Jülie ☼♄ �'s bookshelf: read en-US Wed, 14 May 2025 15:33:02 -0700 60 Jülie ☼♄ �'s bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Names 217245618
In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she'd like to call the child, Cora hesitates...

Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora's and her young son's lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the "one . . . precious life" we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.]]> 336 Florence Knapp 0593833902 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.26 2025 The Names
author: Florence Knapp
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Woodstock 231643369 Woodstock is a deeply atmospheric, coming-of-age story about resilience, betrayal, and the power of love.


1969: When eighteen-year-old Dawn Ellis and her friends trek across America to attend the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, they anticipate a weekend of peace, love, freedom, and music. It will be an exhilarating time for them before college.

But three days at Woodstock will change their lives forever.

2010: Fashion photographer, Sydney Meredith, receives an unexpected phone call from a Santa Monica hospital, requesting that she rush to the beside of an elderly, comatose woman she doesn’t know. The woman has listed Sydney as her next of kin.

But who is this woman? And how does she know Sydney? When the hospital persists, Sydney is overcome with curiosity and flies to Santa Monica.

As she delves deeper into the mystery of the woman, Sydney begins to unravel a forty-year-old web of lies, secrets, and heartbreaking sacrifices. And it all leads back to Woodstock.]]> 458 Michelle Montebello 1764043626 Jülie ☼♄ � 5
No spoilers here�
This is a love story in many ways and forms.
It is a bittersweet coming of age story that could very easily be based on fact given the thinking of the times.
It’s about friendship, love, peace, war, camaraderie, trust and betrayal.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would have been like to be at Woodstock back in 1969 then this book will (properly) transport you there.
If you are lucky enough to remember those times and the music that was born for exactly that time and place…and has prevailed…then you are indeed fortunate to have shared in the euphoria that was Woodstock fever and it’s lasting legacy to music…even from a distance.

The controversial and savage war in Vietnam had already been raging for more than seven years and protesters in America and numerous countries, including Canada and Australia, were desperately trying to call a stop to it and the inevitable conscription of young men…barely out of school.

Woodstock was a moment in time that stopped time, it caught the attention of the world at a time where the urgency of its message of Peace and Love was felt all over the world. Where thousands, and thousands of people came together, on a farm in Bethel, New York, to share and spread that message…to pray for Peace…to listen to the music of the bands and singers that gave their time for this cause. It was the stuff of major goosebumps! It was a privilege to witness…even from this distance.
And the music that was borne of that time is now written in the books of music history.

Michelle Montebello has managed, in this story, to encapsulate the sense of momentous significance that was Woodstock.
This is great historical story telling, blending facts with fiction to paint a convincing picture of an important social and musical era.
A beautiful and moving story that will hit the reader with all the feels! I was instantly transported.
Highly recommended reading.

5⭐️

*Many thanks to the author Michelle Montebello for my ebook copy to read and review.]]> 4.92 Woodstock
author: Michelle Montebello
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.92
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves:
review:
Love, love loved this book!

No spoilers here�
This is a love story in many ways and forms.
It is a bittersweet coming of age story that could very easily be based on fact given the thinking of the times.
It’s about friendship, love, peace, war, camaraderie, trust and betrayal.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would have been like to be at Woodstock back in 1969 then this book will (properly) transport you there.
If you are lucky enough to remember those times and the music that was born for exactly that time and place…and has prevailed…then you are indeed fortunate to have shared in the euphoria that was Woodstock fever and it’s lasting legacy to music…even from a distance.

The controversial and savage war in Vietnam had already been raging for more than seven years and protesters in America and numerous countries, including Canada and Australia, were desperately trying to call a stop to it and the inevitable conscription of young men…barely out of school.

Woodstock was a moment in time that stopped time, it caught the attention of the world at a time where the urgency of its message of Peace and Love was felt all over the world. Where thousands, and thousands of people came together, on a farm in Bethel, New York, to share and spread that message…to pray for Peace…to listen to the music of the bands and singers that gave their time for this cause. It was the stuff of major goosebumps! It was a privilege to witness…even from this distance.
And the music that was borne of that time is now written in the books of music history.

Michelle Montebello has managed, in this story, to encapsulate the sense of momentous significance that was Woodstock.
This is great historical story telling, blending facts with fiction to paint a convincing picture of an important social and musical era.
A beautiful and moving story that will hit the reader with all the feels! I was instantly transported.
Highly recommended reading.

5⭐️

*Many thanks to the author Michelle Montebello for my ebook copy to read and review.
]]> <![CDATA[Black Silk and Buried Secrets (Tatty Crowe #2)]]> 218457121 Sydney, 1871. Twenty-five-year-old widow Tatty Crowe is the owner of busy undertaking firm Crowe Funerals. Life and business are good until Tatty notices how many women are dying after illicit abortions and after a terrible tragedy close to home, she vows to expose the culprit.

And then there are the dead babies abandoned around the city. Once again Tatty sets out to investigate the crisis and finds herself immersed in the dark and heartless world of baby farming. Along the way she encounters an old foe, and clashes with a new adversary who, it transpires, is far more dangerous.

From the grim slums of Chippendale and Newtown to the grand houses of Woolloomooloo to Sydney's rowdy Criminal Court, comes the next chapter in the story of compassionate and clever - but headstrong - Tatty Crowe.

Praise for Black Silk and Sympathy:

'In this expertly crafted novel, Challinor delivers a captivating tale of resilience, reinvention and determination ... [with] a thrilling twist' Books+Publishing]]> Deborah Challinor 1775492893 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 currently-reading 4.35 2025 Black Silk and Buried Secrets (Tatty Crowe #2)
author: Deborah Challinor
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Suddenly Silent and Still 220665377
Fuelled by love for her children, she fights to reclaim her life in a silent and still world, navigating grief, loss and medical trauma. Nin's abrupt transition from an ambitious career woman to a stay-at-home parent sparks profound introspection.

Is security merely an illusion? What determines a person's worth? How can you accept a worse reality? Through her journey, she discovers new perspectives and an infallible purpose in a less-abled body.

With honesty and humour, she offers hope to those facing loss, chronic illness and disability. Grounded yet uplifting, this inspiring true story shows how the resilience of the human spirit can prevail in the face of suffering.
]]> 214 Nin Mok Jülie ☼♄ � 5
Mapping her journey through an unimaginably difficult and painful terror, Nin Mok describes her life before, during, and after, an invisible and insidious virus struck her down without warning and changed her life forever, from that moment on.
Nin was still young and had so many plans and dreams that were all coming to fruition, until the moment of that fateful day which, in the blink of an eye, stole it all away.
She was at the peak of her career, holding down a high level managerial role with weighty responsibilities and decision making demands. She excelled in this position and was highly regarded by her superiors. In a way, she felt privileged.
How could this be happening?
As she went for test after test and doctor after doctor, specialists and others, Nin tried everything they asked of her…sometimes at the mercy of incredibly painful treatments. And when they gave up, she read and researched everything she could in an effort to find some hope of a cure or at least relief of some sort.

Incredibly moving and at the same time painfully frustrating as you ride the roller coaster of physical and mental anguish that the author endured for such a long period of time whilst, ultimately coming to terms with her new condition/s and changes to her whole lifestyle.

This is a book for others to read and absorb, there is a lot to take away from the way Nin Mok manages her sudden change of life and her condition, how she eventually comes to terms with it.
This is a book about overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. A book that could instil hope in others.

*If you feel you’re in a dark place or suffering depression, panic attacks, or feeling down in any way, then you could get a lot out of this book, just by the author’s example of how she managed during her dark days. There’s no sugar coating or easy fix suggestions, but you can see how optimism and tenacity eventually pull through and shine a light on possibilities. Subtle changes in her behaviour and thinking, ultimately gave Nin the tools she needed to overcome.

Eloquently written with heartfelt honesty, I hope Nin Mok continues to pursue her desire to write because she knows how to wield her pen with confidence!

5⭐️]]> 4.29 Suddenly Silent and Still
author: Nin Mok
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves:
review:
A memoir of deep honesty and profound insights.

Mapping her journey through an unimaginably difficult and painful terror, Nin Mok describes her life before, during, and after, an invisible and insidious virus struck her down without warning and changed her life forever, from that moment on.
Nin was still young and had so many plans and dreams that were all coming to fruition, until the moment of that fateful day which, in the blink of an eye, stole it all away.
She was at the peak of her career, holding down a high level managerial role with weighty responsibilities and decision making demands. She excelled in this position and was highly regarded by her superiors. In a way, she felt privileged.
How could this be happening?
As she went for test after test and doctor after doctor, specialists and others, Nin tried everything they asked of her…sometimes at the mercy of incredibly painful treatments. And when they gave up, she read and researched everything she could in an effort to find some hope of a cure or at least relief of some sort.

Incredibly moving and at the same time painfully frustrating as you ride the roller coaster of physical and mental anguish that the author endured for such a long period of time whilst, ultimately coming to terms with her new condition/s and changes to her whole lifestyle.

This is a book for others to read and absorb, there is a lot to take away from the way Nin Mok manages her sudden change of life and her condition, how she eventually comes to terms with it.
This is a book about overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. A book that could instil hope in others.

*If you feel you’re in a dark place or suffering depression, panic attacks, or feeling down in any way, then you could get a lot out of this book, just by the author’s example of how she managed during her dark days. There’s no sugar coating or easy fix suggestions, but you can see how optimism and tenacity eventually pull through and shine a light on possibilities. Subtle changes in her behaviour and thinking, ultimately gave Nin the tools she needed to overcome.

Eloquently written with heartfelt honesty, I hope Nin Mok continues to pursue her desire to write because she knows how to wield her pen with confidence!

5⭐️
]]> <![CDATA[The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell]]> 210336447 The explosive, behind-the-scenes account of the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell.

'Lucia Osborne-Crowley is a lighthouse of a steadfast, illuminating and patiently cutting through darkness and horror to lead us to safety.' -Benjamin Law

'Lucia Osborne-Crowley is a writer of depth, determination and uncommon insight.' - Julia Baird

'I understand � and sympathise with � the feeling you might have that you already know the Jeffrey Epstein story. But I am not here to tell you a story about Jeffrey Epstein, or even Ghislaine Maxwell. I am here to tell you the stories of ten women, many of whom have never spoken at length before, about the real impact of sexual trauma on their lives.'

In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces 20 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of only four reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.

The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.

Centring the stories of four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by extra material to which Osborne-Crowley has exclusive access, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.]]> 0 Lucia Osborne-Crowley 1761188569 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read, own-kindle-book 4.38 2024 The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell
author: Lucia Osborne-Crowley
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Aromatherapy for Lovers and Dreamers]]> 1880519 108 Judith White 0947266089 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 5.00 1995 Aromatherapy for Lovers and Dreamers
author: Judith White
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Australian Gospel 221842492 Michael and Mary Shelley are Christian fanatics who loathe their fellow Australians � especially their 'foul language, reckless indulgence of alcohol and obsession with idiotic ball sports'.


Lenore and Tom Blaine are working-class Queensland publicans raising a large family in a raucous, loving, rugby-league-obsessed home.


There's just one problem. The Blaines are foster parents to three of the Shelleys' children, who were removed from Michael and Mary as infants. And the Shelleys are prepared to do anything to get them back. Anything.


Australian Gospel is a family saga like no other � heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing.


'One of the best writers of his generation.' Benjamin Law


'Blaine's native tongue, an ocker irreverence, gives his writing an amiable charm and reflects the styles of artists such as Tim Winton, Stella Franklin and Helen Garner.' Australian Book Review ]]> 363 Lech Blaine 1760643971 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 This is a complex and fascinating story involving a family tree with many grafted, as well as fixed branches.
How a foster family navigates a roller coaster of a journey to overcome all the odds.

I struggled at first to keep up with who was who and their position of hierarchy in the tree as names changed and people came and went.
I persisted because, for all of its complexities, the story was compelling and intriguing…in fact because of its complexities.
Early in the book I discovered that Lech Blaine had been interviewed by Richard Fidler in 2017 on ABC radio, (in Conversations with Richard Fidler) so I googled until I found this and other recordings to listen to before I read on. (*See link below.)
This helped immensely as I gained a more intimate introduction to the people in Lech Blaine’s life. I would recommend other readers do the same for advantageous insight ahead of reading the book.
Such a complex and engrossing history.

Lech Blaine tells his story so casually that the events within sound almost natural …but you know the stories within the story are far from the norm, and there is so much to tell that it seems he doesn’t come up for air. It is quite a history.
This story is a lot to absorb, one can only imagine what the reality must have been like.

Australian Gospel is a thoroughly absorbing and well written book.

4⭐️

In Conversation with Richard Fidler:




]]> 4.26 Australian Gospel
author: Lech Blaine
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: own-kindle-book, bio-memoir, religion, biography, australia, aussie-author, own-book
review:

This is a complex and fascinating story involving a family tree with many grafted, as well as fixed branches.
How a foster family navigates a roller coaster of a journey to overcome all the odds.

I struggled at first to keep up with who was who and their position of hierarchy in the tree as names changed and people came and went.
I persisted because, for all of its complexities, the story was compelling and intriguing…in fact because of its complexities.
Early in the book I discovered that Lech Blaine had been interviewed by Richard Fidler in 2017 on ABC radio, (in Conversations with Richard Fidler) so I googled until I found this and other recordings to listen to before I read on. (*See link below.)
This helped immensely as I gained a more intimate introduction to the people in Lech Blaine’s life. I would recommend other readers do the same for advantageous insight ahead of reading the book.
Such a complex and engrossing history.

Lech Blaine tells his story so casually that the events within sound almost natural …but you know the stories within the story are far from the norm, and there is so much to tell that it seems he doesn’t come up for air. It is quite a history.
This story is a lot to absorb, one can only imagine what the reality must have been like.

Australian Gospel is a thoroughly absorbing and well written book.

4⭐️

In Conversation with Richard Fidler:





]]> The Queens of Crime 228170955
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers� own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.]]> 310 Marie Benedict 125038995X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.00 2025 The Queens of Crime
author: Marie Benedict
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cold Truth 220422629 'the Queen of tech noir'� �The Australian

When you can fake anything, how do you know what’s real?

Harlow Close has made a career as an influencer uncoveringthe secrets of Winnipeg, dubbed ‘North America's strangest city�. The region is renowned for its sub-zero temperatures, dropping to minus 40 degrees –sometimes for months at a time. Yet, it’s not just the frigid winters and geographic seclusion that render Winnipeg peculiar. When Harlow’s father mysteriously disappears amida brutal cold snap, suspicions of foul play arise. It’s not like Scott tomiss phonecalls � and he’s been even more cautious since that time hewas catfished by a romance scammer. Unhappy with the pace of the police investigation, Harlow launches her own search, enlisting her sister Blaise’s reluctant help.
As Harlow struggles to uncover what happened to her father, she’s forced to question everything and everyone around her � including herself.

PRAISE FOR COLD TRUTH:

‘WithDark Mode, Ashley Kalagian Blunt announced her arrival on the thriller scene with a bang. In this follow-up, we would expect nothing less than a smart, twisty plot, set in an unforgettable place and populated by deeply human characters � butCold Truthdoes even more than that. In bringing us into the depths of Canadian winter, Ashley takes us right into what makes us who we are. Blood ties and shady online dealings come to the fore in this enthralling novel. I adored this book � compelling crime fiction at its absolute best.�� Hayley Scrivenor, author ofDirt Town and Girl Falling

�Cold Truthis bone-chilling in every a missing father, a complicated relationship between sisters and a taut mystery in an icy Canadian winter. With twists that had me gasping, the story rocketed towards a gripping finale. I could not put it down! Another explosive thriller from the master of the cliff-hanger.� � Petronella McGovern, author ofThe Liars and The Last Trace

‘Ashley Kalagian Blunt has done it again, delivering another propulsive psychological thriller that filled me with dread from the first page to its shocking conclusion. Set in the depths of the Canadian winter, Cold Truth was truly chilling; a relentless ride that had me guessing at every turn and reading into the early hours of the morning.Kalagian Blunt has established herself as the master of terrifying, addictive thrillers that will leave you questioning your own safety.� � Shankari Chandran, author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens and Unfinished Business

‘Vivid, twisty, fast-paced and action-packed, I tore throughCold Truthin two days. It left me shivering � with both cold and the stark reminder that in this world where anything can be faked, truth is as stable as quicksand.� � Pip Drysdale, author of The Next Girl and The Close-Up

‘Atmospheric, twisty and terrifying, Cold Truth is a taut and pulse-racing thriller that left me with an icy shiver. A story of sisterhood, loss, deceit and triumph � laced with the menace (and malice) of the dark web.]]> Ashley Kalagian Blunt 176115169X Jülie ☼♄ � 5 I was not disappointed!
It totally rose to the challenge, being every bit as good as the previous…I can’t choose a favourite because I like them both in equal measure…and yet they are very different in their own ways.

In Cold Truth you will be taken on an extremely chilly…in more ways than one� journey around one of Canada’s coldest cities as Harlow Close takes a group of tourists on a guided walk around the city of Winnipeg (Winterpeg to the locals) to visit its most noteworthy landmarks and tourist features, then later, on a more chilling journey.

Born and raised in Winnipeg Canada, Harlow has spent her whole life there, never leaving for any reason…never having a reason to leave. She loves running her own business as a tourist guide and does quite well. She even loves the subzero temperatures that winter brings with it but understands all too well the dangers of living in such conditions.
When Harlow’s father Scott goes missing for more than a few days, she is genuinely concerned and shares her fears with her only other close relative, her sister Blaise.
After enduring a frustrating lack of concern or enthusiasm from both her sister and the local police, who seem to believe he will turn up soon, Harlow begins her own investigation.
Buckle up for a chilly ride because it’s going to get really, really cold!
Snuggle up with this book and a few warm treats as you join Harlow in her search for her missing father.

5⭐️]]> 3.95 Cold Truth
author: Ashley Kalagian Blunt
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: pre-ordered-amazon, crime-thriller
review:
After reading Dark Mode, Ashley Kalagian-Blunt’s impressive and spine chilling crime-thriller of 2023, I was more than ready for her next book.. Cold Truth, which promised to be every bit as good.
I was not disappointed!
It totally rose to the challenge, being every bit as good as the previous…I can’t choose a favourite because I like them both in equal measure…and yet they are very different in their own ways.

In Cold Truth you will be taken on an extremely chilly…in more ways than one� journey around one of Canada’s coldest cities as Harlow Close takes a group of tourists on a guided walk around the city of Winnipeg (Winterpeg to the locals) to visit its most noteworthy landmarks and tourist features, then later, on a more chilling journey.

Born and raised in Winnipeg Canada, Harlow has spent her whole life there, never leaving for any reason…never having a reason to leave. She loves running her own business as a tourist guide and does quite well. She even loves the subzero temperatures that winter brings with it but understands all too well the dangers of living in such conditions.
When Harlow’s father Scott goes missing for more than a few days, she is genuinely concerned and shares her fears with her only other close relative, her sister Blaise.
After enduring a frustrating lack of concern or enthusiasm from both her sister and the local police, who seem to believe he will turn up soon, Harlow begins her own investigation.
Buckle up for a chilly ride because it’s going to get really, really cold!
Snuggle up with this book and a few warm treats as you join Harlow in her search for her missing father.

5⭐️
]]> The Inheritance 216119498 What if everyone in your family was given a DNA test at would there be any surprise results? For two women the answers are shocking, and dangerous. Perfect for readers of Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth.


Families lie. DNA doesn't.

Isobel Ashworth breezes through life, blissfully accustomed to the privilege which comes with her family name. But that changes when she arrives in the exclusive town of Hartwell. Sent there by her father to complete a controversial property development - and prove herself a serious player in the succession plan - her perfect life is unravelling. Isobel's fiance is telling lies, the project is a disaster and the locals hate her; could her father be setting her up to fail?

Buzzing with the promise of a big story, journalist Meg Hunter arrives in Hartwell to expose the Ashworth family dealings, and transform her faltering career. As she follows the trail of corruption, she uncovers clues about her mother's mysterious past.

When the next-gen Ashworths each receive an anonymous Christmas gift of a DNA testing kit, Isobel questions everything she knows about her family. Isobel is drawn to Meg and her pursuit of the truth ... but someone out there will stop at nothing to hide the secrets of both families.



'The Inheritance is a smart debut tackling the seductive issues of wealth, succession and family secrets. Taut, propulsive and with enticing Succession-meets-Jane Harper vibes, this novel is perfect for suburban noir superfans. I whizzed through it.' - Ali Lowe, author of The School Run

'Secrets, power and corruption - The Inheritance is an intriguing mystery and family drama.' -Vanessa McCausland, author of The Last Illusion of Paige White

'Books about families are my catnip and The Inheritance didn't disappoint. Take one establishment family with the money to hide anything then throw in a DNA test that never lies and sit back and enjoy the ride that Kate Horan takes you on. A fabulous debut!' - Fiona Lowe, author of The Accident

'The Inheritance is an incredibly strong debut from Kate Horan, full of all the things I love in a novel - family secrets, small-town intrigue and rich people behaving badly. I ripped through it faster than you can say the words 'DNA test'.' - Cassie Hamer, author of The Truth About Faking It

'A gripping story about wealth, entitlement, corruption and, most of all, family. Kate Horan's debut novel is sophisticated and un-put-down-able.' - B.M. Carroll, author of One of Us is Missing]]> 361 Kate Horan 1038940338 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 family-drama, mystery DNA doesn’t lie…families do.

It’s like join the DNA dots!
You really will be trying to join the DNA dots whilst reading this story as its complicated history-mystery unfolds.

Family entanglements and work ethics combine to make this book a real page turner when an optimistic young journalist, Meg Hunter, thinks she can combine a work trip with a family mystery research venture.
Her journalistic work involves researching a controversial property development in a small tight knit town called Hartwell, a ninety minute drive from the city.
Meg’s family mystery revolves around something her mother said to Meg on her last visit to see her in the care facility where her mother resides as a long term patient suffering Dementia.

Isobel Ashworth is the daughter of a wealthy property developer whose business ventures seem to have stalled and building is falling behind schedule in a town called Hartwell.
Her father has sent her to oversee the development and get it finished on schedule…a task which seems impossible given the timeframe and one which Isobel takes as a personal insult to her capabilities within the family business.
She determines to prove her father wrong.

I enjoyed this deep dive book very much, it reminded me of why I love reading so much. It has something for everyone, it’s compelling, complicated and totally credible. The subject matter is unique and interesting, making for an enjoyable read.
For a debut novel this is a riveting read, and a real exciting heads up notice that we have another new author to watch out for!

This one is a winner!
5⭐️]]> 3.98 The Inheritance
author: Kate Horan
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: family-drama, mystery
review:

DNA doesn’t lie…families do.

It’s like join the DNA dots!
You really will be trying to join the DNA dots whilst reading this story as its complicated history-mystery unfolds.

Family entanglements and work ethics combine to make this book a real page turner when an optimistic young journalist, Meg Hunter, thinks she can combine a work trip with a family mystery research venture.
Her journalistic work involves researching a controversial property development in a small tight knit town called Hartwell, a ninety minute drive from the city.
Meg’s family mystery revolves around something her mother said to Meg on her last visit to see her in the care facility where her mother resides as a long term patient suffering Dementia.

Isobel Ashworth is the daughter of a wealthy property developer whose business ventures seem to have stalled and building is falling behind schedule in a town called Hartwell.
Her father has sent her to oversee the development and get it finished on schedule…a task which seems impossible given the timeframe and one which Isobel takes as a personal insult to her capabilities within the family business.
She determines to prove her father wrong.

I enjoyed this deep dive book very much, it reminded me of why I love reading so much. It has something for everyone, it’s compelling, complicated and totally credible. The subject matter is unique and interesting, making for an enjoyable read.
For a debut novel this is a riveting read, and a real exciting heads up notice that we have another new author to watch out for!

This one is a winner!
5⭐️
]]> <![CDATA[Haven Found (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, Book 6): The Guards of Haven]]> 218633377
Do dreams really come true?

Unfortunately for Lynn, they sometimes do.

Plagued for months by recurring dreams of a suspended angel brutally stripped of his wings, Lynn managed the visions as best she could, but when her daughters begin experiencing the same horrific dreams, she can no longer ignore the dark images that haunt her. Had she missed something on that first stealthy visit to the lab in Ottawa? Or had this brutal attack occurred elsewhere, out of reach of those who might save this nameless angel? Were Lynn’s earlier dreams a glimpse into the past, the present, or were they foreboding messages of things to come?

As for the dreams of others�

Kris never dreamed he would see Jana again, nor did he ever consider she could be a part of his life. Then, like a daydream� there she was, standing at the entrance of his new restaurant.

