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Caroline qualified as a barrister in London before running a diverse range of businesses including women’s fashions, management consultancy, manufacturing and mentoring. She now works as a freelance writer based in Western Australia.
This is a terrific first novel by Kathryn Ledson that women everywhere are going to find hard not to love. ROUGH DIAMOND has all the ingredients for an irresistibly entertaining read...a likeable heroine who helps save Melbourne and Sydney from terror attacks whilst caring for her demanding cat, shopping for clothes and shoes as well as emotionally ridding herself of her troublesome ex-husband! All this takes place under the auspices of the … [Read more...]
This second collection of short stories by Susan Midalia is perspicacious, pertinent and irresistibly entertaining. There are seventeen stories capturing an everyday moment or event, each inspiring a greater consciousness and consideration of other people and their feelings. The charm of Midalia's short stories is that the glimpse they provide into ordinary people's lives make them universally applicable and so extraordinarily moving. As the … [Read more...]
In her first book, “The Lucy Family Alphabet”, comedian Judith Lucy deals with the outstanding issues that she had with her parents. In this one, she chronicles her descent into alcohol-fuelled despair where she loses control of her life. This is a period of hazy blackouts and wasted opportunities that comprise the lost years of her youth. Even in this day and age, it is still difficult enough to be a woman in many professions, let … [Read more...]
The Golden Land by Di Morrissey interweaves the beauty and troubled political turmoil of Burma, its culture and people, with the life of Natalie living on the Gold Coast in Queensland. This is a beautiful story of resolution and putting right the past to heal the present, of the role of women in rebuilding a devastated country and the richness of Australia's diverse society. The novel spans from the Burma of 1885, beginning with Natalie's … [Read more...]
People react in various ways to the diagnosis of a terminal illness. In this novel, Celeste and Nathalie are two very different half-sisters whose mother develops Motor Neurone Disease. Their mother is convinced that a miracle will cure her of this progressively incapacitating illness and plans a pilgrimage in the belief that she will be healed through doing so. Celeste, a doctor, is sceptical about the wisdom of allowing anyone as sick as … [Read more...]
This is undoubtedly a very fine novel, bearing witness to one of the most appallingly cruel periods of history in living memory. Authentic and crafted with language as delicate as woven gossamer, it is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a mother's love for her daughter. In the Shadow of the Banyan is a breathtaking novel of exquisite lyrical beauty, based on the author's own life and experience, as seen through the eyes of … [Read more...]
You Don't Want To Know by Lisa Jackson is a gripping mystery thriller that holds the reader's attention from the first page to the very last. The story centres around Ava Garrison, wealthy, supposedly mentally unstable, living on a private island surrounded by family and staff. Two years ago, her baby son disappeared and her mental disintegration began soon after. Hazy recollections plague Ava's present and she is desperate to find out … [Read more...]
The Unfinished Journals of Elizabeth D is a haunting story of bereavement, friendship and the pain of its loss, beautifully and skilfully told by Nichole Bernier. Sometimes women share an affinity, a support network with each other that men often find mystifying and difficult to understand. Kate and Elizabeth were such friends, enjoying a closeness that left a huge void in Kate's life when Elizabeth was killed in an air crash. Elizabeth's … [Read more...]
Bertie is the “Beloved” of the title. Set in the 1950's to early sixties, beginning in Melbourne, with interludes in Sydney and then moving on to Port Moresby, the novel follows Bertie's development from child to teenager. Aged six, she falls victim to polio which changes her future forever, the handicap and disfigurement affecting her young life profoundly. Her strong-willed mother is determined to ensure that Bertie will live a … [Read more...]
Tom Keneally has drawn an epic tribute to the enormous and often less-acknowledged contributions of women during World War I. In this, his latest novel, seen from the point of view of the nurses who coped with the resulting horrors of battle; no graphic detail is spared in the suffering endured, as well as witnessed, by them. We are swept from rural Victoria to Melbourne, Cairo, Sydney, London, Paris and Lemnos to the Dardanelles and the … [Read more...]
Depression is not a modern-day illness. It has existed as long as written history and probably for as long as humans were conscious of how they felt. Even from the time of Hippocrates, it was a recognised medical condition, one of the four “humours” of the human character. “Melancholia”, as it was described then, blighted the lives of many ancient Greeks. Likewise in Elizabethan England, the theatre-going public were aware of the … [Read more...]
