Reviewed by E.B. Heath I have never liked romantic fiction – so why did I find Veronica Henry’s The Forever House so very enjoyable? From the first page Veronica Henry makes the reader feel there! ‘There’ is the English Cotswold town of Peasebrook, where Belinda Baxter has established her own estate agency. Belinda has
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This was not her bedroom…The memories rushed back: Valentin, poison, her grandmother, the hospital, small gangster bears, muscled warmth around her, a bass heartbeat against her ear. Silver allowed the deluge to crash over her… (82) This is a pretty amazing story! It combines elements from the best that romance writing
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Heart of the Sky is a story about the Australian outback and the stoic women, disadvantaged by the great distance from treatment and support but not immune to the ravages of disease. Fiona McArthur, mother of five boys and a cricket fan, found inspiration for this book through Jane McGrath’s
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Kayte Nunn’s book Angel’s Share is a story which transports the reader from the competitive corporate world in London to the open-ness and beauty of a valley of vineyards in the Australian countryside with its ‘searing bright light and cloudless blue sky’. Matilda Cameron was a woman who directed million-pound
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Every now and again a book comes along that is different from the run of the mill yarn that crosses my desk with unfailing regularity. Pachyderm bubbles with the good humour of its creator. I mean if a character reports that he’s had his head up an elephant’s arse you’d want
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Dear Banjo is a love story set in the cattle country of Western Australia. But it is not just a boy meets girl – something goes wrong – they hate each other –and after several ups and downs they end up together. This is a story filled with human emotion. Willow
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Nora Roberts always produces a fine story with a neat balance between romance and suspense. Come Sundown belongs to the same stable but is more exploratory of the darkness of the mind of a psychopath. There is fun and laughter and love and mystery as one has come to expect, but
Reviewed by Ian Lipke It is tempting to damn a writer who dares to publish just the interesting bits of any classic piece of literature. One would have thought that Paradise Lost is a work beyond the savagery of the vandal’s pen, to gut Milton’s great work seems sacrilegious, something that is just not
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Les Twentyman and Robert Hillman, separately leaders in their respective fields, together have produced one of the great biographies of the twenty-first century. This is Les Twentyman’s own story – the unassuming hero of the down-and-outs whose lives are suddenly changed by the interjection of a down-to-earth personality into their weary
Reviewed by Dr Kathleen Huxley As a follow on from his successful book Do No Harm Henry Marsh, the author of ADMISSIONS: a life in brain surgery weaves his wealth of experiences and roles as a doctor, neurosurgeon and colleague as well as son, husband and father into a series of fascinating snapshots into
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders “It was the massacre of 180 Jews that brought me closer to my family” The last few days of the Second World War were congested with events that have become synonymous with human suffering and destruction. Gratuitous violence by retreating German troops, Adolf Hitler’s suicide, liberation of death camps and
Reviewed by Ian Lipke In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre we meet Edward Fairfax Rochester one January afternoon when his horse slips on ice and its rider is thrown. Rescued by the governess Jane Eyre, he becomes known for his brooding, taciturn manner while the story unfolds. In Mr Rochester, Sarah Shoemaker has given us
Reviewed by E. B. Heath An elderly deaf woman is alone on Dunk Island, North Queensland. It is 1923, her husband has just died, and she has no means of contacting the main land. She waits for three days before a passing boat comes to her aid. This is fact. The woman is Bertha Banfield,
Reviewed by E. B. Heath A building, the people who live in it, a society anxious about immigration and unemployment, and the over arching summer heat of Paris. Such are the elements of Fran Cooper’s first novel, These Dividing Walls, successfully fusing character study and commentary on current social problems in Europe. Fran Cooper
Reviewed by E. B. Heath New York Nights is reminiscent of a sexy fairy tale – with complications – a fun romantic comedy; it is the latest story in C.J. Duggan’s the ‘Heart of the City’ series. Now I was worried. From the moment Dr Liebenberg had spoken of helping with a ‘situation’ it