Although this book is categorised as crime fiction, it also qualifies as historical fiction, being set in Northern New South Wales in the mid-1960s.

Hal is twelve years old and, while wandering around the bush outside the town of Moorabool with his younger brother Evan, comes across a German Shepherd that has been brutally killed and dumped in a drum. The boys remove the animal and try to give it a decent burial. Although disturbed by the discovery, being a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Hal decides to investigate. Could it be connected to the nearby sinister “Highway Palace”, an abandoned caravan with a dark history?

The owner of the dog is Mick Goodenough (pronounced Good-No), a detective recently exiled from Sydney and demoted to probationary constable in the rural town. When he discovers the burial, he recognises the warning signs of a potentially dangerous psychopath on the loose. But he is up against the convoluted undercurrents of life in a small town including adultery, corruption, racism and even apathy.

Apart from Hal and Mick, these are an interesting range of characters. There’s the local power couple, the Curios, who have ambitious and ruthless plans for land development. The police sergeant Bradley may be in their pocket and Hal’s parents’ marriage is under stress. While her husband is away, Hal's mother starts receiving menacing phone calls from someone who whistles the Elvis tune, "Are you Lonesome Tonight?" Could he also be the perpetrator of the killings?

As things escalate at a terrifying rate, narrow-mindedness and prejudice sees the finger immediately pointed at the Aboriginal community without due diligence of the facts. Mick has his work cut out for him proving the truth, while Hal’s youthful enterprise and intelligence is a refreshing twist on the usual stock investigative characters.

This book must come with a warning as there is graphic violence with both animal and human torture that some readers may find hard to take, but its plotting, authentic dialogue and Australian country atmosphere can’t be faulted.

Four stars.

With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.

(Not on sale in the USA until 2021.)


 
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As a bit of a nit-picker, the dodgy grammar in the title of this book astonished  me, as surely it ought to be "The Three Misses Allen"?  However, to give it the benefit of the doubt, the summary sounded interesting enough and I always try to be more tolerant of any book that can rise above its failures in editing.

There are two parallel stories here set in South Australia. We have distant cousins Roma and Addy dealing with personal issues in modern days, and three sisters, Ruby, Adeline and Clara, in the 1930s.

Recently-widowed Roma escapes to Remarkable Bay where she buys a run-down guesthouse and starts to renovate it. Between jobs in the film industry, the high- octane Addy comes to help her. Along the way they get involved with two men who are also cousins, Connor and Blake. All four individuals have links to the three Misses Allen from the 1930s, who stayed at the guesthouse but whose lives were less lucky for various complex reasons.

This is pretty much a relationships soap opera, although I personally much preferred the 1930s components as they raised more moral questions about behaviour, responsibility and family duty, unlike the pity-me self-absorbed characteristics of the modern women. The nice blokes in this story deserve a medal for putting up with them and rarely rolling their "aqua-blue" eyes in exasperation!

On the more sombre side, domestic violence is, and was, a fact of life, but I dislike reading it and usually skim such passages in print. Unfortunately, I found Addy's character to be so unlikable, foul-mouthed and inconsiderate of others that she left me borderline with sympathy for her situation.

Anyhow, I did struggle to the end knowing the modern girls would happily dance off into the surf with their Chris Hemsworth look-alikes, but was disappointed that there wasn't more of tragic Clara's story which could have had a more positive outcome than it did.

There were some glaring errors with names from the 1930s story (Ruby/Roma) being mixed up with the modern one, so this again reflects on shoddy editing at the final proof stage. 

Two-and-a-half stars.

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This is an Aussie crime novel with a difference. There are no grisly Outback serial killers, city gang shoot-outs or corrupt cops – too often the standard fare of the Australian crime genre.

Detective Grant Johnson from the town of Fresh Well has a suspicious fire to investigate and a lot of shenanigans to negotiate.

In the rural village of Stony Creek, someone has burnt down the tiny school. The culprit is likely to be someone indulging in an illicit cigarette shortly before a meeting of the school’s Parents and Citizens association. Naturally, there is a main cast of characters with something to hide.

