🌟🌟🌟🌟 A feel-good contemporary romance in a gorgeous exotic location, - pristine and sunny San Sebastián, Spain. Perfect for one of those days when nothing will fill that need for dreamy travel, romance and new adventures but a “swathe of golden sand, a jumble of white buildings with terracotta roofs”,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 This twisty, puzzling, intense read is so rich with detail, characters, red-herrings, nuance and mystery that, if you are anything like this reader, you will quickly find yourself, moody and muttering, questioning every “fact” presented by every narrative witness, - willing yourself to settle down, put the pieces together,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 + An absolutely beautiful read, this book resonated so powerfully with me that it was difficult to see it end. Deeply evocative, the author captures perfectly the heady rush that comes with being eighteen, on the cusp of adulthood - a time so jumbled up with innocence, heart-ache, yearnings,…
🌟🌟🌟1/2 A contemporary romance set in the beautiful sun, sand, and surf of Queensland’s Bellbird Bay. Ailsa McNeil, 52 years old, has just learned that her twenty-five year marriage to her husband Bob, (suddenly and somewhat mysteriously behaving like a “surly loner”, distancing himself in all forms of communication from…
🌟🌟🌟 Benji is a black Labrador, and interestingly, also a narrator of this book, which features a dog’s-eye view of the complications that can arise in seemingly perfect human lives. Meriel, the main (human) protagonist, and the story’s second-provided POV, believes herself to be happily married. Until the day she…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A gentle look at love, as it ages, batted about and corrupted by the passage of time, as long-held fears, insecurities and secrets, do their dirty work in darkness - leaving us to wonder, is it ever too late to start again? Prickly and somewhat unlikable, Meena Fisher is…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟+ By Jove, this is one terrific book! Jacob Jollimore is thirteen years old, an adopted Vietnamese boy who is something of a science geek (self-proclaimed), at an awkward age and time in his life. As his parents, facing financial collapse, harness all their remaining resources to renovate the crumbling…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟+ The first thing that hits you when you open this spectacularly beautiful cookbook is COLOR! Bursting with vibrancy, personality, style, Mexican scenery, and oh yes, gorgeous food, the illustrations in this book are a smorgasbord of delight - as are the recipes that follow. This cookbook, the author’s self-proclaimed…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 This adorable picture-book touched me. With its simple rhyming prose, gentle watercolor images, and lovely message, reading this book (with a child, or as an adult with the child-in-you listening ) is like wading into a serene and calming lake - losing yourself to something eternal, something bigger and…
🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2 A feast for lovers of contemporary crime fiction, this stellar collection of 25 stories, all written by members of CWA and embracing a theme of music, is both a must read and a rare and captivating treat. With stories reaching broadly across the crime genre, including procedural police investigations,…