Thaddeus’s dream of creating a superior race hasn’t wavered, though his pursuit of Ms. Westlake has taken a detour. His interests have shifted now to Brazil and a remote branch of science. And while Thaddeus is away, the mice are playing. Lyndon’s affections for Lane have grown, so much so, he’s requested an alternate tracker investigate the latest lead on this allusive target. Loyalties, too, are shifting while lies, deception, and secrets come to the forefront.

And Dr. Stone’s dreams, they have taken on a vivid realness that may be affecting her ability to counsel her latest patient.

What would you do if you sensed someone was in pain? Would you risk your own life to find them—save them? What if the loyalties you believe were solid shifted because of your actions or inactions? Would you put yourself in danger to pursue the answer? What if your actions changed� everything?]]> 391 N.L. Westaway Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 5.00 2024 Haven Found (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, Book 6): The Guards of Haven
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> By Her Hand 218586074 Year of Wonders, Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, Lauren Groff's Matrix, Robyn Cadwallader's The Anchoress, Pip Williams's The Dictionary of Lost Words.
She must write her rage ... to win her war.

Peak District, Mercia, AD 910: a young girl, Freda works hard to avoid her father's temper, while longing for his approval. She loves foraging in the woods and hearthside stories of heroes. Secretly she thinks in poetry and dreams of one day being able to write; her quills are grass stalks and sticks, her parchment the sky, the earth, her skin. But Freda's world is at war, and when her village is decimated in a savage raid and her father goes missing, Freda must find the strength to survive.

Taken in by the church, her only options are a life of servitude or prayer. But the cunning bishop sees an opportunity. As well as teaching Freda to write, he uses her survival as evidence of a miracle so as to attract pilgrims who bring wealth. As Freda chafes against the bishop's increasing control, she develops a friendship with the Mercian leader Ethelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, who shows her what it is to lead as a woman in a world that worships warrior kings.

Soon Freda must choose. Does she remain the powerless, subservient quill whose fate lies in the hands of another, or does she fight for the right to create - and write - her own story?



]]> Marion Taffe 1460716299 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.29 2025 By Her Hand
author: Marion Taffe
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bluff 220281020 From the bestselling author of How to Kill a Client comes a page-turning rural thriller of loyalties and lies, murder and greed.

People like Dash didn't die. He was only what? Mid-thirties? Well off. Adored. By some anyway. World at his feet. Well, Myddle at his feet, which was his world.

Ruth Dawson has taken a break from big city law to fill in for a few months for an old mate in Myddle. How hard can it be? she thinks. Turns out, very hard.

So when Ruth hears the front door of her office open, she's expecting a weird demand, or a question she doesn't know the answer to ... but it's Bea Baulderstone's mum, worried that she hasn't seen her seventeen-year-old daughter for five days, and Constable Gazza Parker is refusing to report the girl missing. Easily fixed, thinks Ruth, and heads off down Myddle's main street to charm Gazza into action.

But Victoria Baulderstone was Gazza doesn't care. That is until Dash Rogers is found at his farm gate, dead from a gunshot wound, and suddenly the town is very interested in Bea's whereabouts.

And it's not just Bea who can't be found. Dash's wife Evie is AWOL too.

Then Troy, Evie's protégé and Bea's only friend, also smoke-bombs.

An unputdownable thriller of deception and greed, The Bluff reveals an enmeshed web of family and community loyalties, set in the lush rural hinterland of east coast Australia.]]> Joanna Jenkins 1761505629 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.08 The Bluff
author: Joanna Jenkins
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Chocolate Factory 195510792
It's 1921, and after years of working for Cadbury's at Bournville, Dorothy Adwell is on her way to a new adventure in the colonies, helping to establish the Firm's new Australian factory. A promotion and a fresh start are just what she needs after the horrors of the Great War and the loss of her beloved husband.

During the long sea voyage, she meets Thomas and is immediately drawn to him. The war has left Thomas damaged, both mentally and emotionally, and Dorothy vows to help him - if only he will let her.

Maisie Greenwood is the oldest daughter of a war widow, living on a pittance in the Hobart suburb of Glebe. Her mother's health is failing, and with two younger siblings depending on her, the security of a job at the brand-new Cadbury's factory is a godsend. With Dorothy's mentorship and her budding romance with fellow worker Frank, life begins to look a little sweeter.

Cadbury's competitors have one goal: to steal the recipe for Dairy Milk, the most popular chocolate in the world. But the recipe is kept in a vault and the few who know it are legally bound to never divulge its secret. When chocolate spies target the new factory, Dorothy and Maisie become caught up in their plot. Can they protect the recipe, help those they love and fulfil their own dreams?

A tangled web of ambition and intrigue melts into a tale as delicious and rich as chocolate.]]> 441 Mary-Lou Stephens 1867255669 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 Absolutely loved this book! You know a book is really good when the characters stay with you long after the book is finished. This, for me is such a book. I miss the characters... and I can't start my next book until they leave me!!
Historical fiction is my jam so this is my kinda book...but this one has everything to keep the reader fully engaged from start to finish, it is full of surprises and mystery and conspiracy!
It's just so good, no need for me to outline the story it speaks for itself.
Highly recommended. Read it.

5⭐️]]> 3.90 The Chocolate Factory
author: Mary-Lou Stephens
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:

Absolutely loved this book! You know a book is really good when the characters stay with you long after the book is finished. This, for me is such a book. I miss the characters... and I can't start my next book until they leave me!!
Historical fiction is my jam so this is my kinda book...but this one has everything to keep the reader fully engaged from start to finish, it is full of surprises and mystery and conspiracy!
It's just so good, no need for me to outline the story it speaks for itself.
Highly recommended. Read it.

5⭐️
]]> The Jam Maker 217123663 Jam is sweet but it can also burn.


Tasmania, 1874. Growing up in the impoverished tenements along the Hobart Rivulet, Harriet Brown is used to doing whatever it takes to survive. Including, at just twelve years old, shearing off her hair and pretending to be a boy to secure a job as label-paster at the George Peacock and Sons jam factory.

Four years later, the deceit becomes too much to bear and Harriet risks everything on the chance at a future with her ambitious friend and workmate Henry Jones. But this decision forces her into a new deception: play the role of expert jam maker, or else be cast out onto the streets.

As the secrets and lies grow, Harriet is driven to more and more desperate choices. Choices that will end with a dangerous secret which, if discovered, could destroy not only her life but the lives of those she loves and protects.

Intertwined with the fascinating history of the Tasmanian jam industry and the striking historical figure Henry Jones, The Jam Maker is a tale of danger, deceit and the desperate measures one woman will take to succeed in love and life.]]> 429 Mary-Lou Stephens 1867255685 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 4.51 2025 The Jam Maker
author: Mary-Lou Stephens
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Spirit Circle 215961165
So it is that practical, sceptical Ellen moves into the gloomy East Melbourne mansion where Caroline, along with her enigmatic daughter Grace, has assembled a motley court of the bereaved. Ellen’s intention is to expose the simple trickery—the hidden cabinets and rigged seances, the levers and wires—that must surely lie behind these visits from the departed.

What she discovers is altogether more complicated.

Tara Calaby weaves a compelling and richly detailed narrative around the romance of old Melbourne in this intriguing, possibly supernatural, historical mystery.

Tara Calaby lives in Gippsland with her wife and far too many books. She is currently a PhD candidate at La Trobe University, researching the social worlds of women in Victorian lunatic asylums. In her free time, she enjoys playing video games, attempting to learn Danish, and patting other people’s dogs.

'A moving historical feminist and sapphic narrative that illuminates the shadowy corners of 19th-century colonial culture�' Age on House of Longing

'House of Longing is a beautiful romance that will break your heart, and set it soaring again, this time with hope.' Weekend Australian on House of Longing]]> 383 Tara Calaby 1923059173 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 Add in the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed this author’s last book, which was her debut book ‘House of Longing’…I was excited to read this one…And I wasn’t disappointed.

The Spirit Circle is a nice easy yet compelling read and has all the intriguing twists and turns that keep you turning the pages.

Melbourne in the 1800’s is described perfectly, and the interest in all things supernatural is something that was a popular attraction with many psychics offering their services through newspaper advertisements making a reasonable living.
One particular psychic, Caroline, and her daughter Grace, set the theme for this story where a group of women sharing the same house invite Harriet to join their circle.

When Harriet suddenly breaks off her engagement to her best friend Ellen’s brother William to move into the house and join the circle, Ellen is completely perplexed. She can’t believe her friend has fallen for such a trick. She promises William she will not stop until she brings Harriet back.
Harriet is convinced that the spirits of her deceased family can bring messages of comfort to her through Caroline and the circle.
Ellen visits the house with the intention of convincing Harriet to come home but is instead convinced to stay and see what the attraction is before deciding that it is fake.

Now things start to get even more interesting, will Ellen convince Harriet to come home and rekindle her engagement to William? Or�.has Ellen bitten off more than she can chew? Things start happening at the house which can’t be readily explained and the plot starts to thicken.

Only time constraints and commitments stopped me from reading this book a lot faster than I was able to, if not for those constraints I would have found it hard to put down.
I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to more from Tara Calaby in the future.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my digital copy to read and review.

4⭐️
]]> 3.50 The Spirit Circle
author: Tara Calaby
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:
Set in Melbourne in the late 1800’s this historical gothic thriller woven around supernatural/occult themes and spiritualism has all the hallmarks I love in a book.
Add in the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed this author’s last book, which was her debut book ‘House of Longing’…I was excited to read this one…And I wasn’t disappointed.

The Spirit Circle is a nice easy yet compelling read and has all the intriguing twists and turns that keep you turning the pages.

Melbourne in the 1800’s is described perfectly, and the interest in all things supernatural is something that was a popular attraction with many psychics offering their services through newspaper advertisements making a reasonable living.
One particular psychic, Caroline, and her daughter Grace, set the theme for this story where a group of women sharing the same house invite Harriet to join their circle.

When Harriet suddenly breaks off her engagement to her best friend Ellen’s brother William to move into the house and join the circle, Ellen is completely perplexed. She can’t believe her friend has fallen for such a trick. She promises William she will not stop until she brings Harriet back.
Harriet is convinced that the spirits of her deceased family can bring messages of comfort to her through Caroline and the circle.
Ellen visits the house with the intention of convincing Harriet to come home but is instead convinced to stay and see what the attraction is before deciding that it is fake.

Now things start to get even more interesting, will Ellen convince Harriet to come home and rekindle her engagement to William? Or�.has Ellen bitten off more than she can chew? Things start happening at the house which can’t be readily explained and the plot starts to thicken.

Only time constraints and commitments stopped me from reading this book a lot faster than I was able to, if not for those constraints I would have found it hard to put down.
I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to more from Tara Calaby in the future.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my digital copy to read and review.

4⭐️

]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Letters of Rose Carey]]> 202081320 A captivating tale of love, glamour and betrayal, inspired by the life of 1920s Australian film icon Annette Kellerman, for readers of Kate Morton and Taylor Jenkins Reid. Blue Mountains, 2023: Working on a documentary at the historic Carrington Hotel, videographer Emma Quinn rescues a box of vintage film reels destined for landfill. Trawling through the box, Emma finds a series of handwritten letters hidden beneath the reels � letters that seem to belong to Rose Carey, golden girl of the silent film era. Intrigued, Emma begins to read the letters and is fascinated by what she uncovers. And as her relationship with her wife fractures under the stress of IVF, she becomes increasingly obsessed with Rose’s story, at the heart of which lies a deadly secret. Sydney, 1923: Rose Carey knows her glittering Hollywood days are numbered after a near-death experience following the filming of her latest epic. On top of that, she faces bankruptcy. Rose is no quitter, though � she has reinvented herself many times before, overcoming several obstacles to transform into one of Hollywood’s glamour girls. She can’t stop now, and so she throws herself into planning a spectacular production that will take the world by storm. But when she suffers another life-threatening accident, Rose realises that someone close to her wants her out of the way. Who in her close-knit circle has the most to gain? Can she trust anyone, other than herself?]]> 368 Julie Bennett 1760858560 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.71 The Lost Letters of Rose Carey
author: Julie Bennett
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How to Be Australian 53337576 Australia’s just Canada with more sunshine and strange animals, right?

But they soon discover things aren’t so simple. Steve struggles to settle and Ashley fears he will come to regret both the move and the marriage � especially after she loses her wedding rings on Bondi Beach. Baffled, homesick and increasingly anxious (in a land renowned for ‘no worries�), she is preparing to return to Canada when Steve shockingly announces that he wants to stay in Australia. Forever.

For the sake of her marriage and her happiness, Ashley must find an Australia she can belong to: she decides to travel the country, learn its history, decode its cultural quirks and connect with as many residents as she can meet. How to Be Australian is a remarkable memoir, at once familiar and faraway, that shines a fresh, funny and fascinating light onto the country we think we know.]]> 288 Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1925972801 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.75 2020 How to Be Australian
author: Ashley Kalagian Blunt
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read, 2020-release, own-kindle-book, memoir
review:

]]> Ripper (PI Lane Holland, #2) 152260379
That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper's trail of death seventeen years ago was her innocuous little teashop.

She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her police officer husband and their marriage to this day and that some of her neighbours are desperate - desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier's reputation as the murder town.

When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma's doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer's wake turns to foreboding, and she's drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland.

Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn't she?]]> 346 Shelley Burr 0733647863 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.72 2023 Ripper (PI Lane Holland, #2)
author: Shelley Burr
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Let Them Theory 223106608
What if the key to happiness, success, and love was as simple as two words?

If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words—Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins—New York Times Bestselling Author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly matters: YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

Learn how to:

Stop wasting energy on things you can't control
Stop comparing yourself to other people
Break free from fear and self-doubt
Release the grip of people's expectations
Build the best friendships of your life
Create the love you deserve
Pursue what truly matters to you with confidence
Build resilience against everyday stressors and distractions
Define your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment
...and so much more.

The Let Them Theory will forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.]]> 11 Mel Robbins Jülie ☼♄ � 5 IMHO? So good, so relatable and so unobtrusive.
Really, I think anyone could find this book informative and its advice very practical without being preachy or in any way pushy.
It doesn’t ask you to sign up, or give up, or sacrifice or subscribe to any club or society.
It doesn’t make promises nor does it patronise� it just makes sense.
I started reading the book version and before I got through the first chapters I bought and downloaded the audiobook because I wanted to listen instead…I can keep the book for reference, to read over because I know I will.
It felt like I was in the same room with Mel Robbins and just sitting there having a one on one conversation…her delivery is so conversational I found myself often nodding in agreement and even affirming out loud in solidarity with her observations.
More and more I felt what she was saying was validating many of the realisations I have come to in recent years, which was gratifying.
It has taken me a long, long time to come to this phase of my life where I feel confident enough to say “let them� without reservation or regret…and it is liberating.

*This is a book worth reading, and re-reading. Try it.

Highly recommended
5⭐️]]> 4.15 2024 The Let Them Theory
author: Mel Robbins
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: audiobook, own-audio-book, 2024-release, motivational
review:

IMHO? So good, so relatable and so unobtrusive.
Really, I think anyone could find this book informative and its advice very practical without being preachy or in any way pushy.
It doesn’t ask you to sign up, or give up, or sacrifice or subscribe to any club or society.
It doesn’t make promises nor does it patronise� it just makes sense.
I started reading the book version and before I got through the first chapters I bought and downloaded the audiobook because I wanted to listen instead…I can keep the book for reference, to read over because I know I will.
It felt like I was in the same room with Mel Robbins and just sitting there having a one on one conversation…her delivery is so conversational I found myself often nodding in agreement and even affirming out loud in solidarity with her observations.
More and more I felt what she was saying was validating many of the realisations I have come to in recent years, which was gratifying.
It has taken me a long, long time to come to this phase of my life where I feel confident enough to say “let them� without reservation or regret…and it is liberating.

*This is a book worth reading, and re-reading. Try it.

Highly recommended
5⭐️
]]> <![CDATA[The Psychic Abilities of Being an Empath: A practical guide to setting boundaries without feeling guilty, protecting yourself, and increasing your self-esteem ... of your life (The Rising Empaths Book 1)]]> 61355383 Have you been told you are just “too sensitive� your whole life?

Are you an emotional victim to all sorts of people who leech off you, drain you, and leave you feeling raw?

Do you know deep down that your empathic abilities are actually a gift, but you have no idea how to get past the pain and access it fully?

Just dealing with the normal range of your own emotions is already hard enough, so when you’re an empath, being exposed to the emotions and energy of everyone around you can be extremely confusing and overwhelming.

And the worst thing is that empaths often suffer a range of emotional, mental, and sometimes even physical trauma before they learn how to protect themselves and work with this amazing ability safely.

You may have tried to solve your problems on your own, and perhaps that is what has gotten you this far, but if you are here, it’s time to take your empathic abilities to the next level.

In this supportive and practical book, you will

� What it really means to be an empath, and how this can impact your life if you don’t learn to manage this ability

� What kind of empath you may be � and how to develop your unique skills for your own and others� benefit

� 8 common problems most empaths struggle with, and what to do about them

� How to awaken, handle, and develop your psychic abilities and harness the energy of the universe to work for you

� How to recognize energy vampires, opportunists, users, and abusers and protect yourself from them

� Simple , yet powerful exercises to develop your “clair� senses and strengthen your ability to shield and protect yourself from unwanted, external energies

� What you need to do to establish a better connection with your higher self and spirit guides

� How to eliminate self-sabotage, build self-esteem, and grow in self-love

And much more.

It can be hard to see this as a gift when it hurts so much, but when you’re able to conquer its challenges, being an empath can be so rewarding.

Are you ready to flip the script on being an empath?
Scroll up and click the “Add to Cart� button right now.]]> 156 S.C. Rowse Jülie ☼♄ � 4 How to set boundaries without feeling guilty or upsetting others by setting parameters to include time out for self and self healing/recharging time.
Meditation techniques and other useful tools for managing and maintaining self awareness to help alleviate senses of overwhelm often experienced by empaths.
Overall, lots of interesting and useful information for anyone looking for tools to help manage their self awareness and overall wellbeing.

(The Rising Empaths Book 1) …there is a book 2 by the same author which I think would complement this book: Empath & Psychic Abilities: Empath & Psychic Abilities: Stop Empathic Burnout, Awaken Your Third Eye, Supercharge Your Psychic Skills, and Engage Your Innate Power to Thrive]]> 3.83 The Psychic Abilities of Being an Empath: A practical guide to setting boundaries without feeling guilty, protecting yourself, and increasing your self-esteem ... of your life (The Rising Empaths Book 1)
author: S.C. Rowse
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: own-kindle-book, 1st-in-series, 2022-release
review:
A book you could pick up again and again, an easy to follow reference book with exercises and tips for empaths on how to manage their energy and energy field against outside interference and get more in touch with their emotions.
How to set boundaries without feeling guilty or upsetting others by setting parameters to include time out for self and self healing/recharging time.
Meditation techniques and other useful tools for managing and maintaining self awareness to help alleviate senses of overwhelm often experienced by empaths.
Overall, lots of interesting and useful information for anyone looking for tools to help manage their self awareness and overall wellbeing.

(The Rising Empaths Book 1) …there is a book 2 by the same author which I think would complement this book: Empath & Psychic Abilities: Empath & Psychic Abilities: Stop Empathic Burnout, Awaken Your Third Eye, Supercharge Your Psychic Skills, and Engage Your Innate Power to Thrive
]]> <![CDATA[The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About]]> 223116930
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words—Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins—New York Times Bestselling Author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly matters: YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

10 hrs. 38 min.]]> 11 Mel Robbins Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.18 2024 The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About
author: Mel Robbins
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: audiobook, 2024-release, personal-development, psychology, own-audio-book, audible
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Empath & Psychic Abilities: Stop Empathic Burnout, Awaken Your Third Eye, Supercharge Your Psychic Skills, and Engage Your Innate Power to Thrive (The Rising Empaths Book 2)]]> 75612978 Have you ever been described as overly emotional or too sensitive?


How many times have you found yourself feeling the same way your friend or loved one feels � whether it’s joy, anger, or anxiety?

Do you wonder why you often seem to know exactly what another person thinks or even what they’re about to do?

If you feel that you’re different from most people, you are right. You belong to the extremely rare breed called “empaths,� and currently, only 1 to 2 percent of the population experience the same as you do.

As an empath, you are deeply sensitive and highly attuned to the emotions and energy of others that you literally take on what they’re feeling.

You might not know it yet, but being an empath means having superpowers � including psychic abilities.

Just think � you’d be able to help people who are in distress, soothe their emotional wounds, and even save them from self-destruction. And as an empath, being able to bring joy to others will bring you joy as well.

You already have those abilities within you � all you have to do is to awaken them. The good news is, this book will tell you exactly how to do that.

Inside, here is just a small fraction of what you will

� 4 key superpowers of an empath � explore more about each and find out how you can develop them

� The secrets to activating your powerful abilities � including tools you can use to fast-track your progress

� 20+ ways to protect yourself as an empath� don’t let toxic people and situations drain your energy!

� What “chakras� are and why they are crucial to your success as an empath

� How you can cleanse your energy � find out how to filter negativity before it consumes you

� Stories of empaths just like you � get to know their journey and learn from their experiences

� Powerful meditations in every chapter that you can use to bring your empathic abilities to a whole new level


And much more.

It’s time to quit second-guessing yourself and suppressing your true capabilities as an empath. In a world that’s full of toxic behaviors, disastrous relationships, and emotional pain, you have a remarkable gift to create key changes � even if it means helping only one person at a time.

You have a choice � ignore your empathic abilities and let them go to waste, or start mastering your skills to experience how truly powerful you are.

Join the rare breed of empaths, mastering their superpowers to change lives—one emotion at a time.

Scroll up and click “Add to Cart� right now.]]> 172 S.C. Rowse Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.00 Empath & Psychic Abilities: Stop Empathic Burnout, Awaken Your Third Eye, Supercharge Your Psychic Skills, and Engage Your Innate Power to Thrive (The Rising Empaths Book 2)
author: S.C. Rowse
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book, 2nd-in-series, 2023-release
review:

]]> My Friends 127488823
The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream.

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England, much lessreturn tothe country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would jeopardize their safety.

When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautifulworkof literature by an authorat the peak of his powers.]]> 399 Hisham Matar 081299485X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read, own-kindle-copy 4.31 2024 My Friends
author: Hisham Matar
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-copy
review:

]]> Sarah Evans 213520697
When she is falsely accused and found guilty of theft, Sarah is sentenced to transportation,but, instead, she is secretly transferred to ColdbathFields, one of London's most notorious prisons, at the request its sadistic governor, Thomas Aris. Placed in his household, she becomes entangled in a web of sexual exploitation, crueltyand corruption, where powerful men rule and the law disregards women.

When Sarah is presented with an opportunity to regain her freedom, she seizes it. But even beyond the prison walls, she discovers she cannot escape Aris's control over herself and her children.

She can no longer turn to Lucy for support - her friend is a convict in New South Wales, her life's journey taking her down a path as hopeful as Sarah's is desperate. Instead, she finds kindness and protection among the network of women who, like her, are struggling to avoid starvation on the pitiless streets of London. At the lowest point of her life - accused of murder and facing the death penalty - these strong women don'tlet her down.

And Sarah is a force in her own right. Drawn into a circle of political rebels, she is introduced to the concepts of justice and equality. Despite the brutal challenges that life throws at her, she learns her own value and begins to fight for her rights.

In the end, it is the power of thoughts and words that shapes Sarah Evans's life, not the hardship she has known. And it is friendship that teaches her the most important kind of liberty of mind.]]> 262 Bernice Barry 1760689580 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.02 Sarah Evans
author: Bernice Barry
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Earth 198222359 From million-copy-bestselling author John Boyne, an inescapably gritty story about one young man whose direction in life takes a vastly different turn than what he expected.

It’s the tabloid sensation of the two well-known footballers standing in the dock, charged with sexual assault, a series of vile text messages pointing towards their guilt.

As the trial unfolds, Evan Keogh reflects on the events that have led him to this moment. Since leaving his island home, his life has been a lie on many levels. He’s a talented footballer who wanted to be an artist. A gay man in a sport that rejects diversity. A defendant whose knowledge of what took place on that fateful night threatens more than just his freedom or career.

The jury will deliver a verdict but, before they do, Evan must judge for himself whether the man he has become is the man he wanted to be.]]> 168 John Boyne 152991650X Jülie ☼♄ � 5 4.31 2024 Earth
author: John Boyne
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves: own-kindle-book, book-two, series, 2024-release
review:

]]> Water 123252946
But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?

Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did - and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all.]]> 161 John Boyne Jülie ☼♄ � 5
I didn’t read the blurb, just some trusted friend reviews…I dived straight in, and now�

I am at a loss!

This author,John Boyne, has a rare and uncanny ability to intuit and tap into the feminine psyche and disposition to such depths as to leave me staring off into the distance…in deep thought…at regular intervals.
To be able to interpret and convey those emotions in such an easy, natural manner is uncanny…almost unsettling in its candid observation.
I could have read this in a day, yet it took me days to properly absorb it.
His writing displays a deep compassion for, and an even rarer empathetic understanding for the profound emotional turmoil of a woman besieged by accumulated and new trauma.

I love this writing.
It’s unsettling yet compelling, you can’t look away, nor should you.
It’s important and relevant.
It’s confronting but necessary reading.
It’s moving and thought provoking, it leaves no room for excuses.


This is #1 in a series of four novellas called The Elements�
#1 Water.
#2 Earth.
#3 Fire.
#4 Air

5⭐️ I will most definitely be reading the next three.]]> 4.44 2023 Water
author: John Boyne
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:
What the cover says: A perceptive, moving exploration of guilt, grief and complicity�

I didn’t read the blurb, just some trusted friend reviews…I dived straight in, and now�

I am at a loss!

This author,John Boyne, has a rare and uncanny ability to intuit and tap into the feminine psyche and disposition to such depths as to leave me staring off into the distance…in deep thought…at regular intervals.
To be able to interpret and convey those emotions in such an easy, natural manner is uncanny…almost unsettling in its candid observation.
I could have read this in a day, yet it took me days to properly absorb it.
His writing displays a deep compassion for, and an even rarer empathetic understanding for the profound emotional turmoil of a woman besieged by accumulated and new trauma.

I love this writing.
It’s unsettling yet compelling, you can’t look away, nor should you.
It’s important and relevant.
It’s confronting but necessary reading.
It’s moving and thought provoking, it leaves no room for excuses.


This is #1 in a series of four novellas called The Elements�
#1 Water.
#2 Earth.
#3 Fire.
#4 Air

5⭐️ I will most definitely be reading the next three.
]]> Unnatural Causes 36066197 THE TRUE CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR AND 18-WEEK SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER

'One of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. Engrossing, a haunting page-turner. A book I could not put down' The Times, BOOKS OF THE YEAR
__________

Meet the forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd.

He solves the mysteries of unexplained or sudden death.

He has performed over 23,000 autopsies, including some of the most high-profile cases of recent times; the Hungerford Massacre, the Princess Diana inquiry, and 9/11.

He has faced serial killers, natural disaster, 'perfect murders' and freak accidents.

His evidence has put killers behind bars, freed the innocent, and turned open-and-shut cases on their heads.

Yet all this has come at a huge personal cost.

Unnatural Causes tells the story of not only the cases and bodies that have haunted him the most, but also how to live a life steeped in death.

Thoughtful, revealing, chilling and always unputdownable, if you liked All That Remains, War Doctor and This is Going to Hurt you'll love this.]]> 394 Richard Shepherd 1405923555 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.46 2018 Unnatural Causes
author: Richard Shepherd
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: own-kindle-book, 2018-release, autobiography, memoir, true-stories, medical-science, non-fiction, to-read
review:

]]> Air 218553007 From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, a contemplative story about one man trying to move forward from the trauma of his youth to become a better father to his son.

Being in limbo, 30,000 feet in the air, offers time to reflect and take stock. For Aaron Umber, it’s an opportunity to connect with his 15-year-old son as they travel halfway across the world to meet a woman who isn’t expecting them.

Unsettled by his past, and anxious for his future, Aaron is at a crossroads in life. The damage inflicted upon him during his youth has made him the man he is, but now threatens to widen the growing fissures between him and his only child. This trip could bind them closer together, or tear them further apart.

In this penetrating examination of action and consequence, fault and attribution, acceptance and resolution, John Boyne gives us a redemptive story of a father and a son on a moving journey to mend their troubled lives.]]> 176 John Boyne 0857529854 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.47 2025 Air
author: John Boyne
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fire 208460840
Did what happened to Freya as a child one fateful summer influence the adult she would become � or was she always destined to be that person? Was she born with cruelty in her heart or did something force it into being?

In Fire, John Boyne takes the reader on a chilling, uncomfortable but utterly compelling psychological journey to the epicentre of the human condition, asking the age-old question: nurture � or nature?]]> 176 John Boyne 0857529870 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.20 2024 Fire
author: John Boyne
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In the Margins 208896730
Inspired by a real person, In the Marginsis the story of spirited book-collector Frances Wolfreston—the woman who uniquely preserved the earliest part of Shakespeare’s legacy.

England, 1647.As civil war gives way to an uneasy peace and Puritanism becomes the letter of the law, Frances Wolfreston, a rector's wife, is charged with enforcing religious compliance by informing on her parishioners. This awful task triggers memories of her mother, Alice, who inspired Frances� love of books and secretly practised Catholicism at great risk. Conflicted, she doesn’t report a reclusive and mysterious midwife to delay her going to gaol.

As Frances takes increasingly bold steps to help the women and children of the parish, she attracts the ire of a patron of the church who questions why Frances collects books that she charges are entertainment. When her mother is gaoled for religious crimes, the secrets Frances hides from her husband begin to surface, and she is faced with an impossible comply with the strict dictates of the new laws, or risk everything to free the women she cares for.

In this tender and powerful work of imagination, the life of a remarkable woman who wrote and lived in the margins in a time where women's voices went unheard is restored to history. Beautifully written and deeply moving, In the Margins is a testament to the way literature can illuminate our inner lives and set us free when the world around us is covered in darkness.]]> 336 Gail Holmes 1761153129 Jülie ☼♄ � 5
Though it is a work of fiction, this story has been fashioned around a true story and real people…as the cover blurb describes…Herstory, Motherhood and Freedom.
This is a story well worth reading, if only for its glimpse into the lives of people (especially women) in Cromwells� time in England where religious compliance was the law, and people were compelled to attend church. Penalties for non compliance were strict and rigidly enforced with an unsympathetic determination.

Set in England in the year 1647. Frances Wolfreston is the wife of the local rector in the town of Statfold..
Her mother was a huge influence in educating Frances from an early age and taught her to read and write, a rare thing for girls, especially in those times.
Her mother loved poetry and the written word and had a large library of books and collections of written texts, especially the works of Shakespeare, which she favoured and would often read from and recite to Frances...instilling in her, that appetite for learning and an enduring love of books.
So it was that Frances grew up with an equally voracious appetite for reading, and is now an avid collector of old books, especially any works of Shakespeare, boasting her own private library and enviable collection of rare books.

The fact that Frances was so well educated and was able to read and write made her future prospects of finding a good husband, and therefore a more comfortable lifestyle, more promising.
She married Henry Wolfreston, the local rector and they settled into a comfortable lifestyle together.
Because she was educated Frances was entrusted with helping Henry with the bookkeeping at the rectory, a job she did with due diligence.
Times were hard though, and people found it more and more difficult to afford their rents and tithes, all hands were needed to make ends meet and the church was beginning to lose parishioners…and, as a result, funds.

When new laws had been introduced to enforce existing laws of religious compliance, Frances was charged with the task of officially recording in the church ledgers, the names of every person failing to attend church…regardless of their reasons or circumstance…making them imminently liable for prosecution.
This was an onerous task and one which Frances found untenable and weighing heavily on her heart as she knew all of these people and cared about their wellbeing.
However, her husband Henry was adamant that if she didn’t record those names then his own livelihood would also be in dire trouble…and as a consequence hers.
One woman in particular who regularly failed to attend church was a cause of great concern to Frances, although she was compelled to register this woman’s name, she went out of her way to try and convince her to attend church…this gesture is the beginning of a series of catastrophic events that will have the reader rapidly turning the pages.

I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed this book, although I was intrigued by the introduction, it was not at all what I expected…it was by far more.
A thoroughly good read and one I would highly recommend to readers of any genre.

Favourite quote:
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break,�

This is an excellent debut from this author Gail Holmes and I look forward to more of her work in the future.
I loved it!

5⭐️

Ps� Awesome cover too!!]]> 4.06 2024 In the Margins
author: Gail Holmes
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: own-book, 2024-release, aussie-author, historical-fiction, women-s-fiction, debut-novel, recommended, from-suzanne
review:
What a Gem! I think this book chose me and I’m so glad it did.

Though it is a work of fiction, this story has been fashioned around a true story and real people…as the cover blurb describes…Herstory, Motherhood and Freedom.
This is a story well worth reading, if only for its glimpse into the lives of people (especially women) in Cromwells� time in England where religious compliance was the law, and people were compelled to attend church. Penalties for non compliance were strict and rigidly enforced with an unsympathetic determination.

Set in England in the year 1647. Frances Wolfreston is the wife of the local rector in the town of Statfold..
Her mother was a huge influence in educating Frances from an early age and taught her to read and write, a rare thing for girls, especially in those times.
Her mother loved poetry and the written word and had a large library of books and collections of written texts, especially the works of Shakespeare, which she favoured and would often read from and recite to Frances...instilling in her, that appetite for learning and an enduring love of books.
So it was that Frances grew up with an equally voracious appetite for reading, and is now an avid collector of old books, especially any works of Shakespeare, boasting her own private library and enviable collection of rare books.

The fact that Frances was so well educated and was able to read and write made her future prospects of finding a good husband, and therefore a more comfortable lifestyle, more promising.
She married Henry Wolfreston, the local rector and they settled into a comfortable lifestyle together.
Because she was educated Frances was entrusted with helping Henry with the bookkeeping at the rectory, a job she did with due diligence.
Times were hard though, and people found it more and more difficult to afford their rents and tithes, all hands were needed to make ends meet and the church was beginning to lose parishioners…and, as a result, funds.

When new laws had been introduced to enforce existing laws of religious compliance, Frances was charged with the task of officially recording in the church ledgers, the names of every person failing to attend church…regardless of their reasons or circumstance…making them imminently liable for prosecution.
This was an onerous task and one which Frances found untenable and weighing heavily on her heart as she knew all of these people and cared about their wellbeing.
However, her husband Henry was adamant that if she didn’t record those names then his own livelihood would also be in dire trouble…and as a consequence hers.
One woman in particular who regularly failed to attend church was a cause of great concern to Frances, although she was compelled to register this woman’s name, she went out of her way to try and convince her to attend church…this gesture is the beginning of a series of catastrophic events that will have the reader rapidly turning the pages.

I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed this book, although I was intrigued by the introduction, it was not at all what I expected…it was by far more.
A thoroughly good read and one I would highly recommend to readers of any genre.

Favourite quote:
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break,�

This is an excellent debut from this author Gail Holmes and I look forward to more of her work in the future.
I loved it!

5⭐️

Ps� Awesome cover too!!
]]> The Deed 203781367 'Now that's the way to bury your old man ... he sank into his Jason recliner, wincing. A a body wrapped in handwoven cloth, women dancing and wailing. Too much, in Tom's opinion, but at least they were mourning. To hell with that, at least they showed up.'

Tom Edwards is dying, and cranky. He's made his peace with the dying part. But he'd bet his property - the whole ten thousand acres of it - that there'd be no wailing at his funeral. His kids wouldn't be able to chop down a tree, let alone build a coffin to bury him in.

Then Tom has an idea ...

Christine is furious, David ashen-faced, and Sophie distracted. Only Jenny listens carefully as Vince Barton, of Barton & Sons, reads their father's will. Either they build his coffin - in four days - or they lose their inheritance. All of it.

A perceptive and unforgettable debut novel, The Deed explores the messy, sometimes volatile, complications that only the best and worst of family can bring. Sometimes greed can be good.

'Splendidly told through a rich layering of characterisation . . . Funny, heartfelt and unforgettable' SYDNEY ARTS GUIDE]]> 415 Susannah Begbie 0733650805 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.00 The Deed
author: Susannah Begbie
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Head for the Hills 210624335

Margot and her sister Roslyn have lived side by side in a little town in the Adelaide Hills most of their lives, supporting each other through thick and thin.

Then their neighbour Gunter dies. Surprisingly, his will asks that his house and vineyard be sold and that Roslyn donate the money to a charity of her choice. When a developer wants to buy the land and create a hotel just over Margot's fence, Margot is outraged and decides to stand for Mayor and fight the development. But Roslyn feels differently. Her awareness of family violence and homelessness is sparked by the arrival in town of a young pregnant woman, who is escaping abuse and sleeping in her car. Determined to do some good, Roslyn supports the sale - she has found her charitable cause and the money will go to the homeless.

Suddenly the sisters are on opposite sides of the fence, literally and figuratively. As the row heats up, their local community is divided between those pro-development and those against, and battle lines are drawn, neighbours eyeing each other angrily either side. As vandalism erupts, bitter words are hurled, and pots are stirred. Will the town - and the sisters - ever recover their community spirit? Will anything ever be the same again?

Gentle humour, practical wisdom and trademark warmth underpin this clever novel from a bestselling Australian author.]]> 455 Tricia Stringer 1867247755 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.02 Head for the Hills
author: Tricia Stringer
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Guard (The Guard Trilogy, #1)]]> 45415203
A flash of something in the pages caught my eye, and I stopped. Thumbing back through the pages again, slower this time, I found it. It was about an inch thickness in� Mom’s handwriting� pages of it.
When a woman linked to the supernatural, discovers her adoptive mother’s journal holds a cryptic mystery, she and her closest friends race to uncover a secret matriarchal society safeguarded by mystical unseen forces.
What if Cancer wasn’t just an illness or evil sickness that took our loved ones? What if it’s something bigger—a sacrifice or choice to keep humanity safe—to keep the balance?

Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is considered the 3rd cleanest city in the world and rated the 2nd highest quality of living of any big city in the Americas, but unless you’re Canadian you probably wouldn’t know any of that stuff. And it’s all very nice and well, but boring as hell.... That’s what four unsuspecting girlfriends thought, until their good friend Lynn Westlake came home to visit, and they found themselves in the biggest mystery and adventure of their normal boring lives.

The Guard is the first book in the N. L. Westaway urban fantasy/paranormal mystery trilogy. If you appreciate brilliant urban fantasy or paranormal mysteries involving everyday people, you’ll love this entertaining three-part trilogy.

Note; it is recommended that you read the books in order as the mystery is in three parts, and not individual stories per book.]]> 355 N.L. Westaway 1733944206 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 However, my current reading slump was beginning to reach “critical� worrying point!
So when I saw “The Guard� pop up in my feed yet again I bit the bullet, still not fully understanding what it was about but I figured it was persistent enough to keep grabbing my attention so�.

So I bought it (at a very reasonable price for kindle) and started reading to see if it would still hold my attention.
It pulled me further and further in and kept me wanting to see where it was going.
Not at all where I thought it was going! I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was (apart from the lack of editing) very, very good, and had me at the halfway mark, invested to the point of purchasing the next two in the series. Fortuitous as it turns out, as I feel it has to be said…and I don’t believe this is a spoiler…that book one finishes with such a cliff hanger that the reader is compelled to get book two if they want to know…well, what they really need to know! For the sake of continuity.

This is a very complex, well thought out and executed storyline, all of the characters are very well profiled with unique qualities which add to their individual roles.

Do you believe in Angels?
If you don’t, you might want to read this.
If you do, you might want to read this.

At best, it is a very complex and compelling story. At worst, it will definitely give you food for thought.

I can’t say more because I really don’t want to spoil it. I’m almost finished book two now and I have to say I’m really impressed with the knowledge and skill (and obvious research) this author has clearly got an abundance of.
I would ask (especially my fellow reviewers) that the reader try to forgive the *editing problems and give these books a go, even if they are not your usual genre!

*These above mentioned issues cannot be overlooked or go unmentioned as they do affect the flow of the story and are even at times confusing to the reader as language/languages, words and wordplay are key features in the story.
I deducted one star from my rating because of this but still gave it a generous four stars.
I now know that book two sadly suffers from the same afflictions, I’m hoping that the rest of this series have overcome these errors as, apart from being very disappointing, it will certainly be reflected in ratings.

A compelling read!
4⭐️


*I can highly recommend this series and would like to encourage readers not to overlook these books because of the (potential) issues with a couple of the digital ebooks. Authors need our support when these things happen. I am now reading book #3 in this series and have found no problems with it, and am thoroughly invested in the story!]]> 4.03 The Guard (The Guard Trilogy, #1)
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: 1st-in-series, paranormal, fantasy, urban-fantasy, own-kindle-book, angels-archangels
review:
These books have been popping up at random intervals in my socials for some time now. So often in fact, that I even had a couple of looks at them to see if I’d be interested…not my usual genre you see…so I kept passing them by.
However, my current reading slump was beginning to reach “critical� worrying point!
So when I saw “The Guard� pop up in my feed yet again I bit the bullet, still not fully understanding what it was about but I figured it was persistent enough to keep grabbing my attention so�.

So I bought it (at a very reasonable price for kindle) and started reading to see if it would still hold my attention.
It pulled me further and further in and kept me wanting to see where it was going.
Not at all where I thought it was going! I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was (apart from the lack of editing) very, very good, and had me at the halfway mark, invested to the point of purchasing the next two in the series. Fortuitous as it turns out, as I feel it has to be said…and I don’t believe this is a spoiler…that book one finishes with such a cliff hanger that the reader is compelled to get book two if they want to know…well, what they really need to know! For the sake of continuity.

This is a very complex, well thought out and executed storyline, all of the characters are very well profiled with unique qualities which add to their individual roles.

Do you believe in Angels?
If you don’t, you might want to read this.
If you do, you might want to read this.

At best, it is a very complex and compelling story. At worst, it will definitely give you food for thought.

I can’t say more because I really don’t want to spoil it. I’m almost finished book two now and I have to say I’m really impressed with the knowledge and skill (and obvious research) this author has clearly got an abundance of.
I would ask (especially my fellow reviewers) that the reader try to forgive the *editing problems and give these books a go, even if they are not your usual genre!

*These above mentioned issues cannot be overlooked or go unmentioned as they do affect the flow of the story and are even at times confusing to the reader as language/languages, words and wordplay are key features in the story.
I deducted one star from my rating because of this but still gave it a generous four stars.
I now know that book two sadly suffers from the same afflictions, I’m hoping that the rest of this series have overcome these errors as, apart from being very disappointing, it will certainly be reflected in ratings.

A compelling read!
4⭐️


*I can highly recommend this series and would like to encourage readers not to overlook these books because of the (potential) issues with a couple of the digital ebooks. Authors need our support when these things happen. I am now reading book #3 in this series and have found no problems with it, and am thoroughly invested in the story!
]]> The Answer Is No 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]> 68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman is about a curmudgeonly older man who just wants to be left alone…but life has other ideas.
The book seems to follow a theme this author has become renowned for, involving a cranky older man who lives alone and likes it that way, but other people keep insinuating themselves into his life and his personal space causing a lot of drama and frustration for him.

With more than a few laugh out loud moments, this story has the reader thinking about the way people interact and deal with each other as well as social other issues.

4⭐️]]> 3.94 2024 The Answer Is No
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: own-kindle-book, short-story, 2024-release
review:
A short story,
The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman is about a curmudgeonly older man who just wants to be left alone…but life has other ideas.
The book seems to follow a theme this author has become renowned for, involving a cranky older man who lives alone and likes it that way, but other people keep insinuating themselves into his life and his personal space causing a lot of drama and frustration for him.

With more than a few laugh out loud moments, this story has the reader thinking about the way people interact and deal with each other as well as social other issues.

4⭐️
]]> Between Husbands and Wives 210171224
On a cold, dark night, two cars collide �

Inside the vehicle at fault, Jennifer Ashby survives with barely a scratch. In the wreckage of the second, the occupants are not so lucky. Jennifer's good character helps her escape jail, but she is traumatised by the event.

Desperate for a change, and with her marriage buckling under the stress, she convinces her husband Jon to move to the beautiful but wild Daintree region, far away from family and friends.

As Jon spends long hours at his new job and Jennifer makes plans to absolve her lingering guilt, cracks begin to form in their idyllic new life. Will the shadow of their past continue to haunt them? Will their dark secret be exposed?]]> 310 Susannah Glenn 0648619060 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.39 Between Husbands and Wives
author: Susannah Glenn
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.39
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[First Fight (DI Kim Stone, #0.1)]]> 212065919 Available for free when you subscribe to the author’s newsletter

When young Kim Stone, working seven days a week in a warehouse, begins her police training programme, her expectations of the force are shattered. As she discovers a shocking fact about one of her teachers, she's faced with her first fight...]]> Angela Marsons Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.40 First Fight (DI Kim Stone, #0.1)
author: Angela Marsons
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Wattle Island Book Club 58746973 Is it ever too late to rewrite your own story?

COURAGE

In 1950, teenager Anne flees Wattle Island for the big city, where she learns that establishing the life she's always dreamed of isn’t as easy as she thought. When a secret she’s been keeping is discovered, she has no choice but to retreat home and live a quiet life. But when tragedy strikes, establishing the Wattle Island book club is the only thing that offers her solace.

PASSION

In 2018, spirited librarian Grace has been writing bucket lists since she was a child, and is ticking off as many challenges as she can now that life has handed her a hefty dose of perspective. Heading to Wattle Island on one of her adventures, she is determined to uncover a long-held mystery surrounding the town’s historic book club, unlocking a buried truth that has been trapped between the dusty pages of secrecy for years.

HOPE

All too aware of how fragile life is, Anne and Grace must come together to help the residents of Wattle Island find the bravery to move beyond the trauma that tore the book club apart. Budding relationships offer new hope, along with a library project for the town’s future � but it will take more than a few lively literary debates to break the silence and heal the past.

Welcome to the Wattle Island Book Club, where some chapters may end, but others are just beginning...]]> 366 Sandie Docker 1760890375 Jülie ☼♄ � 5
This book is Magic!

It shows you the power and the magic behind books.
It guides us through the building and growing of several different characters, their trials and tribulations, and their relationships to each other, which are made cohesive through their individual and collective love of books and the written word.

We get an intimate look into the lives of a small island community and their long, woven history to one another.
One in particular is the protagonist, Anne, who is suddenly orphaned at a young age and sent to live on Wattle Island � some 500 or so miles from the mainland…with her only remaining living relative, an aunt she has never met.

Anne has meagre belongings in tow as her home and all of it’s contents were sold to afford her fare and upkeep at her new home with her aunt Bess, until she is old enough to leave and make her own way.
Alone, and with just a small suitcase of few clothes and, after her last minute dash to grab her favourite book from under her bed…Anne of Green Gables, her most beloved possession…Anne waits at the dock on a wet and windy day for the small provisions boat which sails weekly, to take her to her unexpected new life.
We follow Anne’s eventful life and experiences as she grows up on Wattle Island and beyond, as she navigates the often difficult lessons and trials of finding an independent way in life and love, in post war Australia and into the 1950’s.

This is a truly beautiful book, one that you want to make last but find hard to put down. The sentiments and emotions are palpable, and characters convincingly portrayed.
It teaches us by example that the beauty of books is�.their magic, their ability to transport a reader into other realms, into other states of mind or being.
To an avid reader, a good book is like a mood altering drug…sometimes the effects are temporary and sometimes more lasting, depending on the topic and the intention.

A book can effectively convey fear, passion, sadness, compassion, empathy, humour, wellbeing and much more, only limited by the authors� ability to express such emotions in words.
An awesome talent indeed when such effects are achieved through the arrangement of words on pages. It is like magic!

But it takes a special kind of author to be able to weave such magic, and I believe Sandie Docker has done just that with this lovely book.
I have read only one of her books previously and am now compelled to buy the other two immediately…because I want more Magic!

The power of books can be healing.
The cohesive nature of books�.bringing people together by sharing their love of reading or through the stories they read, through clubs, libraries, reading groups, cafe book shops, etc�
Such is the magic of books…“they can turn strangers into friends.�
I believe this is one such book.

I’m very much looking forward to reading my next two waiting books from Sandie Docker!

5⭐️]]> 4.36 2021 The Wattle Island Book Club
author: Sandie Docker
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/22
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: own-kindle-book, aussie-author
review:
Wonderful!!

This book is Magic!

It shows you the power and the magic behind books.
It guides us through the building and growing of several different characters, their trials and tribulations, and their relationships to each other, which are made cohesive through their individual and collective love of books and the written word.

We get an intimate look into the lives of a small island community and their long, woven history to one another.
One in particular is the protagonist, Anne, who is suddenly orphaned at a young age and sent to live on Wattle Island � some 500 or so miles from the mainland…with her only remaining living relative, an aunt she has never met.