Sarah accidently sees P & C chairwoman Jennifer having it off with the Principal, Brock.

Shocked, she then returns home to spring her husband Ian having it off with the babysitter, Madison, Jennifer and Andy’s teenage daughter.

Andy is secretly conducting an internet relationship with old flame Abi but forgets to delete his computer's History.

From his verandah, Madison’s elderly grandfather Mack watches the comings and goings of white utes set about mysterious liaisons involving cigarettes and comes to his own conclusions.

Shades of the English bedroom farce but Aussie-style, this is a most refreshing change of pace from grim or intense crime fiction. You know everyone will end up with egg on their faces as things unravel, but the journey is a light-hearted ride that will have you grinning and even laughing out loud in places.

Oh, what a tangled web is woven and in one word - Delightful!
 
Four stars

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​This is the second novel by Alison Stuart set during the 1870s and to feature the gold-mining town of Maiden’s Creek in the Gippsland area of Australia. (Although not essential to have read the first, The Postmistress, it does help to set the scene and the background of some of the secondary characters.)
 
Eliza Penrose arrives from England, expecting to be met by her brother, Will. However, he is not there and she soon learns from her uncle, mine-owner Charles Cowper, that he is dead, having fallen accidentally from a tailings heap late at night, presumably being drunk. Eliza is devastated.

When it seems that there had been a falling-out between uncle and nephew shortly before his death, Eliza is determined to get to the truth of the matter.
 
Meanwhile, after a disastrous early encounter with him, Eliza is increasingly drawn to widowed mining engineer, Alec McLeod, and their relationship slowly blossoms. However, all is put at risk by discoveries of underhanded greedy practices in the operation of the mines and danger from those who would stop at nothing, not even murder, to protect their evil schemes.
 
This is a really entertaining page-turner, as well-crafted as the earlier novel and with plenty of gold-mining history (some of it based on real events) woven beautifully throughout.
 
(Click here for my review of The Postmistress.)
 
Four stars.
 
Booktopia
 
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Lexie leaves her three-year-old daughter Bella with the other mothers in her playgroup while she pops out to the shop for biscuits. When she returns six minutes later, Bella has disappeared. None of the other mothers or children realise she is no longer there.  She has just vanished.

And so the nightmare begins for Lexie and her husband Marty as the mystery become ever more tangled the longer the little girl is missing.

Could Lexie have left the gate open accidentally so that Bella wandered off on her own? Does an unexpected visit to the playgroup by one of the husbands hold the clue? What are the motivations behind one of the mothers, Tara, and her secret blog? Why did schoolteacher Brendan lie about his whereabouts? And what about Lexie and Marty themselves - why did they move from England and have to change their surname? All these clues and many more form the background to this story. And then there's the jaded cop, Caruso, who fears the worst has come to this small town near Australia's capital city, Canberra.

This is a fast-paced and mostly well-constructed thriller (ideal for wintry afternoons!) and it certainly keeps you guessing with nearly every character having secrets or up to no good. The setting of Canberra was familiar to me, having myself been part of similar mothers' groups there in the past, and for those who know the city, the town Merrigang has aspects of Hall, Tharwa, Murrumbateman and Gundaroo. The inclusion of "trial by social media" with its trolls and hysteria is an all too accurate reflection of what can happen in our times when a child goes missing. Lexie's neurosis and wavering doubts about Marty which had their foundation in an earlier event felt overworked at times but 
fortunately, unlike real life, there is a happy - if slightly too pat - outcome to this story otherwise I wouldn't recommend it as a light read.


3 1/2 stars

(Australian booksellers below, the book does not appear to be available in other countries as yet.)

Booktopia
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It is the late 1960s somewhere in country Victoria, Australia.

Farmer Tom Hope’s unreliable wife Trudy has just abandoned him on some sort of whim that he doesn’t understand. He soldiers on alone as best he can, making lists of things that perhaps he should have done, or done better, in order to keep her happy.

And then just as spontaneously sometime later Trudy returns to him. Although she’s pregnant to another man, the kind-hearted Tom takes her back. When little Peter is born, Tom discovers that he was meant to be a father and he and the lad become close.

