Each month, our fantastic “Channel 7 x QBD Book Club” hosts Victoria Carthew and Lee Carseldine discuss great books of all different genres – from wonderful children’s stories to insightful recipe books. This month, they reviewed our Fiction Book of the Month “The Caretaker” by Gabriel Bergmoser, “Against The Water” by Owen Wright, and MORE! To order our August picks and compare your opinion to theirs, head in-store or to the QBD Books website now.
Here are the fantastic titles we featured this month:
“The Caretaker” by Gabriel Bergmoser
On the run from a controlling husband and his underworld associates in Melbourne, Charlotte has adopted a new identity and found a job as an off-season caretaker in a tiny, deserted Alpine resort. However, there are dangerous people looking for her – so, she must lay low and remain in solitude. Although she tries to convince herself that she’s safe – that she got away – strange things are starting to happen around the resort. Soon, she begins to realise that every escape route is being sealed off one by one. This is a game of cat and mouse – with deadly consequences.
“Weekends With The Sunshine Gardening Society” by Sophie Green
Set in 1987’s Noosa Heads, this warm novel begins with newly divorced Cynthia as she returns home from Los Angeles to reconnect with her 19-year-old daughter. Cynthia’s former best friend, Lorraine, has been stuck mowing lawns as part of a business she shares with her husband – his dream, not hers. When Cynthia convinces Lorraine to join the local Sunshine Gardening Society, they meet young widow Elizabeth, and rootless, heartbroken Kathy. Together, the four women soon discover the society is much more than an opportunity to chat about flowers. Rather, it offers them the chance to lend a helping hand to people whose lives need a bit of care…
“The Great Race” by Aaron Noonan
Held on the world-famous Mount Panorama, the “Bathurst 1000” is undoubtedly Australia’s ‘Great Race’. From its beginnings in the 1960s as a 500-mile race for standard production cars, the “Bathurst 1000” has evolved into an annual multi-million-dollar battle between purpose-built, millimetre-perfect V8-powered Supercars. Now, Aaron Noonan takes us on a drive down memory lane, looking at the thrills, the spills, the legends, and the losers of the race’s history. This is an eye-opening account of how the circuit has evolved from a scenic tourist drive into a world-famous Mecca of motorsport – we highly recommend!
“Against The Water” by Owen Wright
On the morning of 10 December 2015, Australian surfer Owen Wright entered the Hawaiian water. It was the eve of an event that could have made him a world champion. However, after being pounded by a set of monstrous waves, he was fighting for his life with extensive brain trauma to come. In this inspirational memoir, Wright chronicles the events leading up to that fateful day, as well as the months and years that followed as he battled to regain, firstly, basic functioning, and eventually the capacity to compete again at the apex of surfing.
“Perfect-ish” by Jessica Seaborn
This heartfelt anti-romcom follows Prue. On the cusp of turning thirty, she feels like everyone else is living their best life. While her friends are consumed in exciting travel plans, romantic relationships, and newborn babies, Prue is struggling to recover from a failed engagement, an abandoned university degree, and a job that only seems to highlight how truly alone she feels. As she finds the courage to make real changes in her life, setting three (rather ambitious) goals to achieve before her milestone birthday, she soon realises that there’s a difference between seeming to have a perfect life and finding your own perfect-ish life.