Anne has meagre belongings in tow as her home and all of it’s contents were sold to afford her fare and upkeep at her new home with her aunt Bess, until she is old enough to leave and make her own way.
Alone, and with just a small suitcase of few clothes and, after her last minute dash to grab her favourite book from under her bed…Anne of Green Gables, her most beloved possession…Anne waits at the dock on a wet and windy day for the small provisions boat which sails weekly, to take her to her unexpected new life.
We follow Anne’s eventful life and experiences as she grows up on Wattle Island and beyond, as she navigates the often difficult lessons and trials of finding an independent way in life and love, in post war Australia and into the 1950’s.

This is a truly beautiful book, one that you want to make last but find hard to put down. The sentiments and emotions are palpable, and characters convincingly portrayed.
It teaches us by example that the beauty of books is�.their magic, their ability to transport a reader into other realms, into other states of mind or being.
To an avid reader, a good book is like a mood altering drug…sometimes the effects are temporary and sometimes more lasting, depending on the topic and the intention.

A book can effectively convey fear, passion, sadness, compassion, empathy, humour, wellbeing and much more, only limited by the authors� ability to express such emotions in words.
An awesome talent indeed when such effects are achieved through the arrangement of words on pages. It is like magic!

But it takes a special kind of author to be able to weave such magic, and I believe Sandie Docker has done just that with this lovely book.
I have read only one of her books previously and am now compelled to buy the other two immediately…because I want more Magic!

The power of books can be healing.
The cohesive nature of books�.bringing people together by sharing their love of reading or through the stories they read, through clubs, libraries, reading groups, cafe book shops, etc�
Such is the magic of books…“they can turn strangers into friends.�
I believe this is one such book.

I’m very much looking forward to reading my next two waiting books from Sandie Docker!

5⭐️
]]> <![CDATA[The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir]]> 214013522
When single mum Hannah moves to the Lyrebird Lake’s caravan park, homeless after being widowed, she and her son have the opportunity to start over. With her angelic voice, Hannah may be just what the choir needs to give them a winning edge. But when Eleanor hears her singing a long-forgotten lullaby, Eleanor is thrust back into a past full of pain and regret.

In 1973, Eleanor and her sister Maggie are banished from their Irish village to Australia, after Maggie becomes pregnant, unwed. Starting a new life thousands of miles away is never easy, but when Eleanor is forced to make impossible decisions that alter the course of both their lives, it leaves her with memories she’s not sure she can trust.

Will Hannah's arrival in Lyrebird Lake mend old wounds, or will the secret from the past she unknowingly carries tear the sisters apart?]]> 332 Sandie Docker 1761046039 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.37 The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir
author: Sandie Docker
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Transported 218566757
Under the restrictive political system that is steadily sweeping across Britain, anyone who says the wrong thing or puts a toe out of line is transported to the colony.

Matilda is a ward of the state, held at Chellingford Reform School. She is the daughter of a famous traitor, and the press camped outside the school will do anything to catch a glimpse of her.

Inside Chellingford, Matilda finds herself at the mercy of the staff, used as a tool to control her parents' behaviour in Australia.

Beaten down and subdued, Matilda must reimagine herself as someone with agency, who can follow her own desires and fight her own battles.

Simmering underneath the oppression, a resistance has been forming in the penal colony, and Matilda finds herself in the thick of the resistance's plans, only to face conflicting loyalties,inconvenient passion, and deadly consequences...]]> Kate Fitzpatrick 1923172476 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 5.00 Transported
author: Kate Fitzpatrick
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: own-kindle-book, 2024-release, aussie-author, historical-fiction, convict-women, australian-historical-fiction, to-read
review:

]]> Before We Were Yours 35178186
Based on the true story of a system of orphanages that was ultimately deemed responsible for the kidnapping and selling of thousands of children in illegal adoptions, in this story Wingate has created a riveting, heart-wrenching read.]]> 406 Lisa Wingate 1489233253 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.37 2017 Before We Were Yours
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Letters from Rachel 56029705
“What would you do, to protect the ones you love?�

All evidence points to yet another murder by the notorious serial killer known as the ‘Small-Town Strangler�. The unsolved killings had been labeled the Professor Murders, and the case file had become known as the Professor’s Dozen... it has been 6 years since the last killing, and this latest murder is number 13 now, making it a baker’s dozen.

Where has the killer been all these years and why have they returned?
Since her father had died before she’d been born, and her mother Laura hadn’t bothered with dating afterwards, Gwen romanticized that the trunk containing the letters she’d found in the back of her mother’s closet, might have been love letters from her father to her mother� but they weren’t. And though they had been written in what Gwen thought was her mother’s handwriting, and based on the city addressed on the envelopes, had been penned ‘Dear Mother� to Gwen’s grandmother. But strangely enough, there had been no return address marked on any of them. And for whatever reason, they had all been signed, ‘Love Rachel�.]]> 213 N.L. Westaway 1733944273 Jülie ☼♄ � 5
A serial killer has been randomly murdering university professors in various small towns across the States for several years now and nobody knows why, nor who is responsible.
There had been an incredible twelve unsolved cases before the trail seemingly went cold. Now after a six year hiatus another body is discovered with the same MO…bringing the number of murders now to thirteen.
The killer has been dubbed The Small Town Strangler.
What has suddenly reignited this killer’s penchant for strangling professors?…And why?

This psychological murder, mystery, thriller is the first stand alone book from N.L. Westaway and a brief departure from her *five star paranormal series…The Guard Trilogy and The Guard Trilogy Extended series.

I love the way this author paints a picture of the surroundings and the story as it unfolds, giving the reader a real immersive experience, and further demonstrates that this author has a real gift for writing mysteries with a unique flair…This is good writing.

I will definitely be looking out for more books from N.L. Westaway.

Highly recommended
*5⭐️]]> 4.16 Letters from Rachel
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: own-kindle-book, psychological-thriller, murder-mystery, 2020-release
review:
A complex and compelling story, this one had me guessing until the end when all the dots were joined together to reveal the many intriguing complexities.

A serial killer has been randomly murdering university professors in various small towns across the States for several years now and nobody knows why, nor who is responsible.
There had been an incredible twelve unsolved cases before the trail seemingly went cold. Now after a six year hiatus another body is discovered with the same MO…bringing the number of murders now to thirteen.
The killer has been dubbed The Small Town Strangler.
What has suddenly reignited this killer’s penchant for strangling professors?…And why?

This psychological murder, mystery, thriller is the first stand alone book from N.L. Westaway and a brief departure from her *five star paranormal series…The Guard Trilogy and The Guard Trilogy Extended series.

I love the way this author paints a picture of the surroundings and the story as it unfolds, giving the reader a real immersive experience, and further demonstrates that this author has a real gift for writing mysteries with a unique flair…This is good writing.

I will definitely be looking out for more books from N.L. Westaway.

Highly recommended
*5⭐️
]]> <![CDATA[The Clairvoyant's Glasses: Love Has No Bounds (The Clairvoyant's Glasses, #3)]]> 63263339
Since accepting the cursed glasses bequeathed by her Great Aunt Daphne giving her the gift of clairvoyance, Sophie Carrell is being lauded as the hottest clairvoyant in town � a psychic medium with talent and looks! Her acting days are long gone but now she has a whole new set of dramas.
Sophie must choose a protector without causing a war between ancient families, and she must decide if she will cross the line and lose her heart to the detective she is helping, Murdoch Ashcroft. Not that Murdoch has declared his feelings but the encounters she is having with him in her dream world are enough to make her blush in his presence of a daytime. There’s just one small problem, Murdoch is the Raven—from the enemy Ravenhood line—and she is his prey.
But it’s not the return of Murdoch’s former lover wanting to rekindle a romance � a witch who uses her power to shapeshift to her advantage � or the men vying to be Sophie’s protector in this new generation, that will separate Sophie from Murdoch. That is all Sophie’s own doing when she makes a mistake that only the cursed can make.
Love has no bounds but passion can be deadly in the third volume of The Clairvoyant’s Glasses.

The Clairvoyant’s Glasses volume 3 BOOKS IN THE CLAIRVOYANT’S GLASSES SERIES so far�
Volume 1 - A vision unexpected
Volume 2 � Time has a shadow
Volume 3 � Love has no bounds
Volume 4 - coming 2023.]]> 261 Helen Goltz Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.56 The Clairvoyant's Glasses: Love Has No Bounds (The Clairvoyant's Glasses, #3)
author: Helen Goltz
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.56
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Grave Tales: Melbourne Vol.1 53330302 Grave Tales: Melbourne Vol. 1 visits eleven Melbourne cemeteries to tell the stories of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events that made local and national headlines. They may have lived in the same suburbs, streets, and even the same houses that still exist, but now lie in the cemeteries of Melbourne. 'Grave Tales' reveals more than the headstone can ever convey by tracing the tumultuous journeys that lead to these final resting places. Written by Logie-award winning journalist Chris Adams and author/journalist Helen Goltz, this is the seventh book in the 'Grave Tales' biography/history series.]]> 300 Helen Goltz 0648709345 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 A deep fascination for cemeteries, old graves and the stories within have always captured my attention.
I love the quiet contemplation time of wandering among the gravestones and reading the inscriptions there, wondering about the stories buried within…believe it or not I have even had some laugh out loud moments at some of the names and inscriptions! Sometimes wondering if the family were (literally) having the last laugh!!
So books like this one are always an attention grabber for me, and this one is no exception.
I have ancestors who are neighbours to many of the other occupants in Melbourne cemeteries so it is an education to discover some of the characters of the time residing there also. It gives me some perspective as to their life and times.

A very interesting, fascinating and edifying book that can be picked up and read often. I look forward to reading more in this series of ‘Grave Tales� books.

5⭐️

*Thanks to book swap friend Marianne for gifting me this copy.]]> 4.06 2020 Grave Tales: Melbourne Vol.1
author: Helen Goltz
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: non-fiction, graves, cemeteries
review:
I’ve been reading this fascinating book on and off for some time now.
A deep fascination for cemeteries, old graves and the stories within have always captured my attention.
I love the quiet contemplation time of wandering among the gravestones and reading the inscriptions there, wondering about the stories buried within…believe it or not I have even had some laugh out loud moments at some of the names and inscriptions! Sometimes wondering if the family were (literally) having the last laugh!!
So books like this one are always an attention grabber for me, and this one is no exception.
I have ancestors who are neighbours to many of the other occupants in Melbourne cemeteries so it is an education to discover some of the characters of the time residing there also. It gives me some perspective as to their life and times.

A very interesting, fascinating and edifying book that can be picked up and read often. I look forward to reading more in this series of ‘Grave Tales� books.

5⭐️

*Thanks to book swap friend Marianne for gifting me this copy.
]]> <![CDATA[The Haven (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, Book 4) The Guards of Haven]]> 59734853 From the Author who gave you the paranormal mystery The Guard Trilogy, comes the New Extended Series, The Guards of Haven.

If every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings, then what tears them away?

I stood fixated at the sight in front of me, the magnificence of his features I could still see through the bloodstains on his cheeks. A grunt, then hiss of pain suddenly escape his swollen lips and his eyes flutter open. He is still alive.

New town, new house� new dangers.

For Lynn, ditching Miami and moving to a small town hadn’t been about leaving her old life behind, it had been about moving forward with her new one. Though she hadn’t anticipated that this newfound happiness she had discovered here would come with new threats.

It’s been 12 years since the gathering, and since Lynn discovered more about her true ancestry. They’d all learned a lot more about family, friendship, and their gifts, except along with this knowledge came the sacrifices and losses that we tended to learn about the hard way. Thankfully, there had been many joys, successes, and even a financial windfall for them along the journey. But what came next, this new threat, not even Lynn’s gift of premonition could have ever seen it coming.

What if the wrong people knew you could see/sense things that they couldn’t? What if having this ability put you, your family, and so many other innocents in danger? But what if you could help the innocent by using your gift—would you do it, would you risk it?

​This novel, like the others in succession, is not a standalone story.

Book 4, The Haven, is the next in series and carries the reader from the original trilogy into The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, The Guards of Haven. Although the previous three books of The Guard Trilogy can stand alone as a complete story, and even though these next novels adhere to the original storyline and characters, readers should finish the trilogy before going on to the rest of the books in the extended series.]]> 319 N.L. Westaway Jülie ☼♄ � 5 Absolutely riveting! �

I’m running out of superlatives to describe how great this series is!
Every book has been so compelling and exciting…and so hard to put down.
I want to tell everyone to just go and read them because they will not disappoint.
I know I’m gushing but seriously…each time I finish a book I can’t wait to start the next one…they are that good!

I mentioned in a previous review that this is not usually my first choice in reading genre’s but I am so committed to this series now that I’ve already purchased them all, plus pre-ordered the next�.I can’t wait to read more!

If this is your favourite genre you won’t be disappointed, I feel sure you will love this series.
If it’s not your usual genre, I would highly recommend you try these books.

5⭐️ ]]> 4.67 The Haven (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, Book 4) The Guards of Haven
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves: 4th-in-series, paranormal-fantasy, urban-fantasy, own-kindle-book
review:

Absolutely riveting! �

I’m running out of superlatives to describe how great this series is!
Every book has been so compelling and exciting…and so hard to put down.
I want to tell everyone to just go and read them because they will not disappoint.
I know I’m gushing but seriously…each time I finish a book I can’t wait to start the next one…they are that good!

I mentioned in a previous review that this is not usually my first choice in reading genre’s but I am so committed to this series now that I’ve already purchased them all, plus pre-ordered the next�.I can’t wait to read more!

If this is your favourite genre you won’t be disappointed, I feel sure you will love this series.
If it’s not your usual genre, I would highly recommend you try these books.

5⭐️
]]> The Unseen (The Guard, #2) 45415246
Shivers.
Nausea.
Dread. Those sensations were back. The same ones I’d had seeing the dark figure under the street light, and at the airport.
Anguish.
Pain, and sorrow... darkness... death.

The friends Lynn needs to solve this mystery are the same people she’s been trying to convince for years of things seen and unseen. When the mothers of daughters no longer hold the key, the four must come together to solve the mystery and keep the balance. They must accept that sometimes what you believe may not always be the truth, and that family is sometimes more than blood.

What if magic was real? What if everything you believed about angels as a child was real—what if evil was real?

The Unseen is the second book in the N. L. Westaway urban fantasy/paranormal mystery trilogy. If you appreciate brilliant urban fantasy or paranormal mysteries involving everyday people, you’ll love this entertaining three-part trilogy.

Note; it is recommended that you read the books in order as the mystery is in three parts, and not individual stories per book.]]> 292 N.L. Westaway 1733944214 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 The mission is to unlock some of the secrets and mysteries tasked to this select group of young people—four daughters of four daughters and some special skilled friends—before…what..might happen? And when?
Mysterious messages in cryptic languages and symbols, found in hidden places which can only be found through deciphering these messages are all designed to keep the secrets safe.
This small select group of friends have been brought together through “fate”…or something other? With their individual skills in different areas, they each add something necessary to the group as a whole and secretly work together to find the answers.

Really well thought out and constructed, this story keeps you on your toes trying to help solve cryptic messages and word plays featuring real anagrams, drawing the reader in to help unravel the clues.
If you love word puzzles you will enjoy reading this series! **

Note:
Despite earlier reservations regarding editing…or the lack thereof� I am enjoying this series.
I have committed myself to reading this whole series now as each book requires you to buy the next if you wish to find out what happens next…so I purchased the whole series ahead and have resigned myself to the expectation that it will be flawed with typos and etc. though I live in hope that it won’t be.

That said, I can’t overlook the fact that this second book in the series suffers from the same bad editing afflictions as the first and for that reason alone I have deducted another star.
With decent editing this (along with book one) would have been a five star review from me.
4⭐️

*UPDATE:
Please read my amended review and comments for book#1 The Guard for further information regarding the above mentioned issues with the ebook copies.
*I can highly recommend this series and would like to encourage readers not to overlook these books because of the (potential) issues with a couple of the digital ebooks. Authors need our support when these things happen.]]> 4.38 The Unseen (The Guard, #2)
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves: own-kindle-book, book-two, series, paranormal, urban-fantasy, angels-archangels
review:
Literally a continuation of book one, this book answers some of the pressing questions that were left hanging in the previous and takes the reader on an exciting mission.
The mission is to unlock some of the secrets and mysteries tasked to this select group of young people—four daughters of four daughters and some special skilled friends—before…what..might happen? And when?
Mysterious messages in cryptic languages and symbols, found in hidden places which can only be found through deciphering these messages are all designed to keep the secrets safe.
This small select group of friends have been brought together through “fate”…or something other? With their individual skills in different areas, they each add something necessary to the group as a whole and secretly work together to find the answers.

Really well thought out and constructed, this story keeps you on your toes trying to help solve cryptic messages and word plays featuring real anagrams, drawing the reader in to help unravel the clues.
If you love word puzzles you will enjoy reading this series! **

Note:
Despite earlier reservations regarding editing…or the lack thereof� I am enjoying this series.
I have committed myself to reading this whole series now as each book requires you to buy the next if you wish to find out what happens next…so I purchased the whole series ahead and have resigned myself to the expectation that it will be flawed with typos and etc. though I live in hope that it won’t be.

That said, I can’t overlook the fact that this second book in the series suffers from the same bad editing afflictions as the first and for that reason alone I have deducted another star.
With decent editing this (along with book one) would have been a five star review from me.
4⭐️

*UPDATE:
Please read my amended review and comments for book#1 The Guard for further information regarding the above mentioned issues with the ebook copies.
*I can highly recommend this series and would like to encourage readers not to overlook these books because of the (potential) issues with a couple of the digital ebooks. Authors need our support when these things happen.
]]> <![CDATA[Wisdom Tree: The Complete Collection]]> 35574310
"Like an emotional time bomb. Everything is quiet at first, then comes a slow build of tension, and then comes a strange ticking sound, and then � BOOM � suddenly your heart blows up. You can't write better than this. It's simply perfect." - Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic, Eat Pray Love)

These five interconnected stories feature multiple characters -- some recurring -- but mostly they share the same world and the same concerns in ways that become more clear the more they are explored. Whether a character is spending the day with a Hip-Hop star whose brother is about to become a father himself or with a former football player turned professional giant aspiring to write like Hemingway, these are stories about art and family and distance -- be it physical or historical.

As you read you'll realize that, as usual, Nick Earls isn't writing about characters inhabiting the same world; he's writing about people and their lives and where they all touch each other, however briefly or however deeply. And when you climb the slide or discover long-forgotten family history with these characters, you'll share as well in their joy, in their pain, in their sadness and in their hope, in their inertia and in their catharsis.

"The five brilliant parts of Wisdom Tree are notable for how each concludes with a sense of possibilities yet to come, with a resounding and moving open-endedness. For all that the novella form is no longer as familiar as once it was, Earls has created a triumphant and extraordinary piece of fiction within an only apparently modest compass." � Sydney Morning Herald

Superbly written, Wisdom Tree is the accessible form for twenty-first century time poor, screen devoted readers. � Debbish.com

One of Earls’s strengths as a writer of fiction is his sharp observation of domestic detail; ­another is his keen awareness of how our cultural life intermingles with the quotidian reality of family routine. � The Australian

Somebody buy Australian writer Nick Earls a drink. Or better still, hand him another prize (although he already has a bunch), because he has written THE MOST PERFECT NOVELLA IN THE HISTORY OF THE FORMAT . . . Gotham is a literary gem of the highest grade. � North & South Magazine]]> 333 Nick Earls Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.00 Wisdom Tree: The Complete Collection
author: Nick Earls
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Juneau: Wisdom Tree 4 30654762
"This smart, precise, and beautiful novella reads like an emotional time bomb. Everything is quiet at first, then comes a slow build of tension, and then comes a strange ticking sound, and then—BOOM—suddenly your heart blows up. You can't write better than this. It's simply perfect."—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love.]]> 55 Nick Earls 099448092X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.89 Juneau: Wisdom Tree 4
author: Nick Earls
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Haven Found (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, #6)]]> 214388299 Do dreams really come true?

Unfortunately for Lynn, they sometimes do.

Plagued for months by recurring dreams of a suspended angel brutally stripped of his wings, Lynn managed the visions as best she could, but when her daughters begin experiencing the same horrific dreams, she can no longer ignore the dark images that haunt her. Had she missed something on that first stealthy visit to the lab in Ottawa? Or had this brutal attack occurred elsewhere, out of reach of those who might save this nameless angel? Were Lynn’s earlier dreams a glimpse into the past, the present, or were they foreboding messages of things to come?

As for the dreams of others�

Kris never dreamed he would see Jana again, nor did he ever consider she could be a part of his life. Then, like a daydream� there she was, standing at the entrance of his new restaurant.

Thaddeus’s dream of creating a superior race hasn’t wavered, though his pursuit of Ms. Westlake has taken a detour. His interests have shifted now to Brazil and a remote branch of science. And while Thaddeus is away, the mice are playing. Lyndon’s affections for Lane have grown, so much so, he’s requested an alternate tracker investigate the latest lead on this allusive target. Loyalties, too, are shifting while lies, deception, and secrets come to the forefront.

And Dr. Stone’s dreams, they have taken on a vivid realness that may be affecting her ability to counsel her latest patient.

What would you do if you sensed someone was in pain? Would you risk your own life to find them—save them? What if the loyalties you believe were solid shifted because of your actions or inactions? Would you put yourself in danger to pursue the answer? What if your actions changed� everything?

Book 6, Haven Found, is the next in The Guard Trilogy Extended Series - The Guards of Haven. Although the original three books of The Guard Trilogy can stand alone as a complete story, and even though these next novels adhere to the original storyline, readers should complete the trilogy before going on to read the next books in the extended series.]]> 393 N.L. Westaway Jülie ☼♄ � 5 It - just - keeps - getting - better!
I’m in love with the characters and their complex roles and traits…Though a few of them are less desirable!

With this book #6 in the series N.L. Westaway has not only kept the continuity and flow of the story running along at a tight pace, but has also dialled up the mounting tension as the story evolves to reveal some dark and sinister forces at play.
As old layers of the story are slowly revealed, new and more complex layers are put in place, making the tension build towards what will be an exciting outcome.

I was trying (unsuccessfully) to pace myself reading as I’ve caught up now and will have to wait for book #7! I can’t wait for that one to come out as this one has tantalised us with some interesting developments and truly gripping plot twists.
All culminating in a real cliff hanger of an ending…bring on book #7!

I highly recommend this series.
5⭐️]]> 4.57 2024 Haven Found (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, #6)
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 6, own-kindle-book, favorite-authors, angels-archangels, 2024-release
review:
At the risk of sounding repetitive� I am once again blown away by this awesome series!
It - just - keeps - getting - better!
I’m in love with the characters and their complex roles and traits…Though a few of them are less desirable!

With this book #6 in the series N.L. Westaway has not only kept the continuity and flow of the story running along at a tight pace, but has also dialled up the mounting tension as the story evolves to reveal some dark and sinister forces at play.
As old layers of the story are slowly revealed, new and more complex layers are put in place, making the tension build towards what will be an exciting outcome.

I was trying (unsuccessfully) to pace myself reading as I’ve caught up now and will have to wait for book #7! I can’t wait for that one to come out as this one has tantalised us with some interesting developments and truly gripping plot twists.
All culminating in a real cliff hanger of an ending…bring on book #7!

I highly recommend this series.
5⭐️
]]> 36 Hours (DI Kim Stone, #21) 220442830 Kim clutches the note tightly as her pulse starts to race. You have 36 hours. If you follow the instructions, no one will get hurt�

When Detective Kim Stone is woken before dawn because local journalist Tracy Frost wants to show her a message, she’s not impressed. But her blood turns cold when she reads the note. She has 36 hours to follow a trail set by an anonymous challenger. If she fails, people will die.

Kim’s gut tells her this is no hoax. She summons her team, desperate to prevent what lies ahead. With minutes to spare, they solve the first cryptic clue. It leads to a box hidden deep in the woods, containing a second clue and a tape. As she listens to the recording of a heart-wrenching scream, Kim knows her enemy will go to any lengths to achieve his goals� and that she must draw on all her experience of evil men to understand what is driving him.

Refusing to blindly follow orders, Kim and the team turn the killer’s clues against him, using evidence buried deep in the tapes to find where he’s hiding his victim. But they are too late� And then, as the sun rises on the second day, someone else goes missing. This time, it’s a skilled surgeon, and if they don’t save her, an eight-year-old girl will die.

Exhausted and enraged, with her bosses watching every step she takes, Kim realises the only way to win is to break the rules. But with the clock ticking, can she find the twisted mind behind this murderous game before her time runs out?

