apparently been injured by her partner and has nowhere to go. Joy allows her to stay with them despite opposition from her four adult children and lukewarm suport from her husband.

The background of the Delaney’s obsession with tennis is a crucial factor in the relationship between Stan and Joy and the lives of their four children. They met at a tennis club and went on to own a coaching school. All the children played from an early age and were expected to be champions. Such pressure to succeed has blighted the lives of all four of them in various ways.

One suspects throughout that Savannah is in some way responsible for Joy’s disappearance but we are kept waiting, not in nail biting suspense, but wishing that the end is in sight. When it comes however, like all good fairy tales, the family all live happily ever after and the wicked witch Savannah has the satisfaction of slaying the dragon who ruined her life.

The underlying theme of the damage caused by ambitious parents imposing their dreams of fame and  success on their offspring is a positive in this otherwise rather ordinary novel.

Read by Dundas Readers

Book Review The Cowra Breakout

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The Cowra Breakout by Mat McLachlan

Summary

The riveting story of the missing piece of Australia’s World War II history, told by bestselling historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the Anzacs, Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide).

During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. By August 1944, over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout.

This compelling and fascinating book, written by one of Australia’s leading battlefield historians, vividly traces the full story of the Breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence and complacency, and of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred – and too quick to cover it up when it was too late. But mostly it is a story about raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost.

Comments

This book was enjoyed by our readers, with many adding that they were surprised by how much they did enjoy this book.

We found the book to be extremely well researched by the author. With this very factual research the author has then developed a highly detailed and very readable novel about an interesting episode in Australian war history.

The writer was able to take us to this period in time by well researched real personal accounts starting with Japanese Zero fighter pilot Tatsumi Hanada, Australia’s first prisoner of war, shot down over Melville Island following the first Japanese attack on Darwin.

We found it to be a most enjoyable read about the homeland history of Australian soldiers in WW2.

The book also prompted a reflective discussion about how the Japanese prisoners of war were treated by the Australian captors as opposed to how Australian and allied forces along with civilian expats who were captured were treated by the Japanese forces. The Japanese culturally having a completely different attitude to what it meant to be a POW. It was an interesting fact in the book that many Japanese prisoners used false names to conceal from their families in Japan that they were POW’s. Their complete personal shame at being a prisoner, they would rather die in a mass escape than return home after the war to be known as a POW. The Australians treating them well as prisoners only seemed to make them resent their situation more.

This story also gives real recognition to the Australian soldiers who died during this escape and a detailed account of what these soldiers faced on that night in 1944, the night of the breakout.

The cover up following from the Australian authorities, just like the cover up of the bombing of Darwin, evokes hurt and resentment to this day from Australian soldiers and citizens.

As a group we all confessed that we had very little knowledge at all about the Cowra breakout although most of us had heard of the breakout. This bought about a discussion of many other historically important and impressive episodes in Australia’s war history that are not taught in school history as far as we know.

The cover up following from the Australian authorities, just like the cover up of the bombing of Darwin, evokes hurt and resentment to this day from Australian citizens.

A lengthy discussion also followed about Australians’ personal attitudes toward the Japanese after the war. How attitudes have changed over time. Our own grandparents and parents, who lived through this period, had such a different attitude to the Japanese compared to our own generation and that of the current younger generations.

This was a read that we are happy to recommend.

Read by MJ Readers