embrace

by Jessica Shirvington

Hachette Australia. Australian, fantasy, romance. Paperback RRP $24.99

Reviewer - Barbara Brown

Violet Eden is turning seventeen. Her best friend, Steph, is excited about Violet’s birthday but it’s hard for Violet to get too excited. Her mother had died in childbirth and it seems Violet and her dad will be forever constantly reminded of this day – both joyous and sad. The only good thing about the birthday dinner will be that Lincoln will be there - friend, trainer and mentor who just happens to be sexy and mature and Violet has the hots for him big time.

Before they go to dinner, her father gives Violet a gift from her mother - a box, an amulet, a poem and a letter that was written before Violet’s birth and her mother’s death. Did her mother know she was going to die? What does she mean “A big decision lies ahead … I love you. Please forgive me.”? She puts the precious gift away and goes out to enjoy her night with her father, her best friend and Lincoln. And at the end of the night Lincoln confirms what Violet has believed all along – they were meant for each other – with an earth moving kiss. But then he leaves her abruptly on her front doorstep.

Lincoln is Grigori, part human, part angel and Violet is his eternal partner. Then Phoenix arrives, an exiled angel who Violet can’t believe anyone could be any sexier and he doesn’t lie to her. Bliss is where he takes her, but is it where she should go?

embrace is a wonderful story that you should not be blindsided because it’s about angels. It is more about light and dark and a love triangle that I feel very jealous about! If you like fantasy, mind games and a bit of a sexy love story, then this is a book for you.

http://www.jessicashirvington.com/

Matched

by Ally Condie

Penguin. Futuristic, romance. Paperback RRP $19.95


Reviewed by Barbara Brown

Reading Matched I found myself comparing it to the 1970’s movie Logan’s Run. When we think of the future we think we will go forward or completely back to the dark ages. What happens when we do both?

Cassia is turning 17 and she will be matched to her life partner. Who will that person be? Will he be handsome? They should get on as they have been perfectly matched. But when Cassia stands at the Matching Banquet to see her match up on the screen, something goes wrong and the screen remains blank.

Normally matches live in different Provence’s or sections and have never met, however on very rare occasions some people do know their match. When Cassia finds out her match is her best friend and childhood playmate, Xander, she is relieved (she knows him like a brother) and happy (Xander is the most handsome boy and she will not have to move away from her family).

However when Cassia goes home to look at the statistics and personality of her match another’s face displays. Only briefly, but long enough that Cassia recognises the face, her neighbour Ky. The Officials acknowledge the error and ensure Cassia that all is well, her match is still Xander.

Cassia’s life is dictated by the Officials. Everyone wears the same clothes, eats the same food and there is no difference in anyone’s life. Jobs are designated to what your family does and how well they do it.

Now matched to Xander, Cassia has what others would say is a perfect life. Everything will be happy and she will, if she hasn’t already, fall in love with her perfect man. They will live a disease free existence and die knowingly and happily on their 80th birthday. Perfect.

Except Cassia starts to question the mistake shown to her and everything now doesn’t seem right. What if the other boy was the right one? What if it wasn’t a mistake? Can Cassia do something that no-one has done for hundreds of years – choose?

Matched is a book I picked up and read in less than 24 hours. My problem is I want more and luckily it is the first of a trilogy so I can expect to continue on with Cassia’s story, hopefully soon. This is one book I will reread again and soon. The second book Crossed will be released in November 2011 in the US.

http://www.allysoncondie.com/

Out for Blood

by Alyxandra Harvey

Bloomsbury. Fantasy, Romance, Crime, Young Adult. Paperback RRP $14.99

Reviewer - Barbara Brown


Hunter Wild is a teenage girl that attends a special school, the Helios-Ra Academy. This academy trains students on how to hunt and kill vampires. Hunter Wild is their star pupil and her grandfather, a famous vampire hunter, has high hopes for her. That is until she meets one of the famous Drake brothers, Quinn, and falls in love with him. The problem with Quinn is he is a vampire.