All this is again thrown into jeopardy when Trudy becomes a born-again Christian and spirits little Peter away to a cult commune on Phillip Island. Tom is bereft until a Jewish woman, Hannah Babel, arrives in town, with an ambition to set up a bookshop.

Hannah is a survivor of Auschwitz and the subsequent refugee turmoils in Eastern Europe followed by the 1956 Hungarian uprising. But she keeps all of this to herself, especially the loss of her only son Michael to the gas chambers.

Although much older than him, Tom is drawn to Hannah’s exuberance and vivid personality and they are soon a couple. Meanwhile, Hannah sets up her bookshop and gives the local district much to gossip about, although in her heart she struggles with her past and the heartache of great loss.

More dramas follow involving little Peter and his mother, with further separations and angst (including a few murders) before all is finally resolved.

The narrative flows beautifully and makes for compulsive reading. Tom’s character is a delight, a man who is really too thoughtful and sentimental to be a farmer yet who sticks to the path he has chosen without giving up.

Peter is worldly beyond his years although his expeditions to try and be reunited with Tom do seem a little implausible for a lad of only six or seven.

Trudy is an unstable air-head, but Hannah is difficult to like in spite of everything she has endured. Eventually, her bookshop does succeed but there are gaps in her history that are glossed over, such as how she finds her way out of various near-death situations to return to Budapest unscathed, and where she gets so much money to buy her bookshop. Also, although one should have sympathy for her, her determination to pander to her grief without care of what it does to Tom means she can alienate the reader.

There are a few dark passages but there is also charm and comfort to be found in this book, especially in its descriptions of the ordinariness of country-town Australia and the goodwill of its people.

Four stars.


(Various covers on these sites)
 
Booktopia
 
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​Edie is not unduly saddened when she learns that her former mother-in-law, Anna, has died. She blames the woman for the death of her only child, Daniel, and the subsequent break-up of her marriage to Anna’s son, Joe.

This is the powerful scenario at the heart of this book and when Edie is dismayed to discover that she and Joe are joint inheritors of Anna’s ancestral home in Sicily, it sets up a dramatically fluctuating story that will challenge Edie to face her demons and ultimately alter nearly everything that she believes to be true.

But this is so much more than a novel about complex contemporary relationships and healing, there are also mysteries and crimes, all tinged with shades of the gothic, and even echoes of the paranormal.

The descriptions of the decrepit and ghostly Villa della Madonna del Mare and its gardens are exquisite and spine-tingling. Yet at the same time the author doesn’t detract from the plastic-strewn seedy side of modern-day Sicily, with its undercurrents of dark dealings by the Mafiosi, family secrets and revenge.

None of the characters is perfect which makes them all interesting, and the ways they find hope and new beginnings come together in a pleasing way. Although the main villain is fairly obvious from early on, there is an unexpected relationship twist that adds another dimension to Edie’s opinions about Anna.

I often tend to gloss over too many lavish descriptive passages in books, but the skill created here makes them all a pleasure to read in full as they help you to absorb the atmosphere and tension.

It is a truly satisfying read! I galloped through this in a couple of days and will definitely look for more titles by author Louise Douglas.

Five stars.


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Most people know the story of how King Edward VIII gave up the throne in 1936 for the love of Wallis Simpson and that thereafter the couple became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
 
Many books have been written about them, although less is known about the former significant others in the Duke’s life. This book explores the lives of three women, any one of whom could have become his wife and possibly changed the course of British history - or at least given our present Elizabeth II a few more decades of quiet family life before being loaded down with the responsibilities of a monarch.
 
Rosemary Leveson-Gower met the Prince of Wales during World War I when she worked as a nurse in a hospital set up by her mother. Edward fell for her and with an aristocratic background she might have seemed the perfect bride. But his father, King George V, was of the old school who believed the heir to the throne should only marry approved unblemished girls - and preferably princesses from Europe - plus he mostly disapproved of the match due to some of her unconventional relatives. It simply would not do for the future queen to have a mother with multiple marriages and a gambling brother! It seems ludicrous today, given the subsequent doings of the House of Windsor, and so the royal family lost the beautiful and appealing Rosemary who went on to prove her worth in other ways, sadly dying at the same age as Princess Di, only 36, in a plane crash.
 
