No Trace by Michael Trant

 

Gabe Ahern is back! Although No Trace is a follow-on from Wild Dogs, it still reads well as a stand alone. Gabe is a dogger, an eliminator of wild dogs which are the scourge of land owners in outback Western Australia.

Michael Trant is a brilliant writer and, if anything, No Trace is even better than Wild Dogs. Gabe is an unforgettable character, a true blue man of the bush who is nursing a broken heart, and probably suffering with PTSD from having been involved in a shocking incident in his recent past. He is also sure that someone involved in that incident will come looking for him; consequently, he is staying at a remote station and working for his friend, Cameron.

Michael Trant’s writing flows effortlessly, introducing new characters and making them all believable. He is, obviously, a keen observer of his fellow humans. As is usual in outback noir, the landscape plays an important part in the story and there is an absolutely nail biting denouement.

I highly recommend No Trace to lovers of character driven mystery/action fiction. We have a lot of very good writers in Australia, and Michael Trant is right up there with the best of them.

Published by Penguin Random House

The Shot by Naima Brown

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Thank you, Pan Macmillan for my review copy

The Shot is the story of a reality television program, the woman who devised the concept and the subject she chooses to participate in the program. That’s the basic outline.

I would like to say from the start that I believe Naima Brown is the new Fay Weldon. That’s how good she is. She goes deep into the backgrounds of her two main characters, Mara and Kristy, and finds what has brought them to this point in their lives where Mara is able to convince Kristy to participate in her ultimate makeover program.

The story is told from the separate points of view of Mara and Kristy and they line up well against each other. They are both from the town of Puerto Segura although Kristy is from the trailer park and Mara is from the Lagoon area, and in cultural terms it’s pretty much never the twain shall meet. Mara is more complicated than she first appears which becomes evident gradually; Kristy has a problem which has been holding her back and which she becomes aware of with Mara’s help. They are both fascinating studies into the causes and effects of where you’re born, who you’re born to and whom you meet along the way.

Shot is a brilliant work of creative, contemporary fiction and I can’t recommend it highly enough to lovers of good books.

Published by Pan Macmillan 

Aphrodite’s Breath by Susan Johnson

 

Aphrodite’s Breath is Susan Johnson’s memoir of taking her mother, Barbara, to live with her on the Greek island of Kythera. It is so relatable, so real, such a down to earth examination of a mother and daughter relationship that I kept putting myself in Susan’s shoes; that is, when I wasn’t putting myself in Barbara’s shoes! Like Susan, I have sons and no daughters and I’m wondering now if I would have had a better understanding of my own mother if I had had a daughter of my own. This thoughtful book had me pondering all sorts of questions.

This was one time I was pleased to be reading a physical book rather than my Kindle. There are a lot of pages I know I’m going to want to reread and I’ve even photographed sections so I’ll know where to find them. I would like to quote some sentences here but I wouldn’t know where to stop and I don’t want to spoil the experience of finding them for other readers,

I looked up Kythera and it looks like a beautiful holiday destination; however, Susan and her mother found the changes the off season brought to the island showed a different side to the island. Susan wanted an authentic experience, having visited Kythera as a young girl and wondering what life would be like there, including making friends and taking part in local happenings;  however, Barbara, at 86, found it hard to be away from the comforts and familiarities of home in Brisbane.

This is just an aside: I was reminded of Charmian Clift and George Johnston and their life on Hydra while reading Aphrodite’s Tears. I recently lost all of my books in a flood, including a brilliant biography of Charmian Clift and a copy of her book, Peel Me a Lotus. I must try to find replacements.

But I digress:  Susan Johnson’s honest self-appraisals are moving and open and I felt at times she was holding up a mirror for me to look into! The island of Kythera was as much a character here as Susan and her dear mother. The island’s history and its inhabitants all add to the joy of reading this engrossing book.

Published by Allen & Unwin

House of Hearts by Amber Jakemanin Euro

 

 

Dr Lisa Bakker is a group counsellor and diversion therapist working in a clinic in Las Vegas. Will Huntley, so-called ‘bad boy’ of the Huntley family, has been frittering away the money paid to him to seek out new suppliers in Europe and America for the family business, House of Diamonds in Bondi, but in reality living it up on the Riviera and losing heavily gambling in casinos. His mother has been subsidising his lifestyle as well from her home in France but when he  ends up sleeping on the streets in Las Vegas she books him into the Peters Clinic and makes him promise to sort himself out.

Addiction to gambling is treated seriously in this charming book by Amber Jakeman. A love story is threaded through it as in the previous book in this series, House of Diamonds, but the principal characters are both coming to terms with serious past issues as well as falling in love. There are some interesting facts about how and why gambling becomes an addiction, as capable of destroying lives as any other addiction; and insights into individual counselling sessions as well as group therapy.

Boulder City, Las Vegas and the Nevada desert and mountains all play a part in shaping the development of the story of House of Hearts, which is not as light as the cover might suggest. I think the two books I have read in the series each deserve a slightly more serious cover. 

I look forward to following the saga of the Huntley family!

Rewriting Illness by Elizabeth Benedict

 

Elizabeth Benedict’s fascinating memoir traces the progression of her illness from a small, suspicious lump under her arm through to her various treatments. Elizabeth writes with wit and candour, and her conversational tone is wonderfully inviting. I’m sure I could have read it in one sitting but I felt like I was conversing with a friend and I had to keep stopping and putting in my two bobs’ worth! 

To me, as an Australian, a horrifying aspect of Elizabeth’s care was financial. She was personally responsible for the costs of her scans and chemotherapy and had to hope her particular insurance policy covered them. In Australia, whether insured or not, all such treatments would surely have been  provided for under our health care system. The last thing she needed was to worry about payment while coping with a serious illness.

Elizabeth quotes occasionally the late, wonderful Nora Ephron. What an inspiration Nora Ephron would have been for her. Of course, in writing about her illness Elizabeth touches on her personal life story. She has the perfect husband for her situation;  he is loving and caring but above all remains calm. She writes of her life as a writer, and touches on her travels and her past history, making me wish I had a friend like her!  It is hard to imagine how Elizabeth must have felt with this insidious intrusion into her happy life: she was working with graduating school students, helping prepare their college applications, she was about to start teaching a fiction writing workshop and, most importantly, she had “…found true love” after “…years of loneliness”.

The Australian writers, Susan Duncan and Pamela Bone, have both written about their encounters with cancer. It is such a brave, generous, unselfish thing to do; as well as promoting understanding to some extent of what they are experiencing, hopefully helping someone else who might be facing the same thing. 

Thank you, Elizabeth Benedict, for sharing your inspirational story. I wish you, James and Emily many more happy, loving years.

Published by Mandel Vilar Press