From the no.1 bestselling author Angela Marsons, 36 Hours is a pulse-pounding race against time that will not let you stop reading for a second. Perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Robert Dugoni and Val McDermid.]]> 444 Angela Marsons 1835259871 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.53 2024 36 Hours (DI Kim Stone, #21)
author: Angela Marsons
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Leave the Girls Behind 207294181 The acclaimed author of the “tour de force� (The New York Times Book Review) Before You Knew My Name returns with a fresh suspense novel about a woman haunted by a serial killer and the ghosts he left behind.

Ruth-Ann Baker is a college dropout, a bartender—and an amateur detective who just can’t stay away from true crime. Nineteen years ago, her childhood friend was murdered by suspected serial killer Ethan Oswald. Still tormented by the case, Ruth can’t help but think of the long-dead Oswald when another young girl goes missing from the same town. And when she uncovers startling new evidence that suggests Oswald did not act alone, she is determined to find his deadly partner in crime.

Embarking on a global investigation, Ruth becomes close to three very different women—one of whom might just hold the key to what happened to the missing girl. And her childhood friend, all those years ago.

From an author who “pushes the boundaries of crime fiction in all the right ways� (Alex Finlay, author of The Night Shift), Leave the Girls Behind is another spine-chilling thriller that will linger long after you finish the last page.]]> 368 Jacqueline Bublitz 1982199059 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.20 2024 Leave the Girls Behind
author: Jacqueline Bublitz
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Black Silk and Sympathy (Tatty Crowe #1)]]> 199558182
After an apprenticeship as an undertaker's assistant with Crowe Funeral Services, Tatty marries owner Titus Crowe. Titus himself soon dies and Tatty inherits the business and becomes Sydney's only female undertaker.

But then rival funeral director Elias Nuttall, intent on acquiring Crowe Funeral Services, publicly accuses Tatty of deliberately poisoning Titus. She must find a way to stop him before he ruins her, and embarks on exposing Nuttall's own gruesome secrets, a mission that takes her from the cemetery at midnight, to house-breaking, to Sydney's criminal court, to the lunatic asylum.

Black Silk and Sympathy is a riveting and realistic story of Sydney in the 1860s, of death laid out in front rooms, of funeral processions and mortuary trains, and of survival, reinvention and determination.]]> 375 Deborah Challinor 1460716027 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 Deborah Challinor whose previous series “The Convict Girls� had me completely hooked…and I was pleasantly surprised to find some of our favourite feisty characters from that series have met Tatty Caldwell (the protagonist in this book), in Sydney and found mutually beneficial reasons to make her acquaintance in this book!
So for lovers of “The Convict Girls� I feel sure you will enjoy this new series.

Sydney in the 1800’s is still a fairly smallish town with lots of scope for growth in all sorts of business endeavours (both shady and legitimate) and therefore attracts all kinds of characters from all walks of life.
Recently orphaned, and new to Sydney after travelling alone from England, a young teenaged Tatiana Caldwell is interested in building and running a legitimate business as an undertaker after the sudden and unexpected death of her not very popular employer Titus Crowe…Undertaker.
Tatty is confident she could become the first woman undertaker in Sydney and offer services far cheaper and more flexible than her boss was ever known for. She wants to offer affordable and available funerals for all, regardless of financial status or social standing…an idea her now deceased boss would never entertain.

When Tatty takes over the business and starts making radical changes she attracts some unwelcome opposition from rival undertakers.
This new female Undertaker and her enterprising ideas are causing unease among her rivals and before long trouble knocks at Tatty’s door threatening to ruin everything she has worked so hard for.
And so begins a lengthy and costly feud�.and a riveting read!

Funerary protocol and all of its associated customs have always captured my interest �. especially in the 1800’s, and being set in Sydney where I could easily identify with the places referenced is a bonus!
My long held interest in genealogy and my own family history has seen me spend many pleasurable hours traipsing around the very cemeteries mentioned in the story. Also, as an unapologetic tombstone tourist, or more accurately..a Taphophile (yes there’s even a name for it!) my long held fascination for cemeteries in general and their history makes this book a must read.
So the book immediately caught my attention…aside from the fact that the author, Deborah Challinor is among my top favourite authors for historical fiction and therefore another drawcard.
I was absorbed in this fascinating story from the very beginning.

5⭐️]]> 4.10 2024 Black Silk and Sympathy (Tatty Crowe #1)
author: Deborah Challinor
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: pre-ordered-amazon, favorite-authors, favorite-genre, undertakers, funerals, sydney, own-book, own-kindle-book
review:
This is the first book in what is building to be another great series from Deborah Challinor whose previous series “The Convict Girls� had me completely hooked…and I was pleasantly surprised to find some of our favourite feisty characters from that series have met Tatty Caldwell (the protagonist in this book), in Sydney and found mutually beneficial reasons to make her acquaintance in this book!
So for lovers of “The Convict Girls� I feel sure you will enjoy this new series.

Sydney in the 1800’s is still a fairly smallish town with lots of scope for growth in all sorts of business endeavours (both shady and legitimate) and therefore attracts all kinds of characters from all walks of life.
Recently orphaned, and new to Sydney after travelling alone from England, a young teenaged Tatiana Caldwell is interested in building and running a legitimate business as an undertaker after the sudden and unexpected death of her not very popular employer Titus Crowe…Undertaker.
Tatty is confident she could become the first woman undertaker in Sydney and offer services far cheaper and more flexible than her boss was ever known for. She wants to offer affordable and available funerals for all, regardless of financial status or social standing…an idea her now deceased boss would never entertain.

When Tatty takes over the business and starts making radical changes she attracts some unwelcome opposition from rival undertakers.
This new female Undertaker and her enterprising ideas are causing unease among her rivals and before long trouble knocks at Tatty’s door threatening to ruin everything she has worked so hard for.
And so begins a lengthy and costly feud�.and a riveting read!

Funerary protocol and all of its associated customs have always captured my interest �. especially in the 1800’s, and being set in Sydney where I could easily identify with the places referenced is a bonus!
My long held interest in genealogy and my own family history has seen me spend many pleasurable hours traipsing around the very cemeteries mentioned in the story. Also, as an unapologetic tombstone tourist, or more accurately..a Taphophile (yes there’s even a name for it!) my long held fascination for cemeteries in general and their history makes this book a must read.
So the book immediately caught my attention…aside from the fact that the author, Deborah Challinor is among my top favourite authors for historical fiction and therefore another drawcard.
I was absorbed in this fascinating story from the very beginning.

5⭐️
]]> I Shall Never Fall in Love 199531795
Eleanor has always wanted to do everything "right," including falling in love—but she’s never met a boy she was interested in. She’d much rather spend time with her best friend, George, and beloved cousin Charlotte. However, when a new suitor comes to town, she finds her closest friendships threatened, forcing her to rethink what "right" means and confront feelings she never knew she had.

Inspired by Jane Austen and queer history, I Shall Never Fall in Love shines a light on what it means to be true to yourself and rewrites the rules for what makes a happily ever after.]]> 288 Hari Conner 035868238X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.28 2024 I Shall Never Fall in Love
author: Hari Conner
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Illusion of Paige White]]> 214347218 Two women. A tragedy on the lake. And secrets beneath the surface ... The lyrical, haunting new novel from the author of The Beautiful Words


Paige White kayaked across the lake each morning at dawn. Someone was watching her. Many someones watched her online. But was anyone with her the day her body was discovered?

Paige has always lived a picture-perfect life, documented closely on her social media. The world she has curated exudes an old-fashioned, wholesome lifestyle. Her page is littered with lakeside breakfasts with her daughter, sunny afternoons in the family van, and romantic picnics with her husband. So when she posts an ominous, brooding image and is shortly after discovered drowned, everyone immediately wonders - suicide or foul play?

Jane Masters was one of Paige's childhood best friends, who left her behind to pursue a bigger life in Sydney. When Paige's death makes national news, Jane, a journalist, reluctantly travels home. Struggling with the morality of covering her friend's death, Jane will confront the town she left behind and the dark undercurrents that she's always known run underneath.]]> 320 Vanessa McCausland 1460715500 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read, own-kindle-book 3.96 The Last Illusion of Paige White
author: Vanessa McCausland
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book
review:

]]> Christmas Presents 122494784 Instead of presents this Christmas, one true crime podcaster is opening up a cold case�

When true crime podcaster Harley Granger drifts into Madeline Martin's bookshop days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up a past that Madeline would much rather forget.

Granger's work has earned him fame and wealth - and some serious criticism for his various unethical practices. Granger also has a lot of questions about the night Madeline was left for dead, the only surviving victim of killer Evan Handy.

Handy, who also murdered Madeline's best friend and is suspected in the disappearance of two local sisters, has been in jail for a decade. Since then, though, three other young women have gone missing in similar circumstances. Is the true predator still out there somewhere?

As Christmas approaches and a blizzard bears down, Madeline must confront the past to answer questions that have haunted her since that day. Is the truth more terrible than she ever imagined?

Coupling a picturesque, cosy setting with a deeply unsettling and suspenseful plot, Christmas Presents is a chilling seasonal tale that can be enjoyed all year long.]]> 260 Lisa Unger 1613164513 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.56 2023 Christmas Presents
author: Lisa Unger
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Christmas Train 126185
The Christmas Train is filled with memorable characters who have packed their bags with as much wisdom as mischief ... and shows how we do get second chances to fulfill our deepest hopes and dreams, especially during this season of miracles.]]> 260 David Baldacci Jülie ☼♄ � 4 A great quick read for the holidays that won't tax the reader's senses overly much....a good choice for a Christmas train journey.

It reminded me of a little bit Agatha Christie/ Ngaio Marsh/ Phrynne Fisher type of Christmas train trip, with a dose of Disney theatrics thrown in.

This is quite a departure from David Baldacci's usual style, but nevertheless enjoyable.]]> 3.56 2001 The Christmas Train
author: David Baldacci
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2013/12/11
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: christmas-books, ebook, fiction
review:
I thoroughly enjoyed this read, it was light and easy to read and funny, and with just the right amount of romance, Christmas and mystery.
A great quick read for the holidays that won't tax the reader's senses overly much....a good choice for a Christmas train journey.

It reminded me of a little bit Agatha Christie/ Ngaio Marsh/ Phrynne Fisher type of Christmas train trip, with a dose of Disney theatrics thrown in.

This is quite a departure from David Baldacci's usual style, but nevertheless enjoyable.
]]> Wish Upon a Christmas Candle 218600981
One bitterly cold night, a stranger collapses on Ellie’s doorstep, a man with no boots, no memories and no name, a man who swiftly enchants Ellie and her daughter alike. Now Ellie must protect her daughter, her virtue and her heart from the stranger, for who knows what his secrets may be?

(Previously published as The Virtuous Widow)]]> 107 Anne Gracie 0645015148 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.49 Wish Upon a Christmas Candle
author: Anne Gracie
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Christmas Wishes for the Bletchley Park Girls (Lily Baker #6)]]> 212979365
The fourth Christmas of the war is approaching fast. It should be a happy time, yet life throws them challenges they could never have imagined.

Lily's heart is torn in two when her boyfriend, Grant, is badly injured in an air raid. As he spirals into despair, she must find a way to give him hope again.

Bronwyn has a new romance on the horizon. But will the widower's young daughter accept her, or will she jeopardise Bronwyn's hopes for love?

Peggy is terrified her secret will be disclosed when she has to look after her sister's daughter. Can she escape the shame of her past?

Caroline has had a sheltered, privileged upbringing. Will her natural confidence be shattered when she learns about her boyfriend's hidden life?

Despite rationing, heartache, and the endless war, the Bletchley Park girls prepare for an unforgettable Christmas.]]> 218 Patricia McBride 1835610463 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.49 Christmas Wishes for the Bletchley Park Girls (Lily Baker #6)
author: Patricia McBride
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book, ww2, historical-fiction, christmas-books, bletchley-park, 2024-release
review:

]]> Mr Salary 43302304 My love for him felt so total and so annihilating that it was often impossible for me to see him clearly at all.

Years ago, Sukie moved in with Nathan because her mother was dead and her father was difficult, and she had nowhere else to go. Now they are on the brink of the inevitable.

Sally Rooney is one of the most acclaimed young talents of recent years. With her minute attention to the power dynamics in everyday speech, she builds up sexual tension and throws a deceptively low-key glance at love and death.

]]> 32 Sally Rooney Jülie ☼♄ � 1
There has been a lot of hype around Sally Rooney’s latest book Intermezzo. I saw the lines of people outside the bookshops queuing to get a copy, and her books virtually flying off the shelves! Not having read any of her books to date (I know, late to the Party) I thought I would look her up. I saw this short story and bought it just to give me a better feel for her writing before joining any queues�.

First peeve, there are no speech marks making it hard work to follow the conversations.
Given that this was such a very short story it shouldn’t have been that hard to do.

The story is about unrequited love.
The end.

I’m sorry but the story itself felt unrequited, at only 17 pages…not the touted 33 pages� it felt like an anticlimax. The other 16 pages were advertising.
I don’t mean to seem mean but I felt duped.]]> 3.88 2016 Mr Salary
author: Sally Rooney
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: 2019-release, short-story, shor
review:
I would never have chosen this book for its cover! …Just saying.

There has been a lot of hype around Sally Rooney’s latest book Intermezzo. I saw the lines of people outside the bookshops queuing to get a copy, and her books virtually flying off the shelves! Not having read any of her books to date (I know, late to the Party) I thought I would look her up. I saw this short story and bought it just to give me a better feel for her writing before joining any queues�.

First peeve, there are no speech marks making it hard work to follow the conversations.
Given that this was such a very short story it shouldn’t have been that hard to do.

The story is about unrequited love.
The end.

I’m sorry but the story itself felt unrequited, at only 17 pages…not the touted 33 pages� it felt like an anticlimax. The other 16 pages were advertising.
I don’t mean to seem mean but I felt duped.
]]> Christmas Actually 217356736 Time spent with family can be challenging, especially at Christmas actually...

Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer. But with her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt.

Then, as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens—both personally and professionally. Can she move on from past events and rebuild her future?And can the power of social media finally stop hindering her family, and help her create something successful?

Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness, and a snapshot of modern family life—addressing subjects from social media to motherhood and everything in between.]]> 346 Lisa Darcy 1504099516 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.85 2024 Christmas Actually
author: Lisa Darcy
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sex, Drugs & Meditation 58110821
Mary-Lou Stephens was lucky to make it into her forties. Therapy and AA helped her recover from her upbringing in an evangelical household; her habit of shoplifting through drama school; her addictions to food, drugs and alcohol; a string of failed love affairs and the break up of several bands. She has landed a dream job as a radio personality. Life is looking good. Except that Mary-Lou has a new boss, a psychopath in a suit.

Determined to avoid MORE therapy and desperate to cope with an increasingly toxic work environment, Mary-Lou signs up for a ten-day meditation retreat that requires total silence, endless hours of sitting cross-legged, and no dinner. For a woman who talks for a living, is rarely still and cooks for comfort, this was never going to be an easy task.]]> 260 Mary-Lou Stephens 0994156227 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 She shares some of her very private and intimate thoughts as well as accounts of her often questionable life choices. She makes no apologies, and nor should she.

Her story demonstrates how we come into this world with nothing in our kit, no tools or guidelines for survival other than the desires and remnants of other people’s choices and values.
It is how you navigate that course which has been predetermined by your environment and your upbringing that ultimately shows your mettle.
Throughout her life, Mary-Lou Stevens has repeatedly proven her mettle through her
courageous determination to beat her own demons.
It turns out that in so many ways she was her own worst enemy, always berating and belittling herself and unwittingly setting herself up for disaster or failure…but then, miraculously pulling herself back up by the bootstraps. Thus proving…again, and again…to herself and to everyone else that she was strong and capable, and dependable. Was that her intention all along?

As you read, you realise how she came to make many of the decisions or choices which led her down some dubious avenues.
Her seeming invisibility as the youngest child as well as the rigid religious doctrines her mother insinuated upon her, only helped to mould her into a confused and bewildered child with many self effacing tendencies.

This memoir gives a rare and candid look into the heart of a sentient but shrinking soul who only craved what should be everyone’s birthright.
This book is humbling in its unadulterated honesty and a testament to the courage, resilience and integrity of the author…who is also a very accomplished author of several more books both fiction and nonfiction.
It gave this reader much to reflect on.

Reflecting on this book brought to mind a quote that I’ve always loved, I have no idea now who said it and I apologise for not being able to give due credit, but I’ve always remembered it and it came to mind while I was digesting this book, it says�
“All my life I wanted to be somebody,
only to discover that I am.�

4⭐️]]> 4.29 2013 Sex, Drugs & Meditation
author: Mary-Lou Stephens
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: own-kindle-book, memoir, aussie-author
review:
Mary-Lou Stephens has written a disarmingly honest and raw account of her life in the making, exemplifying many of the big (and small) life choices and decisions which moulded her from a very young age.
She shares some of her very private and intimate thoughts as well as accounts of her often questionable life choices. She makes no apologies, and nor should she.

Her story demonstrates how we come into this world with nothing in our kit, no tools or guidelines for survival other than the desires and remnants of other people’s choices and values.
It is how you navigate that course which has been predetermined by your environment and your upbringing that ultimately shows your mettle.
Throughout her life, Mary-Lou Stevens has repeatedly proven her mettle through her
courageous determination to beat her own demons.
It turns out that in so many ways she was her own worst enemy, always berating and belittling herself and unwittingly setting herself up for disaster or failure…but then, miraculously pulling herself back up by the bootstraps. Thus proving…again, and again…to herself and to everyone else that she was strong and capable, and dependable. Was that her intention all along?

As you read, you realise how she came to make many of the decisions or choices which led her down some dubious avenues.
Her seeming invisibility as the youngest child as well as the rigid religious doctrines her mother insinuated upon her, only helped to mould her into a confused and bewildered child with many self effacing tendencies.

This memoir gives a rare and candid look into the heart of a sentient but shrinking soul who only craved what should be everyone’s birthright.
This book is humbling in its unadulterated honesty and a testament to the courage, resilience and integrity of the author…who is also a very accomplished author of several more books both fiction and nonfiction.
It gave this reader much to reflect on.

Reflecting on this book brought to mind a quote that I’ve always loved, I have no idea now who said it and I apologise for not being able to give due credit, but I’ve always remembered it and it came to mind while I was digesting this book, it says�
“All my life I wanted to be somebody,
only to discover that I am.�

4⭐️
]]> The Conversion 198224507
The conversion was Nick's idea.

Nick- so persuasive, ever the optimist, still boyishly handsome. Always on a quest to design the perfect environment, convinced it could heal a wounded soul.

The conversion was Nick's idea, but it's Zoe who's here now, in a valley of old coalmines and new vineyards, working out how to live in a deconsecrated church.

What to do with all that vertical space, those oppressive stained-glass windows? Can a church become a home or, even with all its vestiges removed, will it remain forever what it was intended to be?

For Zoe, alone and troubled by a ghost from the recent past, the little church seems empty of the possibilities Nick enthused about. She is stuck in purgatory-until a determined young teacher pushes her way into Zoe's life, convinced of her own peculiar mission for the building.

Melanie has something of Nick's unquenchable zeal about her. And it's clear to Zoe that she won't take no for an answer.

The Conversion is a startling novel about the homes we live in- how we shape them, and how they shape us. Like Amanda Lohrey's bestselling The Labyrinth, it is distinguished by its deep intelligence, eye for human drama and effortless readability.]]> 240 Amanda Lohrey Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.51 The Conversion
author: Amanda Lohrey
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.51
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Frontier Incursion 21054319 442 Leonie Rogers 0987265229 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.43 2012 Frontier Incursion
author: Leonie Rogers
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Just an Ordinary Family 52892608 Liane Moriarty meets Jodi Picoult in this tensely negotiated story of family ties, betrayal and sacrifice.

Every family has its secrets...

Alice Hunter is smarting from the raw deal life has thrown her suddenly single, jobless and forced to move home to her parents' tiny seaside town. And now she faces an uncomfortable truth. She wants her twin sister Libby's enviable life.

Libby's closest friend Jess Dekic has been around the Hunter family for so long she might as well be blood. She's always considered herself a sister closer to Libby than Alice ever could be...

Libby Hunter has all of life's boxes prominent small-town doctor, gorgeous husband and two young daughters. But when she is betrayed by those she loves most, it reveals how tenuous her world is...

For Karen Hunter, her children are a double-edged sword of pain and pride. She's always tried to guide her girls through life's pitfalls, but how do you protect your children when they're adults?

As the family implodes, the fallout for these four women will be inescapable...

Bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe wields a deft hand, creating utterly addictive storytelling that will have you questioning your own perceptions of what family is.

]]> 507 Fiona Lowe 1489257365 Jülie ☼♄ � 5
Karen is the mother of twin daughters Libby and Alice who grew up as close as their mother could monitor and orchestrate.
Coming from a difficult upbringing herself, Karen wanted to make sure her daughters never knew such hardship and always felt loved and connected to a tight knit family.
She wanted them to have that inseparable twin relationship that you always hear about.
But from an early age it was clear that there were big differences in the personalities of the twins, really they were like yin and yang, and although close...they had many different interests, and were growing apart as they reached their teens and Libby felt her sister was cramping her style somewhat.
Libby was a teenager now and wanted to spread her wings and experience life and all it's evolving mysteries with her newfound close friend Jess, and her sister didn't share the same interests at all. Nevermind that Jess herself had no time for Alice, who she regarded as a bit of a third wheel in their friendship.
It got to look more like Libby and Jess were the twins as they did everything together and shared everything.
Karen didn't discourage Jess as she knew that Jess came from a difficult background also, as an only child to a single mother.

But Alice was more reserved and lacked the confidence and social desires that her twin took for granted and they began to grow further apart and live independent lives.

Now they are grown, Libby became a doctor and remained in her hometown whilst Alice moved interstate to Melbourne, to pursue her interests in Art. Jess became a single mother to a baby boy named Leo.

The story really begins when, through a course of life events, they all find themselves back together, living in the town they all grew up in.
The pace picks up as we follow the interactions of this extended family through many emotional upheavals and how they deal with the repercussions of their lifestyle choices.

This was a really good read, with highs and lows and everything in between keeping the story building all the time and gaining momentum as you would expect with any real life family saga.
And, as with any real life family saga, there is never just one climax that brings everything to a head, but many mini climaxes to keep the reader turning the pages into the wee small hours, hoping for answers.
This is a quite long book for such a story but I found myself so invested in the characters that I wanted it to keep going. The sort of story that I could imagine being made into a mini series.
A really good choice of book to read during this recent lockdown period, it would be a great holiday read.

4.5⭐️'

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my digital copy to read and review.]]> 4.11 2020 Just an Ordinary Family
author: Fiona Lowe
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/04/30
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
review:
An intriguing story about family dynamics and family ties, more specifically the relationships between the women of this particular family and how they relate to each other and their external family members.

Karen is the mother of twin daughters Libby and Alice who grew up as close as their mother could monitor and orchestrate.
Coming from a difficult upbringing herself, Karen wanted to make sure her daughters never knew such hardship and always felt loved and connected to a tight knit family.
She wanted them to have that inseparable twin relationship that you always hear about.
But from an early age it was clear that there were big differences in the personalities of the twins, really they were like yin and yang, and although close...they had many different interests, and were growing apart as they reached their teens and Libby felt her sister was cramping her style somewhat.
Libby was a teenager now and wanted to spread her wings and experience life and all it's evolving mysteries with her newfound close friend Jess, and her sister didn't share the same interests at all. Nevermind that Jess herself had no time for Alice, who she regarded as a bit of a third wheel in their friendship.
It got to look more like Libby and Jess were the twins as they did everything together and shared everything.
Karen didn't discourage Jess as she knew that Jess came from a difficult background also, as an only child to a single mother.

But Alice was more reserved and lacked the confidence and social desires that her twin took for granted and they began to grow further apart and live independent lives.

Now they are grown, Libby became a doctor and remained in her hometown whilst Alice moved interstate to Melbourne, to pursue her interests in Art. Jess became a single mother to a baby boy named Leo.

The story really begins when, through a course of life events, they all find themselves back together, living in the town they all grew up in.
The pace picks up as we follow the interactions of this extended family through many emotional upheavals and how they deal with the repercussions of their lifestyle choices.

This was a really good read, with highs and lows and everything in between keeping the story building all the time and gaining momentum as you would expect with any real life family saga.
And, as with any real life family saga, there is never just one climax that brings everything to a head, but many mini climaxes to keep the reader turning the pages into the wee small hours, hoping for answers.
This is a quite long book for such a story but I found myself so invested in the characters that I wanted it to keep going. The sort of story that I could imagine being made into a mini series.
A really good choice of book to read during this recent lockdown period, it would be a great holiday read.