This is the follow-up book to “The Art of Happiness”, written by the same author. Meditation is, according to this book, the “inner transformation through training the mind.” It is a challenging and daunting prospect. Meditation is a difficult discipline to master and practise effectively. The structured way in which Matthieu Ricard leads his readers, provides people wishing to embark on the art of meditation with a strong framework … [Read more...]
Most of us might see being happy as a matter of luck, chance, or situation, perhaps something that can be “found”. Happiness is often confused with pleasure, joy or being in love. The English language is so full of subtleties, there is a particular word for every nuance of any emotion. The unusual aspect of this book is that it advocates that happiness is something that everyone could learn to feel all the time. It provides the ways of … [Read more...]
Those with a strong arm and capacious handbag capable of carrying this weighty book will reap the rewards of an interesting read about the people who made Australia the wonderful country it is. This work is the follow-up to the first volume of “Australians” and introduces the reader to the faces of colonial society in the 1860's to the last decade of the colonial era, through Federation to the Great War. It is richly illustrated with … [Read more...]
[rating: 4] “Treasury” is an apt description of this wonderful collection of over 40 short stories. Each of the stories is a real gem, unique and beautiful. Some are as subtle as aquamarines, or dazzling with the bright fire of diamonds; a few perhaps glowing with the depth of rubies and others, gentle like pearls. All are told by a wonderfully gifted observer of lives, other people's lives, and told with humour, compassion and a sense of … [Read more...]
[rating: 4.5] This is an extremely well-crafted novel, one that will enthral and convert even the most reluctant of crime fiction readers. The arrival of an elderly American tourist in London mysteriously sets off a seemingly unconnected chain of events. What might have been mere self-indulgence in nostalgia, draws out past misdeeds to seriously threaten the present. Once the Pandora's box is opened, that Past unravels at breath-taking … [Read more...]
[rating: 4] Di Morrisey immerses the reader in the world of the Australian Outback: raw, powerful, harsh and supremely beautiful. Highly recommended. In the land of the Opal hunters, there is so much more than the eye can see and not just underground. Many who take refuge in the remote and lonely outposts of the desert seeking this elusive treasure, metaphorically seek other things in their lives as well: answers, escape and … [Read more...]
[rating: 4] An extraordinary family secret links a seemingly ordinary Australian family to an exotic plantation in Malaysia. This story spans three generations of political upheaval and change in what was then known as Malaya. It is a beautifully told story of one family's quest to find the truth about its past, how the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, deliberately suppressed, finally find their rightful place in the present. When a catalyst gives … [Read more...]
The novel by Australian author Liz Byrski is set against a diverse backdrop. There is the legacy of The Push movement in Sydney contrasted with a pilgrimage walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Throughout, there is the theme of the damaging, unhealthy expectations placed upon women by a culture of shallow, superficial advertising glorifying unrealistic ideals of beauty and body image. Unfolding within the presence of the pervasive … [Read more...]
Karen Gee became Mrs Australia Globe 2011 on the 18th September, the fifth woman to hold the title since the pageant began in 2007. “Mrs Australia Globe” places great importance on inner beauty, and supports two remarkable charities, Women In Need (W.I.N.) and Project Dovetail. Being “Mrs. Australia 2011” is accompanied by a great deal of responsibility for bringing attention and garnering support for both these charities. Karen's … [Read more...]
[rating: 4] I was captivated by Miranda Kennedy’s account of her time in India, her experiences as a “feringhee”- a foreigner, and more significantly, as a woman on her own, living the life of a local in Delhi. The window into the lives of the women who are an important part of her life there, reveal the limitations facing women in Indian society and how this limitation of mind, birth and opportunity ultimately determines their fate, if … [Read more...]
Get your 14-day Free Trial to Weight Watchers Online 2013 – no obligation, cancel at anytime! Sometimes with our busy lives it can be tricky to plan 30 minutes out of your day every week, or you might prefer to self-manage your weight-loss. So as an alternative to attending meetings, Weight Watchers offers you the option to follow the ProPoints Plan and the new Weight Watchers 360° Online. … [Read More...]