Our beautifully smiling (and well-read!) team at Eastland QBD have stolen the spotlight this week with their fabulous reviews!
KINGLAKE -350 by Adrian Hyland:
This is a book that I think all Australians should read. It chronicles the day of Australia’s worst ever bushfire disaster- Black Saturday, 7th February 2009.
It’s a narrative woven around the actual Victorian Police dispatch calls between Sgt. Roger Wood, the only cop on duty in Kinglake that day, and VicPol communications. Much more is covered than the catastrophic fire; it’s about the people, the communities, the science of fire, and how much of a bitch Mother Nature can be!
I read this in one setting when first released and it has since been passed through my family, including many CFA volunteers, and we all agree it is a very powerful book.
For city born Aussies, this should be an eye-opener; for their rural cousins, this is the facts of life.
But everyone should realise that in emergencies, the CFA and Victoria Police are rightfully our heroes. – Susan (Store Manager)
Corinna Chapman 01: Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood:
Hello favourite new series!!! I am so happily surprised that I loved this book!
Corinna Chapman is such an awesome protagonist. I don’t think I’ve ever read a voice like hers. She is at once fiercely independent, passionate and strong; yet she can also be vulnerable, sympathetic and absolutely freaking hilarious.
The baker turned reluctant investigator is a happily fat woman just letting life happen after a messy but amicable divorce when a junky overdoses on her hot air grate. Then a whole world of trouble erupts around her.
She meets a mysterious stranger, who may be entirely gorgeous, employs an apprentice, is accused of being a scarlet woman and the whore of Babylon and she simply takes it all in stride until the neat Agatha Christie ending.
There are of course, soup vans, witches, earth children, vampires, goths, missing molestation victims, blackmail, riding crops, sex on tape and staunch police officers in between. Let your imagination do with that what it will… Or just read the book, because it’s awesome and you’ll love it.
I guarantee laughs, sympathy, cringing and fluffy love type feelings. All the good things. Contemporary semi-erotic mystery is probably the best way to classify this, I loved it!- Sam (Assistant Manager)
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead:
When I first found these books, I borrowed them off my friend and she had to nag me for months to give them back. I bought the whole set one Christmas and they sit together on my bookshelf. I always return to these books and the more times I read them the better they get! Mead has invented the best set of characters that all have personalities that you could relate to, they sucked me in and while reading I had the feeling of being part of the gang. The books follow Rose as she falls in love, saves her friends countless times and learns that life’s answers aren’t always black and white. The well constructed plot lines that follow Rose and her friends are unpredictable and keep you gripped for more. – Darci
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom:
Although the book has been given somewhat mixed reviews over the years, I’m of the opinion that it’s fabulous.
We read about Morrie (College Professor) a man slowly dying from Lou Gehrigs Disease, who is being interviewed (on Tuesdays) by his former college student Mitch Albom.
Morrie gives Mitch insight & advice about how we need to take a good look at ourselves & the world around us by being grateful for the things we already have in our lives. He explains how daily woes (family, financial, career, health etc.) can often get us down and he tries to remind us not to let the days just slip by, by being jealous or bitter towards others in our life and to focus more on appreciating the things/people we do have & to make each day count.
Although this is ultimately a sad & at times tearful memoir, I loved Morrie’s wisdom and simple attitude, reminding us that it’s not about “keeping up with the Jones’s” and just how easy it can be to be “happy” in life. – Tracey
Temptation by K. M. Golland:
Alexis Summers is happily married and a mother of two gorgeous children. She’s been a stay-at-home mum for nine years now, but it’s time for a change.
Starting a new job with a prestigious hotel, she’s excited about her new career. Her boss, the hotel’s owner Bryce Clark, is rich, gorgeous, funny, single and, as Alexis quickly learns, a genuinely nice guy looking for his one true love.
He is also a man who always gets what he wants. And what he wants is Alexis.
Temptation is one of the most true to life books I’ve ever read. I really appreciated the setting because it is set in the place I know best, my hometown Melbourne and it really does show what living in Melbourne is all about.
A great holiday read, I took this book with me on a cruise and finished it in 2 days and was desperate for the next book, I was so engrossed in the story I needed to know what happened next! And do you know how hard it is to find a good Australian book in America? Not your typical romance novel, the plot doesn’t just centre around the love affair, it moves through all the little things in life just as well as the steamy forbidden love things! – Nicole
The Lost Kings by Bruno Hare:
From the moment a notorious criminal collapses dead in Cyril King’s cosy watch shop with a key to finding a lost treasure halfway around the world; Cyril finds himself selling his collection of rare timepieces in order to travel halfway across the globe to the far reaches of the British Empire. As he travels north through the technicolour world of India towards his prize he comes across many characters as different and as unpredictable as the country around him. One of these characters is Sir Paul Linley-Small, a real life adventurer, a full time rogue and occasional cut-throat. They soon develop a fast friendship, that will have its limits tested. As well as Cyril’s own recollection of the events in his journals, the story is brilliantly entwined with Sir Paul Linley-Small’s account of one of his later adventures. The Lost Kings combines everything you could want in an adventure, the kind you don’t really come across anymore especially with the unique writing two entwined stories. An excellent read for lovers of Indiana Jones and alien worlds a little closer to home. – Braydon