Edward’s penchant for chic, thin, married women with bossy tendencies began with the next choice, Freda Dudley Ward. Much of his correspondence to her still exists, he was totally besotted with her, writing and phoning her many times a day until he suddenly ditched her for the next woman in a similar mould. Freda’s notoriety as one of Edward’s women overshadows her history of a firm social conscience when she set out to help people during the Great Depression, World War II and later. The Feathers Association she founded still operates today helping disadvantaged youth in the London area.
 
Thelma Furness supplanted Freda. She was American, an identical twin, who snatched herself a British Viscount for her second marriage. Her sister was Gloria Vanderbilt with whom she would eventually start her own fashion label and together they became an item in Hollywood society. The later years for the twins were not so good, having a variety of businesses (ironically including hand-making “princess dolls”) and they dabbled in advertising. Thelma and Gloria wrote a joint memoir in which Thelma wrote that in spite of all her mistakes, she would do it all again except: “The only thing I would NOT do again is introduce Wallis Simpson to the Prince of Wales”.
 
Edward may have had a certain charm, but he was also capricious, impressionable and self-serving. He hated the stuffiness and pomp of royalty and all the duties that involved and he could have never matched the sterling loyal qualities of our present Queen. His loss was ultimately Britain’s gain.
 
While all of these women were involved in the flittering dalliances of their class, they weren’t completely shallow or insensitive to the struggles of Edward's subjects and any one of them would have been more preferable over the acidic and dangerous Wallis Simpson.
 
The book does occasionally divert at length into “then they did this, and then they did that” which can create the odd yawn or a bit of speed-reading, but on the whole it is an interesting study in how the lives of privilege and fame often end up more of a burden than a blessing.
 
Four stars

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Booktopia

​In the early 1960s, my mother and I sailed on SS Himalaya from San Francisco to Europe. On board we met another mother and daughter similar to ourselves. We were to disembark in Southampton for London while they were destined for Le Havre and Paris.
 
Mrs Olga Balk spoke French and Russian and had links to Harbin and Shanghai so she and my mother soon discovered they had much in common. Manette was a little older than me but as we were both teenage daughters having what nowadays is called a “gap year” between high school and college we also found common ground.
 
I was sad to say goodbye to my new friend Manette when she left the ship at Le Havre, but in those days before the invention of easy catch-ups through social media we still managed to keep up a pen-friendship for another ten years until we fell out of touch. The last address I had for her was in Mexico, while I had moved numerous times in UK, Canada and Africa before settling in Australia.
 
When a cousin recommended I read this book written by the subject's grand-daughter because it was an excellent story about the White Russian experience, I was instantly alerted to the fact that there in the opening pages it says it is the story of Sophia (Sonechka) Balk. It is not a common surname and I wondered if she could have been connected to my friend?
 
After a bit of digging via Ancestry and other genealogical sites, it turns out that my friend Manette (also known as Mary Ann) was, in fact, her niece, her father being Sonechka’s brother Alexander L. Balk (known as Sasha throughout the book).
 
Having a White Russian mother I have always been aware of her family’s dramatic history and what they endured in the upheavals after the Russian Revolution. So, with the realisation I'd once had a connection to a member of the Balk family as well, this gave me extra interest in this story. Although I can no longer ask her, I am sure many of the people, places and events that crop up in these pages would have been familiar to my mother.
 
At the outset, the reader needs to be aware this is a work of “creative non-fiction” and is based on diaries and other recollections that have been embellished or enhanced to make it both informative and entertaining.

We follow Sonechka’s life from one of comparative ease on a comfortable estate in the warm Crimea, through her early experiences working for a brutal Cheka [secret police, forerunner of the KGB] boss who made her count dead bodies among other more mundane clerical duties, her romance with another Bolshevik hardliner, her escape from his clutches in Moscow to comparative safety in Harbin and then on to Shanghai.
 
