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Review: Etta and the Octopus – Zana Fraillon & Andrew Joyner

Etta and the Octopus

Zana Fraillon

Andrew Joyner – Illustrator

Hachette Aus

Lothain Chidren’s Books

ISBN:9780734421685

RRP $14.99

Description:

A hilarious, fully illustrated tale about an unlikely friendship between a girl and an octopus that is perfect for newly independent readers, from one of Australia’s most respected writers for children and an award-winning illustrator.

FOUND!

One octopus!

Likes to eat tuna sandwiches.

Goes by the name of ‘Oswald’.

It all began when Etta decided to take a bath . . . And realised she wasn’t alone. In the bath sat Oswald. Etta had never had an octopus in her bath before.

At first, Etta thinks it might be fun to have Oswald around. But she soon learns that octopuses are not very good at being tidy . . . or cooking . . . or sharing . . . or even playing nicely.

Just as Etta has almost had enough, someone comes to claim Oswald. Oswald isn’t perfect, but does Etta
really want to send him away?

My View:

A delightful, smelly, fishy, read for you to share with your new reader – and don’t all 5 year + enjoy a bit of smelly, fishy, type jokes? A narrative about friendship, kindness and fishy odours:) I think this is the prefect story, characters and design for animation.

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Review: Naked Ambition – Robert Gott

Naked Ambition

Robert Gott

Scribe

ISBN:9781922585967

RRP $29.99

Description:

You’re a politician, a public figure. What on earth were you thinking?’

Up-and-coming junior minister Gregory Buchanan has had a portrait painted of himself by the acclaimed artist Sophie White — a painting she intends to enter in this year’s Archibald Prize. Until then, Gregory has hung it in pride of place on his dining-room wall. It’s a life-sized standing portrait, practically photographic in nature. And it’s a nude.

His wife will be home soon and he thinks the painting will be a pleasant surprise. Even more surprising will be an unexpected accumulation of guests: his sardonic mother, his fundamentalist mother-in-law, his lycra-clad cycling-enthusiast sister, and the state premier, Louisa Wetherly — a senior minister has just resigned in scandalous circumstances, and she needs Gregory to step into the spotlight ahead of the coming election.

It’s going to be a wild afternoon, and an even wilder campaign — to do something about Gregory’s naked ambition.

My View:

Clever, wicked, intelligent and so funny. A great read.

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Review: What Makes Us Human? – Iain S Thomas, GPT-3, Jasmine Wang

Iain S. Thomas, GPT-3, Jasmine Wang

Sounds True

Boulder, Colorado USA

ISBN:9781649630179

Description:

A groundbreaking endeavor to explore human spirituality through the evolving technology of artificial intelligence

Why are we here? What does it mean to love? How do we overcome suffering? Is happiness truly possible?

For thousands of years, we have turned to the same beloved texts to explore these universal questions—from the Bible and the Tao Te Ching, to the poetry of Rumi and Sappho, to the words of modern-day mystics.

What if you could take all of the wisdom contained in these collective pages and, using the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence, receive the answers?

To create What Makes Us Human?, internationally bestselling poet Iain S. Thomas and globally recognized prodigious researcher and innovator Jasmine Wang prompted the world’s most advanced AI, GPT-3, with a wealth of humanity’s most cherished works. Then they asked GPT-3 our most pressing questions about life.

Contained in this book are the conversations and exchanges that followed.

A bold and daring experiment, What Makes Us Human? is a contemporary exploration of spirituality that will inspire you, move you, and give you a new understanding of what makes us humans, humans.

My View:

A really interesting experiment that is a joy to read. Mediative. Mindful. Touching

Iain S Thomas interprets, “informs” /edits the final results you see on the page. A beautiful read.

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Review: Home Before Night – J.P. Pomare

Home Before Night

J P Pomare

Hachette Australia

ISBN:9780733649547

RRP $32.99

Description:

As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8 pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew begins, they must live for four weeks and stay within five kilometres of. When Lou’s son, Samuel, doesn’t arrive home by nightfall, she begins to panic.