4.5⭐️'

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my digital copy to read and review.
]]> <![CDATA[The Lavender Keeper (Luc & Lisette #1)]]> 19256411 "You'd be mad not to try her." The Age"A master of her craft." Better Reading"Action, heartbreak and romance aplenty." Australian Bookseller & Publisher"An extraordinary storyteller." Book'd Out'Are you German or are you French? Are you working against Germany or for it? Are you telling me the truth, or are you a very accomplished liar?'Lavender farmer Luc Bonet is raised by a wealthy Jewish family in the foothills of the French Alps. When the Second World War breaks out he joins the French Resistance, leaving behind his family's fortune, their home overrun by soldiers, their lavender fields in disarray.Lisette Forestier is on a mission of her to work her way into the heart of a senior German officer � and to bring down the Reich in any way she can. What Luc and Lisette hadn't counted on was meeting each other.When they come together at the height of the Paris occupation, German traitors are plotting to change the course of history. But who, if anyone, can be trusted? As Luc and Lisette's emotions threaten to betray them, their love may prove the greatest risk of all.______________________________Complete your Fiona McIntosh collection today!The Sugar Palace (preorder now!)Fields of GoldNightingaleThe Champagne WarThe Chocolate TinThe Diamond HunterThe French PromiseThe Last DanceThe Lavender KeeperThe OrphansThe Pearl ThiefThe Perfumer's SecretThe Spy’s WifeThe Tailor's GirlThe Tea GardensBye Bye DCI Jack Hawksworth 1Beautiful DCI Jack Hawksworth 2Mirror DCI Jack Hawksworth 3Dead DCI Jack Hawksworth 4]]> 502 Fiona McIntosh 1742534961 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 I very much enjoyed this book but agree that it would be best read in a few days as it needs to be followed carefully to keep up with all that is going on. I did think it got off to a rather slow start and didn't get a good grip on it until about 50 pages in, but given the size of the book and it's subject matter I think it was necessary to cover that ground. Once I got into it though, it was hard to put down.
I look forward to to follow up book titled "The French Promise" , which the Author promises should follow soon on the heels of this one. A sneak preview is included in the back of The Lavender Keeper.]]> 4.29 2012 The Lavender Keeper (Luc & Lisette #1)
author: Fiona McIntosh
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2014/03/06
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: summer-reading-challenge, ebook
review:

I very much enjoyed this book but agree that it would be best read in a few days as it needs to be followed carefully to keep up with all that is going on. I did think it got off to a rather slow start and didn't get a good grip on it until about 50 pages in, but given the size of the book and it's subject matter I think it was necessary to cover that ground. Once I got into it though, it was hard to put down.
I look forward to to follow up book titled "The French Promise" , which the Author promises should follow soon on the heels of this one. A sneak preview is included in the back of The Lavender Keeper.
]]> <![CDATA[The True Story of Ned Kelly's Last Stand]]> 17141542 298 Paul Terry 1743430035 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.93 2012 The True Story of Ned Kelly's Last Stand
author: Paul Terry
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book, australian-bushrangers-outlaws, aussie-authors, australian-convicts, australian-historical-non-fictions, australian-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wolfsangel: Powerful French WW2 story (The Bone Angel)]]> 19244244 Shortlisted, Exeter Novel Prize 2019.How does an innocent French countryside girl become a cold-blooded killer?Seven decades after German troops march into her village, Céleste Roussel is still unable to assuage her guilt.1943. German soldiers occupy provincial Lucie-sur-Vionne, and as the villagers pursue treacherous schemes to deceive and swindle the enemy, Céleste embarks on her own perilous mission as her passion for a Reich officer flourishes.When her loved ones are deported to concentration camps, Céleste is drawn into the vortex of this monumental conflict, and the adventure and danger of French Resistance collaboration.As she confronts the harrowing truths of the Second World War’s darkest years, Céleste is forced to pursue her love for the German officer, or answer General de Gaulle’s call to fight for France.Her fate suspended on the fraying thread of her will, Celeste gains strength from the angel talisman bequeathed to her through her lineage of healer kinswomen. But the decision she makes will shadow the remainder of her days.A woman’s unforgettable journey to help liberate Occupied France, Wolfsangel is a stirring portrayal of the courage and resilience of the human mind, body and spirit.]]> 418 Liza Perrat Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.27 2013 Wolfsangel: Powerful French WW2 story (The Bone Angel)
author: Liza Perrat
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read, aussie-author, historical-fiction, ww2, true-crime, kindle-arc, tbr, gift-from-author, own-kindle-book
review:

]]> Dancing with the Enemy 60791302
June 1940. `It was a perfect June evening that began with hope and ended in despair.' So begins the journal of Hugh Jackson, a Jersey doctor, whose idyllic world is shattered when Britain abandons the Channel Islands which are invaded by the Germans. Forced to choose between conflicting loyalties, he sends his pregnant wife to England, believing their separation will be brief. It's a fateful decision that will affect every aspect of his life.

May 1942. Young Tom Gaskell fumes whenever he sees the hated swastika flying from Fort Regent. Humiliated by Jersey's surrender and ashamed of his mother's fraternisation with the occupiers, Tom forms an audacious plan, not suspecting that it will result in guilt and tragedy.

April 2019. Sydney doctor Xanthe Maxwell, traumatised by the suicide of her colleague and burnt out by the relentless pressure of her hospital work, travels to St Helier so she can figure out what to do with her life. But when she finds Hugh Jackson's World War II journal, she is plunged into a violent world of oppression and collusion, but also of passion and resistance. As she reads, she is mystified by her growing sense of connection to the past. Her deepening relationship with academic Daniel Miller helps her understand Jersey's wartime past and determine her own future.

By the time this novel reaches its moving climax, the connection between Tom, Xanthe and Hugh Jackson has been revealed in a way none of them could possibly have imagined.]]> 441 Diane Armstrong 1867206552 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.42 Dancing with the Enemy
author: Diane Armstrong
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read, own-book, historical-fiction, fiction, aussie-author, 2022-release
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Haven Lost (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, Book 5) The Guards of Haven]]> 61092711
Fate, destiny, purpose� what does it all mean?

For Lynn, it means being a loving wife, a protective mother, a loyal friend� and now the hidden ace in the hole for a host of earthbound Angels. It also means putting her marriage, her friendships, and her own self-preservation, through the supernatural ringer.

When self-centered, popular restaurateur Kristopher Snow, hidden member of the Earthbound Seraphim and one of the seven Guards of Haven, goes missing� Lynn offers up the use of her celestial radar abilities to aid in locating the lost Angel.

Who could have predicted that being related to a preternatural being could be so perilous? DNA doesn’t always make you family, but in Lynn’s case it sure does link you to a sizeable legion of otherworldly beings� beings who right now need her gifts in their time of crisis. Unfortunately, there are others of their kind who seek to use Lynn’s abilities to guarantee anarchy ensues.

Would you agreed to help these outsiders, these earthbound Angels, knowing that doing so could put not only yourself—but possibly everyone you love, in danger? Are the risks worth the gains, worth the benefit of their protection? What if those who you aid today become the saviors you end up needing in the not so distant future?

This novel, like the others in succession, is not a standalone story.
Book 5, Haven Lost, is the next in The Guard Trilogy Extended Series - The Guards of Haven. Although the original three books of The Guard Trilogy can stand alone as a complete story, and even though these next novels adhere to the original storyline, readers should complete the trilogy before going on to read the next books in the extended series.]]> 333 N.L. Westaway Jülie ☼♄ � 5 All the stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️�

I have to say it again…I am in total awe with this series!
Honestly, I can’t get enough of this story which just keeps building and building even as each book concludes…you are left wanting.
If I’m not reading about these characters I miss them and can’t wait to pick up the book again.
This is such great story building with growing anticipation at the turn of every page, it seamlessly crosses the bridge between normality and wonder and back again.
The desire to continue as each book is finished is guaranteed.

I can’t recommend this series highly enough! I’ve found a new comfort zone!

All the stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨]]> 4.62 Haven Lost (The Guard Trilogy Extended Series, Book 5) The Guards of Haven
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: extended-trilogy, own-kindle-book, book-5, 2024-release, angels-archangels
review:

All the stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️�

I have to say it again…I am in total awe with this series!
Honestly, I can’t get enough of this story which just keeps building and building even as each book concludes…you are left wanting.
If I’m not reading about these characters I miss them and can’t wait to pick up the book again.
This is such great story building with growing anticipation at the turn of every page, it seamlessly crosses the bridge between normality and wonder and back again.
The desire to continue as each book is finished is guaranteed.

I can’t recommend this series highly enough! I’ve found a new comfort zone!

All the stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️�
]]> The Guard Trilogy #1 - 3 49253703 A Three-Part Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Mystery
If you appreciate brilliant urban fantasy or paranormal mysteries involving everyday people, you'll love this entertaining three-part trilogy.

Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is considered the 3rd cleanest city in the world and rated the 2nd highest quality of living of any big city in the Americas, but unless you're Canadian you probably wouldn't know any of that stuff. And it's all very nice and well, but boring as hell....That's what four unsuspecting girlfriends thought, until their good friend Lynn Westlake came home to visit, and they found themselves in the biggest mystery and adventure of their normal boring lives.

The Guard - The Guard Trilogy Book 1
A flash of something in the pages caught my eye, and I stopped. Thumbing back through the pages again, slower this time, I found it. It was about an inch thickness in... Mom's handwriting... pages of it.

When a woman linked to the supernatural, discovers her adoptive mother's journal holds a cryptic mystery, she and her closest friends race to uncover a secret matriarchal society safeguarded by mystical unseen forces.

What if Cancer wasn't just an illness or evil sickness that took our loved ones? What if it's something bigger--a sacrifice or choice to keep humanity safe--to keep the balance?

The Unseen - The Guard Trilogy Book 2
Shivers.
Nausea.
Dread. Those sensations were back. The same ones I'd had seeing the dark figure under the streetlight, and at the airport.
Anguish.
Pain, and sorrow... darkness... death.The friends Lynn needs to solve this mystery are the same people she's been trying to convince for years of things seen and unseen. When the mothers of daughters no longer hold the key, the four must come together to solve the mystery and keep the balance. They must accept that sometimes what you believe may not always be the truth, and that family is sometimes more than blood.

What if magic was real? What if everything you believed about angels as a child was real--what if evil was real?

The Believer - The Guard Trilogy Book 3

I was picking up on something... ominous, weighing on me... threatening, reminiscent of horror movies where at any minute the bad guy might pounce on the unsuspecting teenagers. Something played at the edge of my vision...When Lynn's life of obscure gifts of insight intensifies, venturing out alone feels like the only option for solving the mystery. Lynn's open mind concerning the paranormal is a result of her sometimes-creepy insight, but when faced with things greater than her little premonitions, she struggles with her own denial, lacking the ability to get out of her own way.

What if it was your DNA, your ancestry, and not your choices, that had impact on whether you turned out good or evil? What if your choices were your destiny? ]]> 1105 N.L. Westaway 1733944265 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 4.48 2019 The Guard Trilogy #1 - 3
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Force of Nature (Aaron Falk, #2)]]> 35120202 NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING ERIC BANA, FORCE OF THE DRY 2 IS EXCLUSIVE TO CINEMAS FEBRUARY 8THFrom the international bestselling author of The Dry and new novel Exiles.Lost, Cold, Desperate ... Danger Runs DeepFive women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side.The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises.Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case - and Alice knew secrets. About the company she worked for and the people she worked with.Far from the hike encouraging teamwork, the women tell Falk a tale of suspicion, violence and disintegrating trust. And as he delves into the disappearance, it seems some dangers may run far deeper than anyone knew.WINNER OF THE READERS' CHOICE DAVITT AWARD 2018SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 SPECSAVERS (UK) NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS INTERNATIONAL AUTHOR OF THE YEARPRAISE FOR FORCE OF NATURE"Force of Nature bristles with wit; it crackles with suspense; it radiates atmosphere. An astonishing book from an astonishing writer" A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window"I loved The Dry. Force of Nature is even better. Brilliantly paced, it wrong-foots the reader like a rocky trail through the bush" Susie Steiner, author of Missing, Presumed and Persons Unknown"Lord of the Flies in the Australian outback, with grown women in place of school boys. I loved every chilling moment of it. A blistering follow-up to The Dry from one of the best new voices in crime fiction" Sarah Hilary, author the DI Marnie Rome series"...once again Harper manages to touch on something mythic in the Australian experience of the land" The Age"The narrative is finely constructed, with perfectly measured pace and suspense. So much so that it reminded me of another master of form, Liane Moriarty. As with Moriarty, Harper has that rare touch that manages to cross the genre divide and appeal more widely to general readers" The Saturday Paper"Harper's mastery of pace makes Force Of Nature one of 2017's best thrillers" Elle Magazine"Gripping thriller will have readers hooked" The Sunday Telegraph"Force of Nature proves Jane Harper, author of The Dry, is no one-hit wonder. Its premise is instantly gripping" The Herald Sun]]> 347 Jane Harper 1760554782 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 This is the #2 book in the Aaron Falk series by Jane Harper.

Federal Police Investigator Aaron Falk returns to work after some time out recovering from injuries sustained in Jane Harper’s previous [excellent debut] novel The Dry.
Still sporting some painful scars on a lightly bandaged arm as he arrives to pick up his colleage, Aaron Falk could never anticipate the depths of where this investigation will lead him.

Working in close partnership with fellow Federal Police Investigator Carmen Cooper; They are investigating suspected long term money laundering activities within a large family owned and run business corporation.
They have been ordered by their seniors to get evidence in the form of contracts as proof, and nothing less will suffice.
The pressure from above, to come up with this evidence is relentless and they are, in turn, applying pressure to their own secret contact within the company in question.

Alice Russell, a disgruntled employee whistleblower, is in the process of covertly gathering copies of the much sought contracts which will be the proof needed to take down these corporate crooks.
It is the end of the week and Alice is almost done and almost ready to hand over the documented evidence to the waiting investigators when things get complicated.
As it turns out, this was the weekend that the company had booked a weekend away for a corporate team building exercise involving bushwalking and overnight camping, and Alice was expected to attend along with four of her female colleagues...one being their boss, whose brother is the corporate manager.
Not going is out of the question.
Alice needed to be back by Sunday afternoon, but nobody could guarantee that and now she was desperate to get out of this trip any way she could.

The weekend camping arrangements go ahead as planned with two teams made up of the five women and their equivalent male colleagues...including the corporate manager leading the men’s side.
On arrival they are divided into two teams, male and female, and are given maps, equipment and instructions on their separate excursions, to be completed according to the instructions.
The men follow one course through the bush with the women following a different course, and they should meet at the end at roughly the same time, though it is expected the women should arrive slightly ahead of the men at days end on Sunday.

When the men returned to the starting base before the women it was expected the women would soon follow behind, so the men relaxed around the area waiting patiently before they could all board the same bus home.
When, after hours of waiting there was still no sign of the women, panic started to build and....
So begins the real and gripping unfolding of this mystery.

I enjoyed this a lot, though The Dry is a hard act to follow I would easily recommend this author and look forward to her next book.

4⭐️’sձ> 4.10 2017 Force of Nature (Aaron Falk, #2)
author: Jane Harper
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/18
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: crime-fiction, crime-mystery, crime-thriller, aussie-author, cultural-australia, 2017-release
review:
Force of Nature by Jane Harper
This is the #2 book in the Aaron Falk series by Jane Harper.

Federal Police Investigator Aaron Falk returns to work after some time out recovering from injuries sustained in Jane Harper’s previous [excellent debut] novel The Dry.
Still sporting some painful scars on a lightly bandaged arm as he arrives to pick up his colleage, Aaron Falk could never anticipate the depths of where this investigation will lead him.

Working in close partnership with fellow Federal Police Investigator Carmen Cooper; They are investigating suspected long term money laundering activities within a large family owned and run business corporation.
They have been ordered by their seniors to get evidence in the form of contracts as proof, and nothing less will suffice.
The pressure from above, to come up with this evidence is relentless and they are, in turn, applying pressure to their own secret contact within the company in question.

Alice Russell, a disgruntled employee whistleblower, is in the process of covertly gathering copies of the much sought contracts which will be the proof needed to take down these corporate crooks.
It is the end of the week and Alice is almost done and almost ready to hand over the documented evidence to the waiting investigators when things get complicated.
As it turns out, this was the weekend that the company had booked a weekend away for a corporate team building exercise involving bushwalking and overnight camping, and Alice was expected to attend along with four of her female colleagues...one being their boss, whose brother is the corporate manager.
Not going is out of the question.
Alice needed to be back by Sunday afternoon, but nobody could guarantee that and now she was desperate to get out of this trip any way she could.

The weekend camping arrangements go ahead as planned with two teams made up of the five women and their equivalent male colleagues...including the corporate manager leading the men’s side.
On arrival they are divided into two teams, male and female, and are given maps, equipment and instructions on their separate excursions, to be completed according to the instructions.
The men follow one course through the bush with the women following a different course, and they should meet at the end at roughly the same time, though it is expected the women should arrive slightly ahead of the men at days end on Sunday.

When the men returned to the starting base before the women it was expected the women would soon follow behind, so the men relaxed around the area waiting patiently before they could all board the same bus home.
When, after hours of waiting there was still no sign of the women, panic started to build and....
So begins the real and gripping unfolding of this mystery.

I enjoyed this a lot, though The Dry is a hard act to follow I would easily recommend this author and look forward to her next book.

4⭐️’s
]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker Trilogy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1-5)]]> 823662 976 Douglas Adams 0330437569 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.40 1979 The Hitchhiker Trilogy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1-5)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Dear Mother 22590697
Alex , the youngest, is a bitter, unhappy woman who refuses to face the horrors of her childhood. Finding solace in a bottle, her life is spiralling dangerously out of control.

Eldest child, Catherine , has strived for success, despite her difficult upbringing. But behind the carefully constructed façade lies a secret that could shatter her world forever.

Beth , the middle child, bore the greatest burden. But having blocked out the cruelty they suffered, she remained with their mother until her death. Now she must confront the devastating reality of the past.

Brought together as strangers, the sisters embark on a painful journey to heal themselves and each other. Can they finally put their terrible childhoods to rest and start over?

An emotional, heart-breaking and compelling novel for readers of Diane Chamberlain, Amanda Prowse and Kelly Rimmer.

Previously Published as The Middle Child]]> 240 Angela Marsons 1786810417 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 What can I say? Angela Marsons has done it yet again, what an amazing writer!

This time stepping right outside of her crime thriller genre with confident ease, and straight into a page turning, heart tugging story about three sisters growing up with an abusive mother.
Certainly not for the faint hearted, but an incredibly realistic read.

OMG! This story will have every one of the readers' nerve cells on edge for a good deal of the time.
Just when you think you have heard of all of the ways this woman could show cruelty to her young daughters, she ups the ante and thinks up new ways until the day of reckoning comes...but who's day of reckoning will it actually be?

The dedication in the front says:

"This book is dedicated to any person who has suffered any type of childhood abuse and made it out the other side. You are true survivors."

I would like to second that sentiment!

I am in awe of this authors' capacity for turning out consistently good great stories at a steady pace.
I've said it before and I will say it again, Angela Marsons I would read your shopping list!

I would easily recommend this one 5★s

This book also goes under the title: The Middle Child

Many thanks to Netgalley, Angela Marsons, and the publishers for my copy to read and review.


Merged review:

What can I say? Angela Marsons has done it yet again, what an amazing writer!

This time stepping right outside of her crime thriller genre with confident ease, and straight into a page turning, heart tugging story about three sisters growing up with an abusive mother.
Certainly not for the faint hearted, but an incredibly realistic read.

OMG! This story will have every one of the readers' nerve cells on edge for a good deal of the time.
Just when you think you have heard of all of the ways this woman could show cruelty to her young daughters, she ups the ante and thinks up new ways until the day of reckoning comes...but who's day of reckoning will it actually be?

The dedication in the front says:

"This book is dedicated to any person who has suffered any type of childhood abuse and made it out the other side. You are true survivors."

I would like to second that sentiment!

I am in awe of this authors' capacity for turning out consistently good great stories at a steady pace.
I've said it before and I will say it again, Angela Marsons I would read your shopping list!

I would easily recommend this one 5★s

This book also goes under the title: The Middle Child

Many thanks to Netgalley, Angela Marsons, and the publishers for my copy to read and review.]]> 4.11 2014 Dear Mother
author: Angela Marsons
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2016/09/06
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: own-kindle-book, literary-fiction, contemporary-fiction, relationships, sisters, 2014-release, less-than-300pgs, netgalley-for-review
review:

What can I say? Angela Marsons has done it yet again, what an amazing writer!

This time stepping right outside of her crime thriller genre with confident ease, and straight into a page turning, heart tugging story about three sisters growing up with an abusive mother.
Certainly not for the faint hearted, but an incredibly realistic read.

OMG! This story will have every one of the readers' nerve cells on edge for a good deal of the time.
Just when you think you have heard of all of the ways this woman could show cruelty to her young daughters, she ups the ante and thinks up new ways until the day of reckoning comes...but who's day of reckoning will it actually be?

The dedication in the front says:

"This book is dedicated to any person who has suffered any type of childhood abuse and made it out the other side. You are true survivors."

I would like to second that sentiment!

I am in awe of this authors' capacity for turning out consistently good great stories at a steady pace.
I've said it before and I will say it again, Angela Marsons I would read your shopping list!

I would easily recommend this one 5★s

This book also goes under the title: The Middle Child

Many thanks to Netgalley, Angela Marsons, and the publishers for my copy to read and review.


Merged review:

What can I say? Angela Marsons has done it yet again, what an amazing writer!

This time stepping right outside of her crime thriller genre with confident ease, and straight into a page turning, heart tugging story about three sisters growing up with an abusive mother.
Certainly not for the faint hearted, but an incredibly realistic read.

OMG! This story will have every one of the readers' nerve cells on edge for a good deal of the time.
Just when you think you have heard of all of the ways this woman could show cruelty to her young daughters, she ups the ante and thinks up new ways until the day of reckoning comes...but who's day of reckoning will it actually be?

The dedication in the front says:

"This book is dedicated to any person who has suffered any type of childhood abuse and made it out the other side. You are true survivors."

I would like to second that sentiment!

I am in awe of this authors' capacity for turning out consistently good great stories at a steady pace.
I've said it before and I will say it again, Angela Marsons I would read your shopping list!

I would easily recommend this one 5★s

This book also goes under the title: The Middle Child

Many thanks to Netgalley, Angela Marsons, and the publishers for my copy to read and review.
]]> Fromelles: The Final Chapters 19967177 When we give these soldiers a dignified grave we accomplish here one of the oldest gestures of mankind. It is a gesture of devotion. It is the gesture accomplished by every son for his father and by every nation for their heroes. Let them rest in peace in this land for which they shed their blood and which owes them everything, including freedom!

� General Bruno Cuche, 30 January 2010

]]> 263 Tim Lycett 1742536360 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 *I received a kindle copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Profound, moving, astonishing, compelling, edifying, True.

*PLEASE READ THIS BOOK*

This is an important book which needs to be read! It is an incredible true story!

Lest We Forget.

I don't know where to begin...the work that these people have voluntarily done over the course of many years including many long hours of very involved and often heart rending research, towards these extraordinary ends...it's just incredible and truly deserves high praise and acknowledgement.

I daren't say too much without the risk of spoiling an extremely well told account of the events that brought about the Fromelles story, The Final Chapters. The story of how these long lost buried Diggers were identified and their lives reclaimed.
These missing pages of history are told now for the first time.
Thanks to the tireless and unrelenting work of these so called "amateur researchers," 250 Australian Soldiers were recovered from a -previously unknown- mass pit grave in Pheasant's Wood at Fromelles, and ultimately given the proper military burials they rightly deserved... 124 of whom have been positively identified through the diligence and doggedness of the aforementioned researchers.
Since they fell in the battle at Fromelles in 1916, these 250 Soldiers had been recorded as missing, or in some cases erroneously recorded as being 'presumed' buried elsewhere, because nobody knew of the existence of the mass grave at Pheasant's Wood, nor was it ever acknowledged that such a severe and costly battle had even occurred at Fromelles....until now.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and I would personally like to thank everyone involved in the discovery, unfolding and eventual outcome of this story....full credit to you all.

Some quotes from the book:

"...After all, if it wasn't for a humble school teacher who decided to follow up on a hunch, the men (fallen soldiers) would still be lost to us, tangled in rough burial pits at the edge of a lonely wood."
Author.

"...Lambis's search is an astonishing tale in itself, but it highlights the inescapable fact that, up until recently, this was an event that had been relegated to the footnotes of Australian history."
Author.

"To truly do their memories justice, I believe we need to find out something of their lives, not just the circumstances of their deaths."
Contributing Author of Fromelles.