Her brother, Sasha, had already managed to reach the United States and constantly encouraged his sister to follow suit but the young girl was too indecisive due to her family ties and ill-founded romantic dreams. By the time her head cleared and she saw the truth and reality of what was happening around her, the Soviet noose had tightened around its citizens and getting away seemed almost impossible. 
 
In the closing notes that detail what happened to the individuals, I was disappointed (also a little mystified) to find no mention of Sasha’s second wife, the Mrs Olga Balk whom I met, nor my pen-friend Manette who seems to have been his only child. Whether this was just an oversight or there is some other facet to this intriguing family story that the author did not wish to share makes for speculation. Russians can be very hospitable and friendly people but as a result of their tumultuous history - as so well-detailed in this story - it also means they are also good at fudging the truth or resorting to secrecy if there is the need to do so! 

Still, that does not deter from recommending this as an enthralling and gripping read and it warrants four-and-a-half stars.


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Emily Hobhouse is probably well known to descendants of the Afrikaner women and children who suffered and died in the British concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War.

To others, her name may mean nothing which is a travesty  as Emily has to be one of the most important women in early 20th Century feminist and humanitarian history.

Please see my History Bucket blog for a review post about this recent biography of Emily Hobhouse.

Ellen Curtis is a professional declutterer. She helps people get better organised and rid of junk but in the process she can get involved in their lives in unexpected ways. She’s helped to rehouse surplus cats, visits the confused elderly and tries to help a struggling single mother. 

Ellen’s best friend is Hilary who works in offender rehabilitation. Hilary seeks her help in sorting out the house belonging to the deceased mother of Nate Ogden, one of her clients who has just been released from prison. This is when Ellen discovers a corpse of a young woman in the Ogden flat, who is vaguely familiar to her. Having served time for killing his girlfriend, suspicion immediately falls on Nate who has now gone missing. As Ellen trawls through her own past, she begins to find unexpected links to the murdered woman. When Hilary goes missing as well, there’s a race to discover the truth.

This is a most entertaining and easy read of the "cosy crime" variety, with twists and turns aplenty. Ellen is a refreshing female protagonist, with contemporary family issues her own that make her appealing.

Apparently this is the first of a new series, and no doubt Ellen will be making a few more grisly discoveries in other people’s hoards in the future. I look forward to reading about them.

​Four stars.

(Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC)

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​This is a dual timeline novel set in Sydney in 1967 and 1997. Although classified as a mystery, it is also a social commentary on the issues of race, alcoholism and family violence.
 
Isla lives in London but rushes home to her father Joe in Australia when he calls and tells her that he’s under suspicion for a murder that happened thirty years earlier. It seems he is the last person who saw their neighbour Mandy Mallory alive in 1967. The case has only just been opened due to Mandy receiving an inheritance and her whereabouts are unknown.
 
Weaving back and forth between 1967 and 1997, we uncover the stories of individuals who lived next door to one another: Joe and Louisa, recent emigrants from England, and their little daughter Isla who is minded during the day by Mandy, the wife of policeman Steve.
 
Louisa dislikes Australia and misses England, while Steve increasingly suffers from the traumatic nature of his work which involves the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents. With a job working on the Sydney Opera House, Joe struggles to keep Louisa happy, but domestic violence and alcoholism rear their ugly heads. Likewise, Steve is desperate to start a family but Mandy doesn’t want children and so their conflicts increase. Isla has her own demons, dealing with alcoholism. And back in her old house, she remembers being more fond of Mandy than her mother, but being scared of Steve. As she slowly unpeels the past, she wonders if it is possible her father Joe was involved in Mandy’s disappearance? After Louisa takes Isla back to England, Joe finds solace with Mandy and complications are set in play that are bound to end badly. 
 
The dual narratives are well-constructed and the outcome of the mystery feasible given the circumstances but there is little to like about any of these individuals between their drinking and fighting. Isla is abrasive and in fact it is the tortured Steve who is perhaps the best character portrayal. The ambivalent feelings of English migrants struggling with the alien surroundings of Australia give a true reflection of what it was like for many.