He doesn’t answer his phone. He doesn’t message. His social media channels are inactive. Lou is out of her mind with worry, but she can’t go to the police, because she has secrets of her own. Secrets that Samuel just can’t find out about. Lou must find her son herself and bring him home.

My View:

I felt this was a book of two parts- the first – I just could not work out what was going on…the unreliable narrator worked exceptionally well but I was confused as to the point. The suddenly the pointy bits struck me! The later part of the book was masterful and made sense of everything else…A quick read…See if you can work it out before the end.

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#Friday Freebie – Time After Time – Karly Lane

Time After Time

Karly Lane

Allen and Unwin

ISBN:9781761066115

RRP $29.99

Description:

A stunning new rural romance from the bestselling author with over 500,000 books sold.

Alice Croydon has the perfect life: she has a loving family and she’s about to marry her high school sweetheart Finn. Alice couldn’t be happier. Except for the occasional niggle whenever she thinks about her career. Fashion design has always been her passion, but living in a small country town doesn’t offer much opportunity to pursue that dream.

Until one day the unexpected happens. The only problem? She has to move to the other side of the world and give up one dream for another. 

Living in London should have been exciting, but for Alice, far away from home, her sole focus becomes working within a renown couture fashion house. Alice knows it’s unlikely but she secretly hopes that Finn might still want to try again. 

But you can’t turn back time, and fate may have other plans. 

 Praise for Karly Lane:

‘Well written, and bravely done…Once Burnt, Twice Shy is Karly Lane’s best yet, celebrating the power of community working to support one another in terrible calamity.’ – Blue Wolf Reviews

‘I didn’t want the story to end…Karly Lane has proven herself time again in rural romance and now she has smashed the contemporary fiction genre with Take Me Home.’ – Beauty and Lace

‘I loved this read! The main characters were so engaging, their back stories poignant and heartbreaking…their everyday lives relatable with an appeal that connects to the reader…’ Reading Writing and Riesling on Something Like This

***Thanks to Allen and Unwin Australia I have one copy of this new release to giveaway. To win a copy of this book, in the comments, tell me the name of one of Karly’s earlier books. How easy is that. I will randomly select a winner on the 5th of May 2023.***

**Australian Residents only**


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Review: Standing in the Shadows – Peter Robinson

Standing in the Shadows

Peter Robinson

Hodder & Stoughton

Hachette Australia

ISBN:9781529343175

RRP $34.99

Description:

The brilliant new novel in the number one bestselling Alan Banks crime series – by the master of the police procedural.

‘The best mystery-procedural series on the market. Try one and tell me I’m wrong’ STEPHEN KING

Late November, 1980. Student Nick Hartley returns from a lecture to find his house full of police officers. As he discovers that his ex-girlfriend has been found murdered in a nearby park, and her new boyfriend is missing, he realises two things in quick succession: he is undoubtedly a suspect as he has no convincing alibi, and he has own suspicions as to what might have happened . . .

Late November 2019. An dig near Scotch Corner unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more recent than the Roman remains the archaeologist is looking for. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team are called in and, as an investigation into the find begins, the past and the present meet with devastating consequences.

My View:

This duel time line starts slowly, establishing characters and landscape, it kind of has that “Midsomer Murders” vibe, comfortable and well written. The pace quickens towards the end…and a few surprises are shared.

This is a well established series and fan will enjoy another episode of this English police procedural.

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10 Things You Didn’t Know About Karly Lane

Karly Lane has a new novel out this week – Time After Time and to celebrate I thought we would try and discover a little more about Karly.

Ten Things You didn’t know about Karly Lane

  1. I am a Collector of Animals

Mostly horses—brumbies to be exact. I fell in love with them after researching If Wishes Were Horses, a number of years ago and after visiting the association responsible for rehoming the wild horses, ended up bringing home a mare and foal, and so started my addiction. I also have chooks, dogs, cats, ducks and guinea fowl (Do. NOT. Get . Me. Started. On those) The most stupid animal on the planet. Seriously.