Every bullet has it's billet,
Some bullets more than one.
For you sometimes kill a mother,
When you kill a mother's son.

Joseph Lee, Scottish poet.


Apart from War history researchers, this book would most definitely appeal to Genealogy buffs and Family Historians as well as any researcher or even casual readers. It is very well written and formatted, making it very easy to follow as well as being compelling reading...I found it difficult to put down.

Easily 5 stars.
]]> 4.60 2013 Fromelles: The Final Chapters
author: Tim Lycett
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2013/08/13
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: ww1, australian-history, australian-non-fiction, genealogy, reference, family-history, important-must-reads, arc-for-review, kindle-arc, debut
review:

*I received a kindle copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Profound, moving, astonishing, compelling, edifying, True.

*PLEASE READ THIS BOOK*

This is an important book which needs to be read! It is an incredible true story!

Lest We Forget.

I don't know where to begin...the work that these people have voluntarily done over the course of many years including many long hours of very involved and often heart rending research, towards these extraordinary ends...it's just incredible and truly deserves high praise and acknowledgement.

I daren't say too much without the risk of spoiling an extremely well told account of the events that brought about the Fromelles story, The Final Chapters. The story of how these long lost buried Diggers were identified and their lives reclaimed.
These missing pages of history are told now for the first time.
Thanks to the tireless and unrelenting work of these so called "amateur researchers," 250 Australian Soldiers were recovered from a -previously unknown- mass pit grave in Pheasant's Wood at Fromelles, and ultimately given the proper military burials they rightly deserved... 124 of whom have been positively identified through the diligence and doggedness of the aforementioned researchers.
Since they fell in the battle at Fromelles in 1916, these 250 Soldiers had been recorded as missing, or in some cases erroneously recorded as being 'presumed' buried elsewhere, because nobody knew of the existence of the mass grave at Pheasant's Wood, nor was it ever acknowledged that such a severe and costly battle had even occurred at Fromelles....until now.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and I would personally like to thank everyone involved in the discovery, unfolding and eventual outcome of this story....full credit to you all.

Some quotes from the book:

"...After all, if it wasn't for a humble school teacher who decided to follow up on a hunch, the men (fallen soldiers) would still be lost to us, tangled in rough burial pits at the edge of a lonely wood."
Author.

"...Lambis's search is an astonishing tale in itself, but it highlights the inescapable fact that, up until recently, this was an event that had been relegated to the footnotes of Australian history."
Author.

"To truly do their memories justice, I believe we need to find out something of their lives, not just the circumstances of their deaths."
Contributing Author of Fromelles.


Every bullet has it's billet,
Some bullets more than one.
For you sometimes kill a mother,
When you kill a mother's son.

Joseph Lee, Scottish poet.


Apart from War history researchers, this book would most definitely appeal to Genealogy buffs and Family Historians as well as any researcher or even casual readers. It is very well written and formatted, making it very easy to follow as well as being compelling reading...I found it difficult to put down.

Easily 5 stars.

]]> <![CDATA[The Torrent (Detective Kate Miles #1)]]> 60292752
An atmospheric, compelling new voice in Australian crime fiction.

Winner of the 2020 Banjo Prize. Shortlisted for the 2023 Davitt Awards and 2023 Danger Awards.

In Northern New South Wales, heavily pregnant and a week away from maternity leave, Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is exhausted and counting down the days. But a violent hold-up at a local fast-food restaurant with unsettling connections to her own past, means that her final days will be anything but straightforward.

When a second case is dumped on her lap, the closed case of a man drowned in recent summer floods, what begins as a simple informal review quickly grows into something more complicated. Kate can either write the report that's expected of her or investigate the case the way she wants to.

As secrets and betrayals pile up, and the needs of her own family intervene, how far is Kate prepared to push to discover the truth?]]> 352 Dinuka McKenzie 1460713583 Jülie ☼♄ � 5
After reading this incredible debut novel by Aussie author Dinuka McKenzie, I’m not at all surprised to find that she is the Winner of the 2020 Banjo Prize for great story telling fiction.
If this is her first offering as a published author, I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next!
I sincerely hope that this is just the start of many more good solid reads from this author…I will be following with great anticipation…no pressure lol!

Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is on her last week of work before taking maternity leave to prepare for the birth of her second child. She is very close to full term in her pregnancy and beginning to feel the effects of her advanced condition taxing her daily energy levels.
Feeling quite exhausted Kate will be glad to see the end of this week, though it shouldn’t be too difficult as it only involves tidying up the paperwork on her previous cases and handing over to her new replacement who seems eagerly confident to get into his new role.

A hold up robbery at a local fast foods Cafe by what appears to be three masked teenagers is brought to Kate’s attention. Ideally she should just pass it on to her new replacement officer, but Kate is disturbed by the act of violence committed on one of the girls serving, which has left her in hospital with serious head wounds.
Much to the chagrin of her new officer in charge, Kate starts to instruct her crew on how to immediately proceed with investigations.

Kate’s boss calls her in to [apparently] palm off onto her, a previously closed case in which an unsatisfied (friend of a friend) grieving mother is insisting they investigate further…into the death of her son. She feels that the investigation into the recent drowning of her son in floodwaters wasn’t thorough enough and that things were overlooked or presumed.
Kate is instructed to have a look at the file and write up a report which her boss feels will concur with the original findings…thus clearing up some loose ends before her leave, and getting him off the hook.

Things are never quite as straight forward as they seem though, and Kate soon finds her supposedly easy final work week catapulted into two separately demanding investigations.
With mounting pressure from her boss to hastily…and discretely…wrap up the previous case, and a clear sense of resentment from her replacement officer for being left out, along with the complications from the robbery, Kate is feeling the pressure.
She’s not so sure she can wrap things up so neatly before her leave.
As investigations continue, Kate finds herself being targeted with threats from different and unexpected sources…the plot thickens!

What a terrific debut novel this is! The story and the characters are all so very well developed, and portrayed in such a convincing way as to have you eagerly anticipating the next development, whist still being genuinely surprised by the continuing turn of events.
I highly recommend this book to any readers and look forward to more great reading from this author.

5⭐️]]> 4.00 2022 The Torrent (Detective Kate Miles #1)
author: Dinuka McKenzie
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/08
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: aussie-author, own-kindle-book, 2022
review:
Brilliant debut novel�.Impressive is an understatement!

After reading this incredible debut novel by Aussie author Dinuka McKenzie, I’m not at all surprised to find that she is the Winner of the 2020 Banjo Prize for great story telling fiction.
If this is her first offering as a published author, I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next!
I sincerely hope that this is just the start of many more good solid reads from this author…I will be following with great anticipation…no pressure lol!

Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is on her last week of work before taking maternity leave to prepare for the birth of her second child. She is very close to full term in her pregnancy and beginning to feel the effects of her advanced condition taxing her daily energy levels.
Feeling quite exhausted Kate will be glad to see the end of this week, though it shouldn’t be too difficult as it only involves tidying up the paperwork on her previous cases and handing over to her new replacement who seems eagerly confident to get into his new role.

A hold up robbery at a local fast foods Cafe by what appears to be three masked teenagers is brought to Kate’s attention. Ideally she should just pass it on to her new replacement officer, but Kate is disturbed by the act of violence committed on one of the girls serving, which has left her in hospital with serious head wounds.
Much to the chagrin of her new officer in charge, Kate starts to instruct her crew on how to immediately proceed with investigations.

Kate’s boss calls her in to [apparently] palm off onto her, a previously closed case in which an unsatisfied (friend of a friend) grieving mother is insisting they investigate further…into the death of her son. She feels that the investigation into the recent drowning of her son in floodwaters wasn’t thorough enough and that things were overlooked or presumed.
Kate is instructed to have a look at the file and write up a report which her boss feels will concur with the original findings…thus clearing up some loose ends before her leave, and getting him off the hook.

Things are never quite as straight forward as they seem though, and Kate soon finds her supposedly easy final work week catapulted into two separately demanding investigations.
With mounting pressure from her boss to hastily…and discretely…wrap up the previous case, and a clear sense of resentment from her replacement officer for being left out, along with the complications from the robbery, Kate is feeling the pressure.
She’s not so sure she can wrap things up so neatly before her leave.
As investigations continue, Kate finds herself being targeted with threats from different and unexpected sources…the plot thickens!

What a terrific debut novel this is! The story and the characters are all so very well developed, and portrayed in such a convincing way as to have you eagerly anticipating the next development, whist still being genuinely surprised by the continuing turn of events.
I highly recommend this book to any readers and look forward to more great reading from this author.

5⭐️
]]> The Killing Game 32185440
As word spreads of the siege, the hostage victims are bargaining for their lives against a twisted individual who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

With the bomb designed to detonate if the gunman’s heart rate changes, killing him is not an option. But with only four hours to stop him, JJ will have to think fast to stop a terrifying nightmare becoming reality.

“James Carol is a non-American who has mastered the idiom of the US thriller.�
� Barry Forshaw, The Independant]]> 380 J.S. Carol 178681031X Jülie ☼♄ � 5 Excellent! Fantastic! Wow!

If you like edge of your seat thrillers then buckle your seatbelts people because this is one book you won't want to put down!

This is a seriously nail biting hostage situation in a very private and exclusive top notch Hollywood restaurant.
With a reputation for its privacy and discretion, and a waiting list that spans years, only a small number of the very elite can afford to dine here.
On this day there are a number of very important people, many of whom have had occasion to work together and most of whom are [at least] in some small way acquainted with each other.
None are spared the close scrutiny of the hostage taker as he corrals them all together on the upstairs level and one by one proceeds to break them down into terrified captives.
What he does next, and how he goes about his plan makes absolutely no sense to his hostages as he casually makes each one of them complicit in his terrifying and chilling demands.

From start to finish this book will have you spellbound.

Highly recommended, I will most certainly be looking for more from this author. 5★s

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture publishers for my copy to read and review.

Merged review:

Excellent! Fantastic! Wow!

If you like edge of your seat thrillers then buckle your seatbelts people because this is one book you won't want to put down!

This is a seriously nail biting hostage situation in a very private and exclusive top notch Hollywood restaurant.
With a reputation for its privacy and discretion, and a waiting list that spans years, only a small number of the very elite can afford to dine here.
On this day there are a number of very important people, many of whom have had occasion to work together and most of whom are [at least] in some small way acquainted with each other.
None are spared the close scrutiny of the hostage taker as he corrals them all together on the upstairs level and one by one proceeds to break them down into terrified captives.
What he does next, and how he goes about his plan makes absolutely no sense to his hostages as he casually makes each one of them complicit in his terrifying and chilling demands.

From start to finish this book will have you spellbound.

Highly recommended, I will most certainly be looking for more from this author. 5★s

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture publishers for my copy to read and review.]]> 4.09 2016 The Killing Game
author: J.S. Carol
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/10/25
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: own-kindle-book, netgalley-for-review, crime-thriller, 2016-release, recommended-by-carolyn
review:

Excellent! Fantastic! Wow!

If you like edge of your seat thrillers then buckle your seatbelts people because this is one book you won't want to put down!

This is a seriously nail biting hostage situation in a very private and exclusive top notch Hollywood restaurant.
With a reputation for its privacy and discretion, and a waiting list that spans years, only a small number of the very elite can afford to dine here.
On this day there are a number of very important people, many of whom have had occasion to work together and most of whom are [at least] in some small way acquainted with each other.
None are spared the close scrutiny of the hostage taker as he corrals them all together on the upstairs level and one by one proceeds to break them down into terrified captives.
What he does next, and how he goes about his plan makes absolutely no sense to his hostages as he casually makes each one of them complicit in his terrifying and chilling demands.

From start to finish this book will have you spellbound.

Highly recommended, I will most certainly be looking for more from this author. 5★s

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture publishers for my copy to read and review.

Merged review:

Excellent! Fantastic! Wow!

If you like edge of your seat thrillers then buckle your seatbelts people because this is one book you won't want to put down!

This is a seriously nail biting hostage situation in a very private and exclusive top notch Hollywood restaurant.
With a reputation for its privacy and discretion, and a waiting list that spans years, only a small number of the very elite can afford to dine here.
On this day there are a number of very important people, many of whom have had occasion to work together and most of whom are [at least] in some small way acquainted with each other.
None are spared the close scrutiny of the hostage taker as he corrals them all together on the upstairs level and one by one proceeds to break them down into terrified captives.
What he does next, and how he goes about his plan makes absolutely no sense to his hostages as he casually makes each one of them complicit in his terrifying and chilling demands.

From start to finish this book will have you spellbound.

Highly recommended, I will most certainly be looking for more from this author. 5★s

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture publishers for my copy to read and review.
]]> Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles 39986073 The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m just like you.

Susanna has an incredible gift: she can heal ailments with just the touch of her hand. People travel from far and wide based on their faith in her abilities. But Susanna’s power only works in certain cases—it’s a semi-miracle. And as she grows into a woman, and tries to build a life of her own, her calling to fix and cure becomes more of a burden than she could ever have imagined. Why is she able to take people’s pain away sometimes, and not others, not when she needs to most of all? With the balm of time, and the wisdom of experience, Susanna must learn to live with the mysterious nature of her miracle.
Available to readers for the first time since its initial publication, this is a wry and moving story by an American master.

]]> 28 Anne Tyler 0525565078 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read, own-kindle-book 3.97 2018 Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles
author: Anne Tyler
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book
review:

]]> Written in the Stars 62699322 A unique collection of stories from bestselling authors Angela Marsons, Rob Sinclair, Joy Ellis, Louise Beech and many more!

Written in the Stars is a festive charity anthology with short stories from a variety of authors, including international bestsellers and award-winning writers. There's something for everyone, with tales that will make you laugh, make you cry, or make you sleep with the light on. It's the perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter's night.

All net profits from this anthology are in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity and The Butterfly AVM Charity, who both work tirelessly to offer help to children and their families with life-threatening illnesses.

Authors include: A.A. Abbott, Angela Marsons, Beverley Harvey, Caron McKinlay, Diane Saxon, D.S. Butler, Emma Tallon, Eva Jordan, Gina Kirkham, Helen Walters, Jen Faulkner, John Harkin, Joy Ellis, Keri Beevis, Laura Stewart, Louise Beech Marrisse Whittaker, Mike Walters, Natasha Boydell, Patricia Dixon, Rob Sinclair (writing as CJ Stone), Stephen Edger and Valerie Keogh.]]> 303 Angela Marsons 1504079981 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.46 Written in the Stars
author: Angela Marsons
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Whispering Hollows 27221254 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger delivers her three spellbinding short stories featuring reluctant psychic Eloise Montgomery together as one The Whispers, The Burning Girl, and The Three Sisters, along with a new introduction to The Hollows and an excerpt from her upcoming thriller, Ink and Bone—Unger’s chilling story that highlights why The Washington Post hailed her writing as “brisk, crafty, and fascinating.�

Part The Whispers

On an ordinary day in The Hollows, a terrible accident claims the lives of Eloise Montgomery’s husband and oldest daughter and leaves Eloise in a coma. While recovering, she experiences her first psychic vision. Struggling to understand her frightening new abilities, Eloise is torn between helping her grief-stricken younger daughter move on and the work she feels compelled to do now—heed the tortured whispers of lost women and girls calling for her.

Part The Burning Girl

Ten years on, Eloise is a renowned working psychic who has resigned herself to her role in The Hollows and to “The Work.� She’s discovering some disturbing things—secrets about her genealogy and the dark history of The Hollows, and that her granddaughter, nine-year-old Finley, has her own powerful gifts. Most disturbing of all, Eloise realizes that not all of the whispering voices are calling for help. Some of them are looking for trouble.

Part The Three Sisters

When Finley, now nineteen, comes to live with Eloise, Eloise’s abilities transform. Her load is somehow lighter, and rather than chasing down people she needs, they are coming to her. She teams up with a detective to help a desperate father bring his daughter’s killer to justice. Meanwhile, Finley has bigger problems than she’s willing to admit. Can Eloise help her see the difference between justice and revenge—and the dark truth that nothing stays buried in The Hollows?]]> 159 Lisa Unger 1501134752 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 I nearly fell into a trap here! This book contains the three short stories of The Whispers trilogy...which I own and have already read.
I was under the impression that this was a new novella, though it does contain an excerpt from her upcoming thriller Ink and Bone, it is NOT a new book...except in the fact that it contains all three of the Whispers trilogy inside one new cover.


Merged review:

I nearly fell into a trap here! This book contains the three short stories of The Whispers trilogy...which I own and have already read.
I was under the impression that this was a new novella, though it does contain an excerpt from her upcoming thriller Ink and Bone, it is NOT a new book...except in the fact that it contains all three of the Whispers trilogy inside one new cover.]]> 3.91 2016 The Whispering Hollows
author: Lisa Unger
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: short-stories, novella, 2016-release, psychic, detective, thriller, wish-list
review:

I nearly fell into a trap here! This book contains the three short stories of The Whispers trilogy...which I own and have already read.
I was under the impression that this was a new novella, though it does contain an excerpt from her upcoming thriller Ink and Bone, it is NOT a new book...except in the fact that it contains all three of the Whispers trilogy inside one new cover.


Merged review:

I nearly fell into a trap here! This book contains the three short stories of The Whispers trilogy...which I own and have already read.
I was under the impression that this was a new novella, though it does contain an excerpt from her upcoming thriller Ink and Bone, it is NOT a new book...except in the fact that it contains all three of the Whispers trilogy inside one new cover.
]]> <![CDATA[Blackwattle Creek (Charlie Berlin, #2)]]> 19673646
But there's no rest for Charlie, a decent but damaged man still troubled by his wartime experiences. A recently widowed friend asks a favour and he's dropped into something a hell of a lot bigger than he bargained for when he discovers a Melbourne funeral parlour has been burying bodies with parts missing. A Hungarian émigré hearse driver points Berlin in the right direction but it quickly becomes obvious anyone asking the wrong questions is in real danger.
With his offsider beaten and left for dead, witnesses warned off, Special Branch on his case, and people he doesn't know watching his every move, Berlin realises even his young family may be in danger.

His pursuit of the truth leads him to Blackwattle Creek, once an asylum for the criminally insane and now a foreboding home to even darker evils. And if Berlin thought government machinations during World War II were devious, those of the Cold War leave them for dead.
Richly evocative of the period , Blackwattle Creek is a rattling good tale with a dry wit and a sobering core.]]> 300 Geoffrey McGeachin 1742535577 Jülie ☼♄ � 4
Blackwattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin

In this second book of the Charlie Berlin series we are once again taken on a well constructed, page turning investigation as Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin's holiday plans are interrupted when his now wife, Rebecca, asks a favour of him out of her concern for a friend.

The story takes place in Melbourne in 1957 and Charlie is now happily married to the woman he met in a previous case, Photographer Journalist Rebecca Green.
Married life seems to agree with Charlie and although he still struggles with the demons of his time in the war, he has found a healing comfort and a measure of solace with domestic life and his young family.
They now have two young children and whist things are tight and money is short, they have settled fairly comfortably into suburban life.

DS Berlin finds that his tentative enquiries into the cause of a grieving widow's verbal outburst, directed at the funeral director during the funeral of her late husband, has unwittingly shed an unwelcome light on some very shady and covert activities involving the Funeral Director.
Now Charlie suddenly finds himself deeply embroiled in a very dangerous and complex set of circumstances that put himself and his loved ones in very real danger.

Full of intrigue and suspense, the story is woven in such a way as to have you all the time second guessing what is really going on.

This is another great detective story from Geoffrey McGeachin that doesn't disappoint, and just long enough to promote page turning intrigue without overcooking the plot.
I look forward to reading his next book in this series.
A well deserved 4ȴ]]> 3.89 2012 Blackwattle Creek (Charlie Berlin, #2)
author: Geoffrey McGeachin
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2014/09/08
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: aussie-author, aussie-crime-fiction, aussie-slang, australian-historical-fiction, 2014-spring-reading-challenge, 2nd-in-series
review:


Blackwattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin

In this second book of the Charlie Berlin series we are once again taken on a well constructed, page turning investigation as Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin's holiday plans are interrupted when his now wife, Rebecca, asks a favour of him out of her concern for a friend.

The story takes place in Melbourne in 1957 and Charlie is now happily married to the woman he met in a previous case, Photographer Journalist Rebecca Green.
Married life seems to agree with Charlie and although he still struggles with the demons of his time in the war, he has found a healing comfort and a measure of solace with domestic life and his young family.
They now have two young children and whist things are tight and money is short, they have settled fairly comfortably into suburban life.

DS Berlin finds that his tentative enquiries into the cause of a grieving widow's verbal outburst, directed at the funeral director during the funeral of her late husband, has unwittingly shed an unwelcome light on some very shady and covert activities involving the Funeral Director.
Now Charlie suddenly finds himself deeply embroiled in a very dangerous and complex set of circumstances that put himself and his loved ones in very real danger.

Full of intrigue and suspense, the story is woven in such a way as to have you all the time second guessing what is really going on.

This is another great detective story from Geoffrey McGeachin that doesn't disappoint, and just long enough to promote page turning intrigue without overcooking the plot.
I look forward to reading his next book in this series.
A well deserved 4ȴ
]]> <![CDATA[The Diggers Rest Hotel (Charlie Berlin, #1)]]> 19747976 336 Geoffrey McGeachin 1742530680 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 The Diggers Rest Hotel

I thought the story was a bit slow to start and worried that it was going to be hard work, then it started to pick up pace and I began to enjoy the way it was unfolding.
Given that it is the first book in a new series I figured it was laying the necessary groundwork and setting up character profiles for the follow on books.

Set in post WW2 Australia, in country, Albury - Wodonga 1947.

DC Charlie Berlin is a likable character but a bit emotionally damaged from his recent war service in Europe as an enlisted man with the RAAF, where he flew many successive and successful flights as a bomber pilot over Germany, finally ending up being shot down and captured as a POW.
After returning from his war service Charlie thought he would pick up his career with the Police Force in Melbourne where he was working prior to his enlistment.
He finds however that during his absence he has been left behind in the claim for career advancement and that his then, junior colleagues now outrank him....which grates a bit, and puts him in the target range for in house jokes and directives to take on the more unpopular jobs.

Such are the circumstances that find Charlie (DC Berlin) on a hastily organized private flight to Albury, to take charge of an investigation into a series of robberies which have left the local cops out of their depths.
After arriving in town Charlie is picked up at the plane by his appointed assistant and driver, constable Bob Roberts, who takes him to his accommodation at The Digger's Rest Hotel in the heart of town.
Things start to pick up now as Charlie takes control and begins his investigations by meeting a few of the locals, and one very attractive female reporter who happens to be in town for a story on a popular painter, artist.

Investigations are suddenly interrupted when the murdered body of a local girl is discovered in a nearby lane and...since he is already in town, DC Berlin is put in charge of solving this case also.
With lots of pressure from higher up to solve these cases ASAP, Charlie is stymied by the incompetence of the local police officer in charge of this small town as well as many of its emotionally flawed residents...who have their own crosses to bear.

I thoroughly enjoyed this old fashioned type of investigative crime story. It was very easy to read and kept the pace going with plenty of action going on all the time.
It reminded me of the old black and white detective movies, which always held your attention.
The descriptions of the vehicles in particular, as well as much of the equipment of the time, and some of the household goods and corner shop items are very accurately depicted to give a real authentic and nostalgic feel to the story.

Highly recommended for crime enthusiasts and others. 4ȴ

]]> 4.16 2010 The Diggers Rest Hotel (Charlie Berlin, #1)
author: Geoffrey McGeachin
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2014/08/26
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: 1st-in-trilogy, aussie-crime-fiction, aussie-author, aussie-slang, australian-historical-fiction, albury-wodonga
review:

The Diggers Rest Hotel

I thought the story was a bit slow to start and worried that it was going to be hard work, then it started to pick up pace and I began to enjoy the way it was unfolding.
Given that it is the first book in a new series I figured it was laying the necessary groundwork and setting up character profiles for the follow on books.

Set in post WW2 Australia, in country, Albury - Wodonga 1947.

DC Charlie Berlin is a likable character but a bit emotionally damaged from his recent war service in Europe as an enlisted man with the RAAF, where he flew many successive and successful flights as a bomber pilot over Germany, finally ending up being shot down and captured as a POW.
After returning from his war service Charlie thought he would pick up his career with the Police Force in Melbourne where he was working prior to his enlistment.
He finds however that during his absence he has been left behind in the claim for career advancement and that his then, junior colleagues now outrank him....which grates a bit, and puts him in the target range for in house jokes and directives to take on the more unpopular jobs.

