Blog Archives
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Plot Summary : During a party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the road and sees her mother speak to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy.
Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to the family farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by questions she has not thought about for decades. From pre-WWII England through the Blitz, to the fifties and beyond, discover the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds – Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy – who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined.
The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams, the lengths people go to fulfill them, and the consequences they can have. It is a story of lovers, friends, dreamers, and schemers told – in Morton’s signature style – against a backdrop of events that changed the world. (Source : Fantastic Fiction)
Review : Kate Morton is a master of tension-building, unfolding the story layer by layer until the final dramatic conclusion. Her stories are utterly compelling and I await her next one.
Reviewed by: Carolyn
Alison’s Picks – May 2013
Ooops, just a tad late!
Muriel Barbery ~ The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Mark O’Flynn ~ False Start
The Griffith Review 33: Such is Life
Ramona Koval ~ By the Book : a reader’s guide to life
Carolyn’s Books of the Month – June 2013
Best read : The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Thriller : Two Brothers by Ben Elton
Australian Author : The Golden Land by Di Morrissey
General Fiction : Love Anthony by Lisa Genova
Saga/Romance : The House of Memories by Monica McInerney
Crime : The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell and One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf
What Library Staff are Reading – May 2013
Well, I didna get much reading done on ma holidays in Bonnie Scotland. Too many late nights and full days. It was braw!
- I finished The Black House by Peter May, the first in a trilogy of detective stories set on the isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. Good Tartan Noir.
- Three staff were/are reading The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers – the responses were varied:
- It was a book group book. I missed the meeting and I don’t know how the others went with it but so far I am finding it charming,
- Not as good as some of her other books
- I really enjoyed it!
-
I read Fiona McIntosh The Scriveners Tale – a sequel to her earlier work Myrren’s Gift - This one is an equally good fantasy fiction read, I cried.
- I’ve just started Debra Moggach The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
- I’m dipping into Cesar Milan Dog Whisperer – they aren’t going to beat me!
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
- The Lonely Planet Book of Everything : a visual guide to travel and the world by Nigel Holmes
- Preincarnate : a novella by Shaun Micallef
- My Ideal Bookshelf by Jane Mount
- Wool by Hugh Howey
- Unforgotten by Tohby Riddle
- Eragon by Christopher Paolini
- The one hundred year old man who climbed out the window and went for a walk – by Jonas Jonasson – a really fun read.
- A Feast of Crows by George R. R. Martin – still continuing the Game of Thrones saga. These are not stand alone books. They must be read in sequence and the author does assume prior knowledge of the characters. http://www.georgerrmartin.com/grrm_book/a-feast-for-crows-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-book-four/
- Let’s Pretend this Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson – a laugh-out-loud account of growing up in a dysfunctional family that truly thinks what they do is normal. I could not put it down and laughed at all the inappropriate times…. http://thebloggess.com/lets-pretend-this-never-happened-a-mostly-true-memoir/
This quote sums it up for me: “The Bloggess writes stuff that actually is laugh-out-loud, but you know that really you shouldn’t be laughing and probably you’ll go to hell for laughing, so maybe you shouldn’t read it. That would be safer and wiser.”-Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman, Stardust, American Gods and Coraline. - Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff – Only one non-graphic novel again this month. It would have been none except this book by one of my favourite authors arrived in the mail because I had pre-ordered it ages ago. Fantastic insights into the current state of technology and its addictiveness. With much focus on social media and mobile devices this book explains many of those reasons why we can’t understand that technology has not made our lives easier as promised but made them seemingly harder. Always switched on and contactable, always alert to the beep or vibration of a mobile device. Rushkoff argues that most people are so busy trying to keep up with the present that they end up living in the past and no one is looking towards the future anymore. Nothing I can say will give his words justice. As I expect from his books a great deal to think about. He also confirms some of my own personal beliefs about mobile devices and social media and technology in general. That is always nice.
- Changing Ways, Volumes 1 & 2 by Justin Randall – A suspense style graphic novel set in the USA from an Australian author. Are they zombies, are they aliens, is it some kind of occult practice? I don’t care I just want the next volume to be published.