When a novel is exceptionally good, one tends to be forgiving of historical anachronisms but they can become an irritation if the reading experience is less enjoyable for whatever reason.

And it is simple technology that can trip up any author.

Yes, it is accurate that travel between the UK and Australia by air was prohibitively expensive for the average person and thus most travel was by sea. Unfortunately, there is a problem in the ease in which the characters then pick up the phone and just call one another. International direct dialling was not yet a possibility in 1967 and all calls had to go through international trunk exchanges, usually booked in advance for a specific time. These calls were very expensive, only used for emergencies or important occasions. In reality, most of the communication between Louisa and Joe would have had to be by aerogramme (air letters) or, in case of urgency, by telegram.

Also dubious is whether Sydney (i.e. city or suburban) police officers were sent off to rural Aboriginal settlements to take and distribute children to care homes. If this did happen, then I’m happy to stand corrected.
 
The author’s notes carry a lengthy polemic on the history of enforced separation of Aboriginal children from their parents, which is well-known to Australians but probably not to readers in other countries. For anyone who wants to discover more about the “stolen generation”, it is recommended they seek out authentic books written by Aboriginal authors.
 
Unfortunately, the anachronisms extend to the cover which shows distinctly American-style houses, not at all Australian.

​The ones below are more accurate in showing an Australian style of house although it is  c. 1890 Melbourne rather than something more in keeping with 1960s Sydney. 


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3 stars
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(Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)

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Booktopia

​“If you wanted to get away with murder, Vanishing Falls is the place to do it,” is an observation of one of the characters in this novel.
 
Ever since it was known as Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmania has had a dark and troubled history and although it has long since left behind its convict past, there are still pockets where unnamed fears and unease linger, especially in its brooding forests and small towns struggling with unemployment, drug use and other more sordid activities.
 
This all comes together in this compelling page-turning novel about a woman gone missing. She is Celia, wife of Jack Lily, the rich lawyer whose privileged family has lorded it over Vanishing Falls for generations. As people hunt for Celia in what seems like unrelenting rain, we are pulled deep into the psyche of the town and its secrets.
 
Although the evidence is strongly against him, Jack struggles to prove that he was not involved in his wife’s disappearance while trying to hide unsavoury aspects of his own behaviour. The meth-addicted poultry farmer Cliff is mired in his own messy anger and delusions, and Joelle, the apparently simple-minded wife of the local butcher, still struggles with her own horrific memories while desperate for friends and acceptance.
 
It is only through the beautifully understated and unusual characterisation of Joelle that this is saved from being yet another Australian “outback noir” novel in the style of “The Dry” or “Wimmera”, as with an innocence and clarity of vision denied the others, it is Joelle who is instrumental in solving the mystery. As she says: “Something bad happened and I did not try to stop it. I don’t want to do that again.”
 
(Many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)
 
Four stars
 
(Links to book sites after publication)

Matilda (Mattie) Simpkin is an ageing former suffragette who is proud of her achievements (and her police record) and who has no intention of accepting the lot of some simpering middle-aged spinster by disappearing into the sunset. She’s a bit of “old baggage” in the sense that she says what she thinks, is over-assertive, even uncompromising in her beliefs in what is good for her is also good for other people.
 
Mattie needs to find purpose in life and it seems as if the answer is generated following an altercation with a bag-snatcher that results in an unintentional injury to a young woman called Ida. This event gives her the inspiration to create a girls’ group that will involve lots of fresh air and exercise but that will also revive  feminist ideals in the flighty “flapper generation” that doesn’t seem to appreciate the sacrifices and challenges involved by Mattie and her fellow campaigners in gaining them the vote.
 
Mattie lives in comparative comfort with her quieter companion known as The Flea (Florrie Lee) who is involved in health work and giving advice to poor families. Florrie continues to support Mattie, although she can be a trial to live with and Florrie is forever trying to restrain her friend’s outrageous whims and wild schemes.
 
