Category Archives: Book reviews

Book Review: The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall

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A dystopian Australia affected by climate change, where everyone is microchipped for their own safety is the setting and is not as farfetched as you might think.

Mim, a geologist with two young children is advised by The Department that her engineer husband Ben who works at a mine on an Indonesian island has gone missing. Is he actually missing or is that he can’t be tracked? The Department controls everything and tells her to remain at her house asking her to surrender the family’s passports. She passively agrees at first until her own attempts to get hold of Ben by phone fail, she begins to question what’s happened. She’s insecure and vulnerable without Ben. With no answers and struggling to cope with her two young children, Mim heads off on a ten-hour drive to her mother’s house where she realises the growing danger. This then sets her on a perilous path to find Ben no matter the cost.

This is a gripping read. More than once I winced at what Mim was about to do wishing she wouldn’t but cheering her on nonetheless. The role as a mother was beautifully done with all the anxieties and insecurities attached. It’s a difficult choice to drag your kids out of their environment on what is anything other than a wild goose chase across a hostile environment of land and sea in a search for the man she loves and depends on. Yet with the threat that her children could be taken from her by The Department, the choice is obvious.

I wondered about her family. Her brother has the controlling interest in the family farm and his hostile reaction to Mim wasn’t clear as earlier family conflict is only a hint. What we do know is that Mim is reacting to the perceived threat, doesn’t have time to think through what she has to do, makes mistakes along the way and puts herself and her children in danger. Yet she faces it with a bravery she has barely time to consider in her single-minded pursuit to protect her children and get to Ben.

As the journey progresses, her love for Ben is thrown into question when she meets Nick, her first love and even more so when she discovers what Ben has actually done. I wasn’t entirely convinced about Nick’s motivations and her relationship with him – was it more than the money she offered?

The Motherfault is a satisfying and thrilling story well written. Is Ben a hero or not? Does Mim manage to protect her children and survive? You’ll have to read it and find out.

Book Review: The Survivors by Jane Harper

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Here we go again. Another great book to read by Jane Harper who doesn’t seem to put a foot wrong when it comes to crime fiction. The Survivors is her fourth novel and doesn’t disappoint.

Now for some background.

Kieran Harper returns to his childhood home in a seaside village on the coast of Tasmania to visit his parents with his partner (who had once lived there) and their young baby. But coming home dredges up painful memories of survivor guilt when his brother and friend died trying to save him during a once in a lifetime storm more than twelve years earlier. When a young waitress from Canberra is found dead on the beach it dredges up long held secrets and questions and the finger pointing by the locals begins.

As with Jane Harper’s previous novels, she has you guessing who the murderer might be and again I had many theories, none of them correct. The first half of the book was a little slow but the second half ramped up so much I couldn’t put it down.

The setting was wonderfully descriptive of the Tasmanian rugged coast, the caves and the ship wreck. The characterisation of Kieran was well developed and little baby, Audrey almost steals the show.

This is a well written book evocative and full of mystery around the events of twelve years earlier and on the beach in present day. Are they connected or is it another red herring? You’ll have to read and find out for yourself.

Book Review: The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth

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Do we ever really know what goes on behind our neighbours doors? It’s an intriguing question and one which I’ve often thought about.

This story centres on four women who live in suburban Sandringham in Melbourne, a suburb I know well. They live in a court and Fran and Essie have similar aged children, while Angie has two older boys. They aren’t particularly close but when the single Isabelle moves in, things start to get interesting.

There are many secrets and the first half of the book concentrates on understanding these women and their stories. Then things move into the next gear fairly rapidly and the second half of the book is a nail biter with an unexpected twist. Which is just as well as I was beginning to lose interest in these women.

They almost seemed very similar and to be honest quite bland with little to differentiate from each other and I think that’s why I was beginning to lose interest.

I’m glad I persevered though because the second half was well paced and kept me completely interested so much so that I kept reading until the end.

Another Sally Hepworth book to consider although not quite as good as The Mother-in-Law, nevertheless an easy one to read.

Book Review: A Room Full of Leaves by Kate Grenville

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Oh, what a story Kate Grenville has put together.

I’d read about Elizabeth Macarthur in the incredible non-fiction work by Michelle Scott Tucker (see my earlier review https://sckarakaltsas.com/2020/05/22/book-review-elizabeth-macarthur-a-life-at-the-edge-of-the-world-by-michelle-scott-tucker/ ) where she brought Elizabeth out from behind her famous husband John Macarthur. And it was a glimpse behind the façade of a woman who perhaps should have been given more credit for Australia riding on the back of sheep instead of her notorious husband.

In this book, we are asked to imagine that Elizabeth has kept a secret memoir from her time before she comes to Australia on the second fleet. It conveys her inner most thoughts and feelings and Kate Grenville brings us a story of what might have really been going on in this famous marriage. It’s fascinating.

Grenville as always, beautifully captured the colonial settlement, the struggles and deprivations from Elizabeth’s point of view. Importantly it also gave a voice to how women had to carefully navigate their lives around who they should marry. One wrong decision meant the difference between happiness and sadness, poverty or respectability. In Elizabeth’s case she made the wrong choice in marrying a man like John yet the conclusion that she would have made the best of it is entirely believable.