  • I have a fear of frogs

I am petrified of the things. Can’t stand the thought of them. There was that one time I tried to add a little bit of humour into a scene of Morgan’s Law…the frog in the shower scene, thinking it would be funny…I found myself emotionally traumatised for weeks afterward!

  • I LOVE Scotland

I REALLLLLLLY do. I went over there to research some family history and explore some of the places I’d heard stories about growing up, and simply fell in love. I came home and begged my publisher to let me write a book set in Scotland so I could use all the places I’d been to over there in it. Thankfully Scotland is as rural as Australia so I added an Australian tourist, and Take Me Home was the book that came out of it.

  • I own  a castle….well sort of…

So, following on from the whole Scotland love thing, I visited our family castle in Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. It’s been in the MacLeod family for over 900 years and the castle itself is built on ruins that go back ever further than that. When I say our castle, I mean, technically there may be a few million descendants in front of me, but, you never know…one day, I could inherit the place…just sayin.

  • I have a title and I own land in Scotland

You can call me, Lady Karly, if you like, and I am the proud owner of a lot of land…*cough* oops, sorry that should be a plot of land…like a 1 metre square, plot to be exact…but still…apparently the title is real. I can even pass it down through my kids after I’m gone…cool huh!

  • I met Dwayne Johnson

Okay, this one was a lie, but it’s really hard to come up with TEN interesting facts about yourself…

  •  I need coffee first thing in the morning.

No lie there. Absolute truth. My kids to this day won’t even try and talk to me until they know I’ve had coffee.

  •     I used to be a pathology collector.

Yep…I was a vampire and I loved it.

  •     I don’t plot any of my books.

It all comes down to the fact I’m really impatient. (Oh, that could have technically been another FACT instead of number 6 I suppose…but it’s not exactly as interesting as the Rock.)

I tend to get an idea—sometimes it’s a scene, or a conversation between two characters. Other times it’s the whole what if scenario that just makes me sit down in front of a blank word document and start typing. About halfway through I always decide that this is the most stupid method of writing a novel ever and I should have just sat down and plotted the whole book out first, but by then I’m already invested and I just have to plough my way through.  

   I am ALWAYS on Facebook…

Honestly, I am, so look me up and send a friend request so you can keep up with all the craziness that seems to make up my daily life and writing.

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Grab a copy of Karly’s new book – Time After Time – its the one with a quote by yours truly on the back!

.

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Review: Small Mercies – Dennis Lehane

Small Mercies

Dennis Lehane

Abacus Books

Hachette Australia

ISBN:9780349145761

RRP $32.99

Description:

The brilliant new novel from New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane.

‘Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment’ Stephen King

‘A jaw-dropping thriller… a resonant, unflinching story written by a novelist who is simply one of the best around’ Gillian Flynn

New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River – an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

‘Mrs. Fennessy, please go home.’
‘And do what?’
‘Whatever you do when you’re home.’
‘And then what?’
‘Get up the next day and do it again.’
She shakes her head. ‘That’s not living.’
‘It is if you can find the small blessings.’
She smiles, but her eyes shine with agony. ‘All my small blessings are gone.’

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of ‘Southie’, the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched – asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism.

My View:

Have you been suffering from a reading slump lately? I have, but this one has shocked me awake! It is brilliant! Touching, engaging, brutal, honest…yet ultimately hopeful. The character Mary Pat is central to unlocking this ray of hope…her love for her children is the standout feature of this read – it is fierce and burns through a lifetime of lies and manipulation allowing Mary Pat and the reader to to understand how an entire neighborhood/city has been manipulated for the personal gain of a few morally bankrupt men. Her love is an erupting volcano – sweeping aside, burning up all that dare stand in her way of finding her child. Holding these men to account is her mission. Despite all her faults we, the reader, cheer her on an enlightened Mary Pat.

Yes I loved this read. Harsh, brutal, violent, yet I loved it and read in one sitting. Dennis Lehane is a brilliant storyteller.