Mattie’s group of Hampstead Heath “Amazons” continues to grow until it finds itself in competition with another enthusiastic youth group, the quasi Fascist Empire League. This gets further complicated when a new girl called Inez joins her group and Mattie loses her focus, going off-kilter in trying to deal with another type of “old baggage” from her past.
 
This is an absorbing and delightful story on all levels, albeit with an ending that some readers may find just a touch saccharine. The writing is brilliant and perfectly conveys the individuals and their attitudes in a style that truly feels as if it were written in the 1920s. There is deliciously quirky humour as well as much deeper psychological and emotional explorations into love, friendship, loyalty and ultimately the benefits of knowing when to admit you were wrong.
  
4 1/2 stars.

Booktopia

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This novel is a curious mix in that it interweaves the Empress Josephine's personal relationship with Napoleon with her passion for exotic fauna and flora being raised in her garden at Malmaison. Plus it also includes the stories of two other women whose respective husbands were involved in the discovery and cultivation of many new species from remote regions of the world, principally Australia.

The three women are also bound together at a fundamental level in their quest to be mothers. History will be changed because of Josephine's inability to provide Napoleon with an heir. Anne, wife of Felix Lahaie, head gardener, will suffer tragedies in her dream of a large family and Marthe, wife of Jacques Labillardiere, the brilliant scientist of the La Perouse expedition, must deal with the frustrations of a frigid marriage.

Josephine's plight has been the subject of many novels and in this one the reader will still find sympathy with her situation but it also does not avoid the less-attractive aspects of her personality. Neither are Napoleon's excesses and cruelties shied away from. The other two women are only historical shadows and therefore largely fictional creations but are believable enough. There is also an assasination sub-plot that might have provided enough material for a novel in its own right. However, of all the characters, it is the cool and distant Labillardiere who is perhaps the most well-drawn. For any keen gardeners or botanists the descriptions of the plants and the germination processes will provide added interest, although the treatment of the oranguatan may cause some readers to flinch.

This is an absorbing read as the historical and botanical backgrounds are clearly well-researched and convincing although within its 470+ pages there are the inevitable sluggish passages between the more vigorous scenes and events. There are also some issues with repetitive words or statements that makes one wonder if the editing process was not as thorough as it might have been due to some publication deadline. Otherwise, a fine follow-up to the author's debut novel (my earlier review here) about characters from the lesser-known 18th Century French expeditions to the Antipodes.

Four stars.

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booktopia

​Millicent (or “Missy”) Carmichael is in her late seventies. She lives alone in a large house and is irritable, lonely and depressed. Her son Alistair and only grandchild Arthur live in Australia and she is estranged from her daughter Melanie. She ponders her purpose in life, whether she has outstayed her welcome and compares her existence to an “… abstract, galactic isolation, like a leaking boat bobbing in open water, no anchor or land in sight.”
 
But help is at hand following a random encounter with single mother Angela and her delightful son Otis, then the flamboyant designer Sylvie and the unexpected temporary companionship of a dog called Bob (later changed to Bobby). Although initially fearful and reserved with her new friends - and greatly alarmed at the prospect of having to care for a dog - slowly but surely Missy is drawn into the lives of these individuals, plus others, and finds a new self-confidence and optimism in the process.
 
The story has elements of gentle humour as well as serious reflections and includes flashbacks to Missy’s earlier life and marriage to author Leo. Missy was a victim of her times, expected to play the dutiful wife of a successful man, and her regrets include a tragic secret that she kept from Leo. The ending has a twist in that the initial assumption one makes about Leo turns out to be incorrect.
 
The characters are well-drawn, even if Missy can sometimes seem a wee bit irritating in her insecurity and hesitation in the presence of more assertive and confident individuals, although she does finally find her true voice and bare all (or nearly all!) when coming to the defence of one of her new friends.
 
This is a charming story that will appeal to a wide audience as it tackles the very real issues of loneliness and depression in old age in a sympathetic fashion. However, on a more serious note, this reviewer of a certain age senses the author is very much younger than her protagonist and through the book she expresses her heathfelt desire for older people to be happy. A noble gesture in fiction perhaps, while the practical reality is that for the most part our modern self-absorbed and youth-obsessed society is geared in such a way that there is scant interest in rescuing women like Missy from their leaking boats.
 