Such are the circumstances that find Charlie (DC Berlin) on a hastily organized private flight to Albury, to take charge of an investigation into a series of robberies which have left the local cops out of their depths.
After arriving in town Charlie is picked up at the plane by his appointed assistant and driver, constable Bob Roberts, who takes him to his accommodation at The Digger's Rest Hotel in the heart of town.
Things start to pick up now as Charlie takes control and begins his investigations by meeting a few of the locals, and one very attractive female reporter who happens to be in town for a story on a popular painter, artist.

Investigations are suddenly interrupted when the murdered body of a local girl is discovered in a nearby lane and...since he is already in town, DC Berlin is put in charge of solving this case also.
With lots of pressure from higher up to solve these cases ASAP, Charlie is stymied by the incompetence of the local police officer in charge of this small town as well as many of its emotionally flawed residents...who have their own crosses to bear.

I thoroughly enjoyed this old fashioned type of investigative crime story. It was very easy to read and kept the pace going with plenty of action going on all the time.
It reminded me of the old black and white detective movies, which always held your attention.
The descriptions of the vehicles in particular, as well as much of the equipment of the time, and some of the household goods and corner shop items are very accurately depicted to give a real authentic and nostalgic feel to the story.

Highly recommended for crime enthusiasts and others. 4ȴ


]]> Troubling Love 26115982
This stylish fiction is set in a beguiling but often hostile Naples, whose chaotic, suffocating streets become one of the book’s central motifs. A story about mothers and daughters, and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them.]]> 144 Elena Ferrante 1925095967 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.20 1992 Troubling Love
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.20
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: to-read, gift-from-gr-friend, contemporary-fiction, women-s-fiction, european-literature, cultural-italy
review:

]]> Deadly Obsession 28235088 Sex, money and a life of luxury …someone wants what they have �

Amy Barrowman grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. So when she marries millionaire Riley Hart, she can’t believe her luck. Not only does she have wealth and security for life, she has found true love. Or so she thinks�

Riley Hart is a Millionaire Man about Town. Men want to be him and women want to bed him. But to achieve Riley’s status, you have to tread on a lot of toes and make a lot of enemies.

When Riley is gunned down at the nightclub they own, Amy is determined to avenge his death. She receives a mysterious letter detailing a list of suspects including Riley’s sworn enemy, actor Grant Wilson. But with an obsessive passion brewing between her and Grant and a dangerous assassin trailing her every move it would seem Amy has opened a deadly and tempting Pandora’s Box. In settling the score for her husband has Amy put herself into terrible danger?

A sizzling story of deadly secrets, perfect for fans of Tasmina Perry and Victoria Fox.]]> 380 Nigel May 1910751669 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 4.05 Deadly Obsession
author: Nigel May
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Around the World In 80 Days 26212593 Narration by Michael Prichard.
Translated by George Makepeace Towle.]]> Jules Verne Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.53 1872 Around the World In 80 Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read, own-audio-book, overdrive, classics, adventure, sci-fi
review:

]]> The Believer (The Guard, #3) 45415255
I was picking up on something� ominous, weighing on me� threatening, reminiscent of horror movies where at any minute the bad guy might pounce on the unsuspecting teenagers. Something played at the edge of my vision�

When Lynn’s life of obscure gifts of insight intensifies, venturing out alone feels like the only option for solving the mystery. Lynn’s open-mind concerning the paranormal is a result of her sometimes-creepy insight, but when faced with things greater than her little premonitions, she struggles with her own denial, lacking the ability to get out of her own way.

What if it was your DNA, your ancestry, and not your choices, that had impact on whether you turned out good or evil? What if your choices were your destiny?
The Believer is the third book in the N. L. Westaway urban fantasy/paranormal mystery trilogy. If you appreciate brilliant urban fantasy or paranormal mysteries involving everyday people, you’ll love this entertaining three-part trilogy.

Note; it is recommended that you read the books in order as the mystery is in three parts, and not individual stories per book.]]> 303 N.L. Westaway 1733944222 Jülie ☼♄ � 5 Just WoW! 5⭐️

I am in awe of this author and this ✨Mystical series!�

I thought books one and two were unputdownable but this third book in the trilogy kept me awake half the night reading until all hours! �.It…is…so…clever.
Every elusive clue and unanswered question from books one and two were answered in perfect order with no stone left unturned, leading to a brilliantly climactic ending.
All of the puzzles were masterfully completed in a balanced and uncomplicated sequence, rounding up the completion of this trilogy beautifully.

N.L. Westaway has built an incredibly complex, fascinating and spellbinding mystery that now spans much further than the three books comprising The Guard Trilogy. Though these three can be read as a standalone trilogy, I am so keen now to start on the next book #4. of this extended series.

Such a departure from my usual book diet of historical fiction, I cannot praise this series highly enough, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed every single page of it!

Ticks all the boxes �
5⭐️]]> 4.67 The Believer (The Guard, #3)
author: N.L. Westaway
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/30
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: urban-fantasy, paranormal-fantasy, 3rd-in-series, angels-archangels
review:

Just WoW! 5⭐️

I am in awe of this author and this ✨Mystical series!�

I thought books one and two were unputdownable but this third book in the trilogy kept me awake half the night reading until all hours! �.It…is…so…clever.
Every elusive clue and unanswered question from books one and two were answered in perfect order with no stone left unturned, leading to a brilliantly climactic ending.
All of the puzzles were masterfully completed in a balanced and uncomplicated sequence, rounding up the completion of this trilogy beautifully.

N.L. Westaway has built an incredibly complex, fascinating and spellbinding mystery that now spans much further than the three books comprising The Guard Trilogy. Though these three can be read as a standalone trilogy, I am so keen now to start on the next book #4. of this extended series.

Such a departure from my usual book diet of historical fiction, I cannot praise this series highly enough, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed every single page of it!

Ticks all the boxes �
5⭐️
]]> Mrs Hopkins 209473352 A witty and poignant final novel from acclaimed author and filmmaker Shirley Barrett about what destroys us, what sustains us, and what we carry from one world into the next.

'Engaging, original and full of curiosity and wit ... I didn't want it to end.' Asher Keddie

'Bursting with life ... I was gripped from the first chapter.' Debra Oswald

'A subversive, dark delight.' Kat Stewart

'Barrett is a masterly world-builder.' New York Times

On a rainy night in 1871, an idealistic schoolmistress arrives on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. Mrs Hopkins doesn't know what to expect from the notorious Biloela Industrial School for Girls, but nothing could prepare her for what she encounters inside the high sandstone the conditions are dismal, the rules are largely conceptual, and the girls spend most of their time finding creative ways to outsmart the adults.

Very quickly, Mrs Hopkins realises that noble intentions won't be enough to plough through the chaos around her. An unconventional school requires unconventional methods, and Mrs Hopkins is going to have to find her own ways to reach her lively, lost charges. But her own ghosts have followed her to Cockatoo Island, and refuse to stay hidden for much longer.

This witty, surreal and poignant final novel from Shirley Barrett is about what destroys us, what sustains us, and what we carry with us from one world into the next.]]> 448 Shirley Barrett 1761189077 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.22 Mrs Hopkins
author: Shirley Barrett
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Good Stock: Life on a Low Simmer]]> 20351062 The personal journey of one of the most respected chefs in the country. “The life lessons here are even better than the passel of recipes.� —Andrew Zimmern, Travel Channel Featuring more than eighty recipes and full-color photography throughout, Good Stock weaves together memoir and cookbook in a beautiful and engaging package. It is the story of Sanford D’Amato’s journey from young Italian kid who loved to cook to unknown culinary student with a passion for classical French cuisine to a James Beard Award–winning chef and restaurateur. Through D’Amato’s experience opening Sanford, one of the highest-rated restaurants in America over the past twenty years, Good Stock also tells the tale of America’s embrace of fine dining and its acceptance of chefs as master craftsmen. Readers of Good Stock will come to believe, as D’Amato does, that to create great food, it doesn’t matter if you’re preparing a grilled hot dog or pan-roasted monkfish—what matters is that you treat all dishes with equal love, soul, and respect, and try to elevate each dish to its ultimate level of flavor. Good Stock combines Midwestern charm with international appeal as the perfect book for aspiring chefs, culinary students, and foodies everywhere. “If you are going to get one cookbook this year, get this one. If you are going to read one memoir this year, read this one... a full measure of his wit and love for food and people.� —Janos Wilder, James Beard Award–winning chef “D’Amato is able to make these recipes meaningful to the reader. The result is a warm, compelling memoir that will bubble over into home kitchens everywhere.� —Isthmus]]> 642 Sanford D'Amato Jülie ☼♄ � 5 A beautiful memoir including some very delicious sounding recipes from this lovely Chef Sanford D’Amato.

I bought the Kindle (digital) version of this book on a whim as it sounded so nice, and it really is a lovely compendium of recipes for life, it offers sustenance on many levels.
Now I would love to find a hard copy of this book to keep with my collection of “keepers�, something to go back to again and again.]]> 3.96 2013 Good Stock: Life on a Low Simmer
author: Sanford D'Amato
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/22
date added: 2024/08/22
shelves: own-kindle-copy, cooking, cooking-memoir, bio-memoir, bio, recipes
review:
A memoir and cooking book with a difference, Life on a Slow Simmer is the perfect book to peruse slowly and often…as I have done.
A beautiful memoir including some very delicious sounding recipes from this lovely Chef Sanford D’Amato.

I bought the Kindle (digital) version of this book on a whim as it sounded so nice, and it really is a lovely compendium of recipes for life, it offers sustenance on many levels.
Now I would love to find a hard copy of this book to keep with my collection of “keepers�, something to go back to again and again.
]]> <![CDATA[Healing words from the Angels: 365 Daily Messages]]> 3629439 365 Doreen Virtue 140191196X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 4.23 2006 Healing words from the Angels: 365 Daily Messages
author: Doreen Virtue
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson]]> 20341232

]]> 567 Ralph Waldo Emerson 1101515597 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.95 1950 Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, own-book, essays-poems-letters, philosophy, coffee-table
review:

]]> The Lost Daughter 1058564
But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family.]]> 140 Elena Ferrante 1933372427 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.70 2006 The Lost Daughter
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, cultural-italy, literature, contemporary-fiction, women-s-fiction, less-than-150pgs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Trouble with Goats and Sheep]]> 26141706
Mrs. Creasy is missing and The Avenue is alive with whispers. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly decide to take matters into their own hands.

And as the cul-de-sac starts giving up its secrets, the amateur detectives will find much more than they imagined…]]> 453 Joanna Cannon 000813216X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.71 2016 The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
author: Joanna Cannon
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Hunted (Jed Walker, #2) 24386055 When the hunters become the hunted, ex-CIA agent Jed Walker is the man you need. 'Jed Walker is right there in Reacher's rear-view mirror.' Lee Child

In 2011, Seal Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden. Now, four years later, someone is eliminating Team Six - one by one they are turning up dead. Jed Walker, ex-CIA, is an outsider back in the game. He's been chasing down a sinister group code-named Zodiac that the big guns - MI5, CIA, the Pentagon - have failed to eradicate. But as Walker follows the trail of bodies, uncovering secrets and making connections he's not supposed to make, he finds the answers are closer to home than he ever imagined.

Revenge is the obvious motive, but nothing is ever that simple in love or in war. Can Walker find who's responsible before the body count grows higher? Can he stop another terror attack before more innocent bystanders suffer? When the line between the good and the bad become blurred, when the hunters become the hunted, only one man can save us all. The Hunted is the second Jed Walker novel - a white-knuckled rollercoaster of action suspense.]]> 400 James Phelan 0733632335 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.94 2015 The Hunted (Jed Walker, #2)
author: James Phelan
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: to-read, aussie-author, spy, own-book, trr-for-review, hatchette, 2015-release, thriller, series, 2nd-in-series, espionage
review:

]]> The Cuckoo's Cry 58812022
He welcomes her in, and so begins a mystery set in unprecedented with the virus raging outside their home, the girl cannot be asked to leave, but what does he risk by having her stay?

As Don and the girl start to forge a bond, Don's adult daughter has her own suspicions about what the newcomer is after. But, unable to travel, how can she protect Don and discover if the girl really is who she claims to be?

'You won't put The Cuckoo's Cry down. It's an addictive, read-in-one-sitting book with some surprisingly tender moments, a compelling relationship between the two main protagonists, and an unexpected twist at the end.' Better Reading

Praise for Caroline

'Deft, dramatic and psychologically astute' Saturday Age

'Overington keeps you guessing until the last' Daily Telegraph

'Caroline Overington has an ability to home in on the darker, unsettling sides of life, seizing upon topics you might see headlining the news and spinning them into gripping page-turners.' Hannah Richell, Australian Women's Weekly]]> 0 Caroline Overington 1460713850 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.62 2020 The Cuckoo's Cry
author: Caroline Overington
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: to-read, aussie-author, 2022, novella, suspense, cultural-australia, own-kindle-book
review:

]]> Family Inheritance 25436447
Called to the bedside of their dying mother, three sisters reluctanly return to their childhood home in northern Minnesota. What should be a reunion of love and warmth is tainted by the ghosts of their childhood; their parents' farm is a place of painful memories.W

ith their mother slipping into a coma, the sisters are left with the troubles of their current lives and the bitterness of their childhood. But as they begin to reconnect, bond, and see themselves through each other's eyes,together they tread through the wreckage of the past to create lives filled with hope, love, and triumph.]]> 292 Terri Ann Leidich 1939371392 Jülie ☼♄ � 4 Three sisters, are brought together when their mother is admitted to hospital in a diabetic coma.
After an absence of many years the women struggle to make peace, not just with each other, but also with their [comatose] mother, each one believing she was negligent in her duty of care to them as children.
They blame each other for desertion and lack of solidarity, never realising that they had each suffered their own private traumas.

Unbeknownst to each other, each of the sisters, emotionally scarred in their own way had decided it would be better to live far away, without acknowledging family, because to do so would mean facing their respective demons...something just too hard to contemplate.
So they cut all ties and walked away as they came of age, each one feeling justified in believing that they were betrayed by the other, and by the parents who were meant to protect them.

For two of the sisters, their independent lives become far removed from the reality of their upbringing and they make good of their lives....though they are never completely able to keep the demons at bay and are each affected and tormented in different ways.

We follow the lives of the three adult sisters as they struggle to make independent lives for themselves, encumbered as they are with the permanent and debilitating scars of their past.
This is a very thought provoking and often difficult book to read because of its emotive and confronting subject material. Several serious issues are brought to light and looked at in some depth.
The topics covered include child abuse, sexual abuse, mental and physical abuse, obesity, death, alcoholism and not least, incest.
It shows how diverse and far reaching, even cyclic, are the effects and consequences of childhood abuse.
I think this book could prove cathartic for some who might identify with any of these issues, or anyone wishing to understand how these things can and do happen.
It is very easy to read in spite of the subjects covered, and offers some very sound psychological insight.

4ȴ
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for my copy to read and review.]]> 3.85 2014 Family Inheritance
author: Terri Ann Leidich
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2015/04/26
date added: 2024/07/30
shelves: family-saga, inheritance, sisters, netgalley-early-reads, kindle-netgalley, child-abuse, substance-abuse, emotional
review:
Estranged from each other and their parents from the time they were old enough to leave home, because of unexpressed and unresolved childhood abuses of varying degrees...
Three sisters, are brought together when their mother is admitted to hospital in a diabetic coma.
After an absence of many years the women struggle to make peace, not just with each other, but also with their [comatose] mother, each one believing she was negligent in her duty of care to them as children.
They blame each other for desertion and lack of solidarity, never realising that they had each suffered their own private traumas.

Unbeknownst to each other, each of the sisters, emotionally scarred in their own way had decided it would be better to live far away, without acknowledging family, because to do so would mean facing their respective demons...something just too hard to contemplate.
So they cut all ties and walked away as they came of age, each one feeling justified in believing that they were betrayed by the other, and by the parents who were meant to protect them.

For two of the sisters, their independent lives become far removed from the reality of their upbringing and they make good of their lives....though they are never completely able to keep the demons at bay and are each affected and tormented in different ways.

We follow the lives of the three adult sisters as they struggle to make independent lives for themselves, encumbered as they are with the permanent and debilitating scars of their past.
This is a very thought provoking and often difficult book to read because of its emotive and confronting subject material. Several serious issues are brought to light and looked at in some depth.
The topics covered include child abuse, sexual abuse, mental and physical abuse, obesity, death, alcoholism and not least, incest.
It shows how diverse and far reaching, even cyclic, are the effects and consequences of childhood abuse.
I think this book could prove cathartic for some who might identify with any of these issues, or anyone wishing to understand how these things can and do happen.
It is very easy to read in spite of the subjects covered, and offers some very sound psychological insight.

4ȴ
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for my copy to read and review.
]]> Return to Moondilla 24478947
Far from being able to concentrate on his novel, though, Baxter is drawn into an investigation into a local drug dealing ring that puts his life in danger. He's also the subject of attention of numerous single women in Moondilla, including the local doctor he once had a crush on, Julie Rankin.

After an attempt on his life, Baxter is hugely relieved when the drug ring is broken open. Finally able to finish his novel, he's elated by its success and also finds himself in love...

With Return to Moondilla, popular Australian author, Tony Parsons, has written another action-packed novel combining a rural setting with a crime subplot and some romance.]]> 304 Tony Parsons 1760111465 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.20 Return to Moondilla
author: Tony Parsons
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Certain Admissions: A Beach, a Body and a Lifetime of Secrets]]> 25735021 Certain Admissions is Australian true crime at its best, and stranger than any crime fiction. It is real-life police procedural, courtroom drama, family saga, investigative journalism, social history, archival treasure hunt - a meditation, too, on how the past shapes the present, and the present the past. On a warm evening in December 1949, two young people met by chance under the clocks at Flinders Street railway station. They decided to have a night on the town. The next morning, one of them, twenty-year-old typist Beth Williams, was found dead on Albert Park Beach. When police arrested the other, Australia was twenty-four-year-old John Bryan Kerr was a son of the establishment, a suave and handsome commercial radio star educated at Scotch College, and Harold Holt's next-door neighbour in Toorak. Police said he had confessed. Kerr denied it steadfastly. There were three dramatic trials attended by enormous crowds, a relentless public campaign proclaiming his innocence involving the first editorials against capital punishment in Australia. For more than a decade Kerr was a Pentridge celebrity, a poster boy for rehabilitation � a fame that burdened him the rest of his life. Then, shortly after his death, another man confessed to having murdered Williams. But could he be believed? 'A work of true detection that not only compels belief in its every detail but has the breathtaking suspense of that very weird and rare for of crime writing that has the truth of a work of art.' Weekend Australian 'Haigh's work is a mesmerising detective story itself . . . [it] finds a new twist in the archives.' The Saturday Paper'A beautifully written, tirelessly researched and ultimately very compelling and true story . . . Fascinating and tragic.' Herald Sun 'The trial of John Bryan Kerr was the first murder trial that I read about in detail, as a boy of eleven. I longed, even then, to know the whole story. Gideon Haigh's book has made the wait worthwhile.' Gerald Murnane 'In carefully and curiously lifting from the shadow the story of a lost girl and a troubled man, Haigh explores a writer's true the space between what is, and what might be.' Sonya Hartnett 'Gideon Haigh understands the real tragedy of murder - it is never really solved.' P. M. Newton]]> 444 Gideon Haigh 1743485956 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.48 2015 Certain Admissions: A Beach, a Body and a Lifetime of Secrets
author: Gideon Haigh
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, aussie-author, aussie-crime-non-fiction, 2015-release
review:

]]> The Woman in the Green Dress 41864599 Remarkable Creatures, The Naturalist's Daughter and The Birdman's Wife comes The Woman in the Green Dress... 1853 Mogo Creek, NSW

Della Atterton, bereft at the loss of her parents, is holed up in the place she loves the beautiful Hawkesbury in New South Wales. Happiest following the trade her father taught her, taxidermy, Della has no wish to return to Sydney. But the unexpected arrival of Captain Stefan von Richter on a quest to retrieve what could be Australia's first opal, precipitates Della's return to Sydney and her Curio Shop of Wonders, where she discovers her enigmatic aunt, Cordelia, is selling more than curiosities to collectors. Strange things are afoot and Della, a fly in a spider's web, is caught up in events with unimaginable consequences...

1919 Sydney, NSW

When London teashop waitress Fleur Richards inherits land and wealth in Australia from her husband, Hugh, killed in the war, she wants nothing to do with it. After all, accepting it will mean Hugh really is dead. But Hugh's lawyer is insistent, and so she finds herself ensconced in the Berkeley Hotel on Hunter St, Sydney, the reluctant owner of a Hawkesbury property and an old curio shop, now desolate and boarded up.

As the real story of her inheritance unravels, Fleur finds herself in the company of a damaged returned soldier Kip, holding a thread that takes her deep into the past, a thread that could unravel a mystery surrounding an opal and a woman in a green dress; a green that is the colour of envy, the colour buried deep within an opal, the colour of poison...
]]> 310 Tea Cooper 1489270698 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.77 2018 The Woman in the Green Dress
author: Tea Cooper
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Murder in Punch Lane 209362643 Melbourne, 1868. When dazzling theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, fellow actress Lola Sanchez, everyone believes it was suicide by laudanum overdose. Everyone except Lola. On the brink of stardom herself, she risks everything by embarking on a quest to find Marie's killer.

When journalist Magnus Scott, writing as 'the Walking Gentleman', publishes a compassionate obituary about her friend, Lola decides to seek his help. A fraught attraction develops between these two amateur detectives from opposite sides of society, and their volatile relationship soon begins to compromise their investigation.

Lola keeps a secret from Magnus. She traverses the corrupt underbelly of the brash young metropolis just as he does, but disguised as a boy, entering dangerous, forbidden spaces where the lives of the rich and privileged intersect with the city's underclass and bohemians, theatre folk, prostitutes, down-and-outs and opium addicts.

Neither are prepared for the truths they will uncover about the powers that rule Melbourne - or the consequences for their own lives. And now they must race to find the murderer before the city destroys them both.]]> 368 Jane Sullivan 1760688991 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 to-read 3.25 2024 Murder in Punch Lane
author: Jane Sullivan
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Green Dot 183470027
Hera Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air-conditioned newsroom by day and kicking around Sydney with her two best friends by night. Instead of money or stability, she has so far accrued one ex-girlfriend, several hundred hangovers and a dog-eared novel collection.

While everyone around her seems to have slipped effortlessly into adulthood, Hera has spent the years since school caught between feeling that she is purposefully rejecting traditional markers of success to forge a life of her own and wondering if she's actually just being left behind. Then she meets Arthur, an older, married colleague. Intoxicated by the promise of ordinary happiness he represents, Hera falls headlong into a workplace romance that everyone, including her, knows is doomed to fail.

With her daringly specific and intimate voice, Madeleine Gray has created an irresistible and messy love story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing; about the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century; and about the winding, torturous and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.


'I felt so much joy reading this utterly assured writing. Green Dot is written with such poise, such confidence, I could not look away. I was mesmerised by its sheer brilliance.' –Jessie Tu, author of A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing

'I am obsessed with this book. I am obsessed with Hera, with her dad, her friends, her dog. I am obsessed with how funny she is, and how hopeful and dark and tender and bleak the world is through her eyes. Green Dot is a book about love, and how stupid and funny and absolutely beautiful life can be. I would read it forever if I could.' –Laura McPhee-Browne, author of Cherry Beach

'Laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully, brutally relatable - Green Dot is a book that will stay with me for a very long time.' –Ewa Ramsey, author of The Morbids

'Incredibly funny and a bit too real. This debut novel captures the zeitgeist.' –Brigid Delaney, author of Reasons Not to Worry and Wellmania]]> 320 Madeleine Gray 1761187724 Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.81 2024 Green Dot
author: Madeleine Gray
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves: to-read, own-book, 2023-release, aussie-author
review:

]]> Anam 123025358 look after the children? A love story? Or a ghost story � a mystery to be solved?

Moving from 1930s Hanoi through a series of never-ending wars and displacements to Saigon, Paris, Melbourne and Cambridge, Anam is a novel about memory and inheritance, colonialism and belonging, home and exile.

Anam blends fiction and essay, theory and everyday life to imagine that which has been repressed, left out, and forgotten. The grandson mines his family and personal stories to turn over ideas that resonate with all of us around place and home, legacy and expectation, ambition and sacrifice. As he sifts through letters, photographs, government documents and memories, he has his own family to think about: a partner and an infant daughter. Is there a way to remember the past that creates a future for them? Or does coming home always involve a certain amount of forgetting?]]> 352 Andre Dao 176014620X Jülie ☼♄ � 0 3.64 2023 Anam
author: Andre Dao
name: Jülie ☼♄ �
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/21
shelves: to-read, own-kindle-book, awards, aussie-author, vietnam
review:

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