My painting tribute to this auspicious day: “We are Stronger When We Stand Together”
Happy International Women’s Day 2021
Recent Posts
#FridayFreebie: The Paris Affair – Pip Drysdale
The Paris Affair
Pip Drysdale
Simon & Schuster
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/The-Paris-Affair/Pip-Drysdale/9781760854324
She thinks love can kill you. It turns out she might be right. The dark and sexy new thriller from the bestselling author of The Sunday Girl and The Strangers We Know.
Harper Brown is an expert at picking locks, breaking her way out of car boots, talking her way out of trouble and she could run a masterclass on escaping relationships – her record for losing a guy is three minutes flat. She’s addicted to true crime podcasts and is the genius behind a micro-column called ‘How to not get murdered’.
After having her heart broken helping her ex follow his dreams, Harper has moved to Paris to fulfill hers. She’s talked her way into a job as an arts journalist, a stepping stone to her dream role as an investigative journalist. All she has to do is whatever it takes to get there. But then one night she meets the artist Noah X, and everything she thinks she knows is turned upside down.
Soon Harper finds herself entangled in a web of lies, hot on the trail of a murderer and the scoop of a lifetime. This is the story that could make her career – if the killer doesn’t catch her first.
*** I have one copy of the fabulous The Paris Affair to give away – for your chance to win simply leave a comment on this post with the title of another book written by Pip Drysdale. How easy is that? Entries open to Australian residents only, entries close 28th February 2021. Thanks to the lovely people at Simon & Schuster and to the author for providing this giveaway. ***
Art Alert
This week I delivered some art to Collie Art Gallery ( in the south west of Western Australia – about 2 hours from our home.)
I am so pleased with the outcome. Collie Art Gallery is a fabulous art space. If you are in Western Australia please pop in and check out the gallery – and my work
A Virtual Tour of my Exhibition
It has been a busy few months in the lead up to my “Restless 2020” exhibition in Fremantle, Western Australia.
Here is a quick look at my room- it looks fabulous! Thanks to all those who visited the gallery, your support is amazing.
Exhibition News
I am very happy excited to share with you the dates of my latest exhibition
“ Restless” – which sums up my feelings around 2020.
Release Day Giveaway: The Law Of Innocence – Michael Connelly
The Law of Innocence
Michael Connelly
Allen & Unwin Australia
ISBN: 9781760878917
RRP$32.99
Description:
It has been seven years since we have had a new Lincoln Lawyer thriller from Michael Connelly. In The Law of Innocence Defence attorney Mickey Haller is pulled
over by police, who find the body of a client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is charged with murder and can’t make the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge. Mickey elects to defend himself and must strategize and build his defence from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles, all the while looking over his shoulder. As an officer of the court, he is an instant target. Mickey knows he has been framed. Now, with the help of his trusted team, he must figure out who has plotted to destroy his life and why. Then he has to go before a judge and jury and prove his innocence.
In his highest stakes case yet, Mickey Haller fights for his life and shows why he is ‘a worthy colleague of Atticus Finch … in the front of the pack in the legal thriller game’ (Los Angeles Times).
About Michael Connelly:
A former police reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Connelly is the international bestselling author of the Harry Bosch thriller series and the legal thriller series featuring Mickey Haller, as well as several stand-alone bestsellers. His most recent #1
bestseller is Fair Warning. Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-five novels and one
work of non-fiction. With over seventy-four million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theatres worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds of Truth, The Late Show, The Wrong Side of Goodbye, The Crossing, The Burning Room, The Gods of Guilt,
and The Black Box. Michael’s crime fiction career was honoured with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018. Connelly is also the executive producer of Bosch, an Amazon Studios original based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch.
My View:
Another outstanding legal procedural/mystery from this talented writer.
Once upon a time I used to eagerly await opening my Christmas presents – there would always be a new Connelly wrapped and under the tree. I would then devour the book.
These days I cannot wait till Christmas! I acquire as soon as released and then devour! Nom Nom!
***3 lucky Australian residents have a chance to win a copy of this new release simply by listing another book that the Lincoln Layers appears in, in the comments. Winners will be randomly selected 17/11/020 – just in time for the postie to get this to you so you can wrap and put under your tree – if you can resist the temptation to read immediately:) **
#FridayFreebie : Trust – Chris Hammer
Chris Hammer
Trust
Allen and Unwin
ISBN: 9781760877415
RRP $32.99
Thanks to Allen and Unwin I have one copy of the fantastic read to give away ( Australian residents only) Simply comment with the name of the first book that Chris Hammer had published *hint it was back in 2010 https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/fiction/crime-mystery/Trust-Chris-Hammer-9781760877415 winner will be randomly selected on the 30th of October 2020
#FridayFreebie : Max – Alex Miller
Max
Alex Miller
Allen & UNwin
ISBN: 9781760878160
RRP $29.99
Description:
An astonishing, moving tribute to Alex’s friend, Max Blatt, that is at once a meditation on memory itself, on friendship and a reminder to the reader that history belongs to humanity.