It’s an easy read and beautifully written and I couldn’t get enough of it. Then the last few pages drew her story to an abrupt close and I wondered why the rest of her life couldn’t have been explored like I wanted it to. It would have made for a huge volume of pages, that’s true, but perhaps the author felt that she had explored the more important parts of her life. We don’t get to see how Elizabeth managed the farm and brought about prosperity for her and her family. After the birth of her third child, the rest of her pregnancies are summed up in barely a sentence. Perhaps had I not read the comprehensive work of Tucker I may not felt a little cheated. Or perhaps I’m just greedy for more.

Highly entertaining and if you read this book then I’d suggest following it up with Michelle Scott Tucker’s work.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

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I’ve read Normal People and had heard that Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations with Friends was even better. I wasn’t bowled over by Normal People although I like it well enough. See my earlier review. ( https://sckarakaltsas.com/2019/12/14/book-review-normal-people-by-sally-rooney/.)  But I was intrigued about this young author.

The story is about two friends who become caught up in the world of a married couple. Twenty-one-year-old student Frances is a highly intelligent aspiring writer. Together with her best friend Bobbi they perform spoken word poetry where they meet Melissa a journalist. They’re quickly drawn into Melissa’s well-to-do circle and are  invited to her home where they meet Nick, her handsome actor husband. Here Frances is faced with the dilemmas of class as well as the awkward challenges of her new and old relationships.

This is a beautifully written book, with no quotation marks, so beware. It’s not descriptive or flowery in its language and there is probably more tell than show. It seems almost simplistic in style yet is cleverly crafted.

Frances is a complex character who struggles to find her emotional self and almost appears aloof to everything that goes on around her. She is probably not the sort of person I would like yet I’d admired her intelligence and her ideals. I also felt for her in her relationship with Nick who seemed quite vacuous.

It’s not the sort of book I would normally read but I did enjoy it and thought it was better than Normal People.

Book Review: The Wife and The Widow by Christian White

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If you want a page-turning mystery, this one might just be for you.

This story set on a fictitious island off the Bellarine Peninsula and those of us from Melbourne will be familiar with some of the landmarks mentioned. It is told from two points of view, There is the widow, Kate whose husband is missing. When he fails to arrive home from an international conference, and is instead discovered dead on the island, Kate tries to navigate around her grief to find out what happened and instead unravels her husband’s secrets. The other point of view is the wife, Abby, a local who lives on the island and is forced to face the possibility that her husband could be a murderer.

The blurb itself is surely already intriguing enough to capture your interest and if you’ve read The Nowhere Child, you’ll understand that not all is what it seems. Indeed, I didn’t see the twist coming and when it came, I confess to scratching my head trying to work out what happened. It is quite brilliant.

Both female characters are well developed and the reader feels for them. The author weaves in themes of family, grief, and secrets and has us wondering how well one person can know another.

Give this whodunnit  a go.

Book Review: Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas

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I’d heard that this book was a difficult one to read. It’s actually easy to read but the content at times, is what is difficult.

This is the story of Saul, later known as Paul who wrote the gospels and was credited with helping to establish the Christian church we know today. As you’d imagine this is an ambitious work and the research would have been mountainous.

It opens in 35 AD with Saul, initially a non-believer of Jesus. On the road to Damascus, Saul is set upon by bandits and is severely injured. I had to read this section over as it wasn’t immediately clear what had happened.  There was no reference to meeting Jesus in this section yet it is apparent that this momentous occasion was relayed to his followers as being the catalyst for Saul’s change in faith. This was the first stumble for me and I reached for the internet to get greater clarity. Is the author indicating that it was just a knock on the head and the greatest moment of the ages could have been anything other than what the known story has hinged on? I wonder.

The book is divided into sections according to years and different characters point of view. Lydia’s story and her meeting with Paul was very interesting and the suppression and lives of women on every level was well told. I enjoyed the parts from Paul’s point of view which is given to us as a young man and then as an old one.

There’s a section about Timothy who is said to have been the scribe for Saul who was illiterate. The two are incredibly close. However, the narrative from Timothy’s point of view as an old man becomes quite repetitive and long-winded and seemed to slow down the pace of the story. Perhaps it’s just me but I found myself skipping these sections. We know that Timothy loves Paul and it’s reciprocated. Did they have a homosexual relationship? It’s insinuated and weaves its way through the book. Given that the author is gay, it makes for an interesting and believable interpretation.

What the author also does well is to put us right into the filth, the stench and violence of the times where poverty is rife and human life worth little. Some of it is hard to digest but the repetition of the images for me, became diluted as the story progressed. There is little light and shade despite the span of years covered. But Tsiolkas is a writer known for his raw and sometimes brutal portrayal of life and we’ve grown to expect that the language will be profane and the descriptions to be shocking.

Don’t be surprised if what you read isn’t what  you remember from Sunday school. I’d recommend this one with a caution. It’s probably not the best thing to read during a Covid-19 lock-down but if you’re interested in history after the death of Christ, then this is one to check out.