Four stars.
 

(With many thanks to Harper Collins Australia and NetGalley for the ARC)

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It took a while but it only dawned on me when I was well into this book that the fictional Mount Hope is in my own current backyard which, although never clearly delineated, is the Bellarine Peninsula near Geelong, Victoria, Australia, an area now well-known for its vineyards.
 
At the time this book is set, however, the summer of 1893/94, growing grapes was an irregular and risky venture for a farmer. Phoeba’s father Robert has the faith and he believes that sheep and wool are no longer the backbone of the country. This is borne out as the novel progresses; a progress that is at times slow as the bay waves that lap the shore, although this is not a book to gallop through and it needs to be savoured.
 
It is the social climbing that is the main focus of the book, all told with black and quirky humour. The star for me is Spot, the horse who is literally drawn to water, and some of the lesser characters are equally appealing, including the wacky maiden Aunt Margaret and the ill-used mail boy called Freckle. The historical research and references are excellent and give a strong sense of time and place.
 
Phoeba Crupp does remind one a little of Sybylla Melvyn, the heroine in Miles Franklin’s “My Brilliant Career”, who was another independently minded young woman trying to deal with the monotony and drudgery of life on the land in the burgeoning suffragette era of the 1890s.
 
The expectation is that Phoeba will marry Hadley Pearson, literally the boy next door, but she is chafing at the bit to experience more of life and her ambition is to be a vigneron on her own account. Her best friend is Hadley’s sister, Henrietta, but she isn’t fond of her own sister Lilith who is vain and flighty with her eye on the local rich widower, Marius Overton, and her mother Maude is overblown in all senses of the word, including furniture and hats. Her father Robert is long-suffering. Just one classic example:-
 
Robert settled his new hat onto his head. It was a pith hat and looked very silly.
‘Farmers don’t wear pith hats, Robert,’ said Maude.
‘I am not a farmer,’ said Robert. ‘I am a vigneron.’
Maude put her hand to her temple. ‘You are the cause of my headaches, Robert.’ She drifted inside taking the social pages with her.
 
When Phoeba encounters the attractive new Overton manager Rudolph Steel, she has a lot of thinking to do about what she really wants out of life vs. her obligations. The ending almost seems predictable at one point until there’s a surprising switch-about.
 
Four stars.

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Booktopia

​This is a "cosy" mystery story about what happens when good intentions come up against an individual who is either just psychologically disturbed or is very artful with their own evil agenda hidden behind a mask. 

Ellie Quicke is married to Thomas, a retired minister. Both of them become alarmed and suspicious when Thomas starts receiving a series of bequests from deceased people he barely knew. Ellie investigates to see if there is some link that ties them together. 

Meanwhile, Ellie has another problem with a homeless woman, Hetty, whom she has taken in only to realise she forebodes serious trouble (not least her terrible cooking, hence the reference to a pie on the book's cover). And then there's the truly awful Diana, Ellie's daughter, who starts making onerous demands for money. Ellie has some difficult, even dangerous, issues ahead of her.

When an author is new to me, I prefer not to know anything about them until after I have read their book. Since reading this title, I've discovered Veronica Heley is multi-published and Murder for Good is the 20th in a series featuring an older woman sleuth. This is a bit of a disadvantage as is the case with many such series you need to be up with the back story to really get a grip on the characters and their motivations.

That said, I still managed to enjoy this for its slightly quirky plot line and its human qualities, although there are unpleasant aspects too. I couldn't abide Ellie's daughter, Diana, and the way she terrorised her mother, so that ended up spoiling the book for me. Ellie struck me as a bit of a ditherer but being unfamiliar with all that she has been through previously, or why she tolerates receiving such treatment from her daughter, I never quite "got" her. I also thought the ending rather abrupt with no real comeuppance for the culprit.

An entertaining read with a lot of positives, but if that awful Diana features in all the other books in the Ellen Quicke  series it has put me off reading any others.

(With many thanks to NetGalley and Severn Books for the ARC)

Three stars

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