‘Max tells of Alex Miller’s search — in turns fearful and elated — for the elusive past of Max Blatt, a man he loves, who loved him and who taught him that he must write with love. Miller discovers that he is also searching for a defining part of himself, formed by his relation to Max Blatt, but whose significance will remain obscure until he finds Max, complete, in his history. With Max, Miller the novelist has written a wonderful work of non-fiction, as fine as the best of his novels. Always a truth-seeker, he has rendered himself vulnerable, unprotected by the liberties permitted to fiction. Max is perhaps his most moving book, a poignant expression of piety, true to his mentor’s injunction to write with love.’ Raimond Gaita, award-winning author of Romulus, My Father
I began to see that whatever I might write about Max, discover about him, piece together with those old shards of memory, it would be his influence on the friendships of the living that would frame his story in the present.
According to your 1939 Gestapo file, you adopted the cover names Landau and Maxim. The name your mother and father gave you was Moses. We knew you as Max. You had worked in secret. From an early age you concealed yourself – like the grey box beetle in the final country of your exile, maturing on its journey out of sight beneath the bark of the tree.
You risked death every day. And when at last the struggle became hopeless, you escaped the hell and found a haven in China first, and then Australia, where you became one of those refugees who, in their final place of exile, chose not death but silence and obscurity.
Alex Miller followed the faint trail of Max Blatt’s early life for five years. Max’s story unfolded, slowly at first, from the Melbourne Holocaust Centre’s records then to Berlin’s Federal Archives. From Berlin, Miller travelled to Max’s old home town of Wroclaw in Poland. And finally in Israel with Max’s niece, Liat Shoham, and her brother Yossi Blatt, at Liat’s home in the moshav Shadmot Dvora in the Lower Galilee, the circle of friendship was closed and the mystery of Max’s legendary silence was unmasked.
Max is an astonishing and moving tribute to friendship, a meditation on memory itself, and a reminder to the reader that history belongs to humanity.
** Today I have 3 copies of this moving tribute to friendship. If you would like a chance to read this book by the remarkable Alex Miller simple comment with a title of one of Alex Miler’s previous book. Australians residents only. I will randomly select winners on 10/10/020 https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/Max-Alex-Miller-9781760878160
#FridayFreebie – Bluebird – Malcolm Knox
Bluebird
Malcolm Knox
Allen & Unwin Australia
ISBN: 9781760877422
RRP $32.99
Description:
‘If Winton is an aria, Knox is early Rolling Stones.’ The Guardian
A stunning new novel about longing, regret, redemption and the terrible legacy of decades of secrets buried in an Australian beachside suburb.
A house perched impossibly on a cliff overlooking the stunning, iconic Bluebird Beach. Prime real estate, yet somehow not real estate at all, The Lodge is, like those who live in it, falling apart.
Gordon Grimes has become the accidental keeper of this last relic of an endangered world. He lives in The Lodge with his wife Kelly who is trying to leave him, their son Ben who will do anything to save him, his goddaughter Lou who is hiding from her own troubles, and Leonie, the family matriarch who has trapped them here for their own good.
But Gordon has no money and is running out of time to conserve his homeland. His love for this way of life will drive him, and everyone around him, to increasingly desperate risks. In the end, what will it cost them to hang onto their past?
Acclaimed writer Malcolm Knox has written a classic Australian novel about the myths that come to define families and communities, and the lies that uphold them. It’s about a certain kind of Australia that we all recognise, and a certain kind of Australian whose currency is running out. Change is coming to Bluebird, whether they like it or not. And the secrets they’ve been keeping and the lies they’ve been telling can’t save them now.
Savage, funny, revelatory and brilliant, Bluebird exposes the hollowness of the stories told to glorify a dying culture and shows how those who seek to preserve these myths end up being crushed by them.
**If you would like to win a copy of Bluebird by Malcolm Knox, in the comments tell me the title of any other book Knox has written https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/fiction/Bluebird-Malcolm-Knox-9781760877422
entries open to Australian residents , I will conduct a random draw to select 3 winners on 11/9/020 thank you Allen & Unwin**
#FridayFreebie : Easy Gluten Free – Helen Tzouganatos
Easy Gluten Free by Helen Tzouganatos
Published by Plum
RRP $39.99,
Photography by Jeremy Simons
Description:
Discover how easy it is to cook delicious, gluten-free food for the whole family, every night of the week, with Helen Tzouganatos, host of the SBS Food series Loving Gluten Free.
Easy Gluten Free makes cooking for the family simple with more than 100 delicious recipes: enjoy favourites such as pizza, pasta and breads as well as soups, salads, hearty mains and desserts you won’t believe are gluten free!
Inside you’ll also find tips on what to keep in your pantry, on the different gluten-free flours and how to use them, as well as a guide to cooking different grains and seeds.
Recipes include: Easy Bowl & Spoon Gluten-Free Loaf; Leek & Mushroom Tart in Shortcrust Pastry; Cauliflower Pizza 3 Ways; Roasted Miso Pumpkin & Rocket Salad; Greek Horiatiki Salad; Hearty Chicken Drumstick & Vegetable Soup; Smashed Pea & Corn Fritters with Lime Avocado; Slow-cooked Beef Ragu Rigatoni; Best-ever Beef Lasagne; Crispy Salt & Pepper Squid; Sticky Pork Ribs with Tamari Honey Mustard Glaze; Molten Chocolate Puddings; Raw Mango Macadamia Cheesecake and many more.
**I have 5 copies of this amazing cook book to giveaway. To enter, comment which recipe you would love to make if you had a copy of this book. (Entries open to Australian residents only) Entries close 4/9/020 winners will be randomly selected **