- Preacher, Volumes 1-9 by Garth Ennis
- Slaine: Treasures of Britain by Pat Mills
- DMZ, Volumes 1-7 by Brian Wood
- The Troublemakers by Gabriel Hernández
- A History of Violence by John Wagner
- Frank Miller’s Bad Boy by Frank Miller
- Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson
- Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey – Billed as a space opera, this novel is so far playing out as a police procedural set in the outer solar system. I am waiting for some space zombies or some such to spice things up a bit. If they don’t appear soon I may have to leave this one to the vast loneliness of space, where no one can hear you yawn.
- Preincarnate by Shaun Micalle – You’ve seen him on ABC TV, that slightly hysterical left-field humour, that mostly works but sometimes doesn’t. The same playfulness is here in this novella, whose central character is Alexander Pruitt. I haven’t read much yet, but here’s an excerpt: Alexander’s father had done a good job with the kitchen. By a process of canny neglect, Charlie Pruitt had allowed the original 1940s décor and fittings to age into a sort of retro-chic deshabille. Charlie, who had undergone a comparable process but with a much less fashionable result, pottered about collecting the tea things and blathering away at a volume more attuned to his own malfunctioning hearing aid than the regular workings of a human ear. Fun, isn’t it?
- The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler – I’ve admired her work for quite a while. In this one Aaron Woolcot’s wife Dorothy has died: he’s disconsolate with grief, believing theirs was a relationship unparalleled, and he couldn’t bear the idea of a new partner. Then Dorothy (her ghost, presumably) begins to reappear occasionally, walking beside him, and mentioning past events. It becomes clear their marriage was not as perfect as he’d supposed. Nice social comedy.
- Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner – This writer has the ability to build a complex, subtle human world that you absolutely believe. Wheelchair-bound Lyman Ward is writing a biography of his grandparents: Oliver Ward, a mining engineer whose work takes him to Colorado, California, Mexico, and Idaho: and Susan, his wife. Stegner shows that even where there is integrity, passion, intelligence and belief, life can skew sideways into disappointing, even tragic places. People can be tested to the limits of their endurance.
- Harmless: a novella by Julienne Van Loon – This is a comparatively new writer on the Australian scene, who was interviewed at Varuna Writers Festival recently. She uses a setting east of Perth that she knows well. We first meet Amanda, who as the story opens is having to walk to the gaol to visit her inmate father, since the old Thai-born man Rattuwat’s car has broken down. Having read only 8 pages so far I’ll refrain from comment!
- The Dangerous Old Woman: Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes – I love storytelling traditions, myths and folktales, so this was a winner with me. I especially love the focus on elder wisdom in this work.
- This is How: Help for the Self by Augusten Burroughs – a refreshingly frank book about such topics as: How to feel like crap, How to ride an elevator, How to feel sorry for yourself, How to get the job, How to end your life, How to finish your drink, How to regret as little as possible…
In the Company of Strangers by Liz Bryski
In the Company of Strangers by Liz Bryski
Declan has also drifted away from Cat, but he is forced back to his aunt’s lavender farm, Benson’s Reach, when he learns that he and Ruby are co-beneficiaries.
As these two very different people come together in Margaret River they must learn to trust each other and to deal with the staff and guests. Can the legacy of Benson’s Reach triumph over the hurt of the past? Or is Cat’s duty-laden legacy simply too much for Ruby and Declan to keep alive?
(Source Fantastic Fiction)
Review : I thoroughly enjoyed the twists of emotions and the great scenery described in this beautiful story of life and human nature set in Margaret River, Western Australia.
Carolyn’s Books of the Month – May 2013
Best read : In the Company of Strangers by Liz Bryski
Thriller : Gone Missing by Linda Castillo
Australian Author : Absolution Creek by Nicole Alexander
General Fiction : Whatever it Takes by Adele Parks
Saga/Romance : The Rose Petal Beach by Dorothy Koomson
Crime : Girl on the Stairs by Louise Welch and The Laughterhouse by Paul Cleave