But the world is changing and vampires and humans are trying to help each other rid the world of the Hel-Blar, a factional vampire community who are hell bent in overcoming the Drakes and the vampires who side with them. They also like to kill for sport and fun – vampires included. Vampires are ruled by a matriarch who just happens to be Quinn’s mother and his sister, Solange, is next in line. The Drakes are trying to co-exist with humans but the Hel-Blar are trying hard to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Hunter is realising that the Drakes are good and without them the world will be even more dangerous. But when students start getting sick within the Helios-Ra Academy, there seems to be a darker force at work that is more evil than Hel-Blar. Can Hunter save her friends and herself?

Out for Blood is the third book in the Drake Chronicles but Harvey has written each book about a specific Drake. All three books can be read individually but the stories do intertwine together and give you some insider knowledge of the Drake family and their friends and enemies. As always there is a twist that you really don’t see coming at the end. Book four is due out later this year and I look forward to more of the Drake family.

The Reading Stack reviewed the first two Alyxandra Harvey’s books on the Drake family, My Love Lies Bleeding in February 2010 and Blood Feud in August 2010.

http://www.alyxandraharvey.com/
http://www.thedrakechronicles.com/

Campaign Ruby

by Jessica Rudd

The Text Publishing Company. Australian, Political, Romance. Paperback rrp $32.95

Reviewed by Barbara Brown

Ruby Stanhope is a British investment banker who gets sacked by email. She replies with an angry email that goes viral throughout the internet and the world of banking. Ruby finds that her life as an investment banker anywhere in the world may now be cut short thanks to her erroneous yet brilliant reply email.

Ruby goes home to drink a very nice bottle or three of Australian peanut noise and in her drunken state finds she has booked a ticket to Australia on a tourist visa in the search of the peanut noise and some quiet time.

Next thing Ruby finds herself in Australia with a job as a political adviser to the Leader of the Opposition (LOO), Max Masters. Everything Ruby does from the moment she clicked SEND, to the night of the Australian Federal Election and losing her boss’s Blackberry, is unbelievably funny. But everything happens for a reason. Whenever Ruby trips over her Louboutin-clad feet and lands smack into another problem, she picks herself up with as much decorum as one can, dusts herself off and gets on with the job in hand.

Max and his group of devoted employees find that Ruby can not only can get them out of some pretty hot problems but that she has a great Toolkit that has everything in it from shaver and shaving cream to double sided tape and shower in a can. She may just save the political career of Max Masters if she doesn’t stuff up her life in the meantime.

Ruby has a To-Do list that grows with each passing day and each day that list seems to make Ruby see what a wonderful life she has fallen into. Having trouble with the language, the fashion, the political stance and entrances/exits out of hotel rooms and bathrooms, Ruby spends an incredible month travelling around Australia, seeing the people but never seeing the places. Life on the campaign trail isn’t easy.

Campaign Ruby is a funny but great read and brings the humorous side to life of a politician and his/her road to becoming/or losing Prime Minister of Australia without making it trivial.

Blood Feud

by Alyxandra Harvey

Allen and Unwin. Fantasy, Romance, Crime, Young Adult. Paperback rrp $14.99

Isabeau St Croix was born to aristocracy in France at the wrong time. At the age of sixteen, she watches both parents beheaded and is forced to hide her true identity. After a year living on the streets of Paris she finds her way to safety, the home of her uncle in London.

Now eighteen, Isabeau has her whole life ahead of her until she meets Lord Greyhaven. One bite and she is left to be buried for 200 years until the Hounds release her from her comatose existence in a London cemetery.

Isabeau is a Hound too, not quite as mad as the Hel-Blar (uncontrollable and crazy vampires). Vampires believe the Hounds are not civilised and live like dogs. But when Isabeau and Logan Drake (son of the reigning Queen of the Vampires) meet, their lives are destined to be intertwined. Isabeau has already saved Solange, Logan’s only sister, from Montmartre, a rogue vampire who wants to kill the Queen and join with Solange to become ruler of the Vampires.

Can these two factions of vampires, unite and beat Montmarte and his army of Hel-Blar? Will Isabeau confront her killer Greyhaven?

The French Revolution and modern day vampire feuds. For fans of the Drake Chronicles you will not be disappointed in this sequel to My Love Lies Bleeding. This is one book that I couldn’t put down until the end.

The Reading Stack reviewed the first book in the Drake Chronicles, My Love Lies Bleeding in February 2010. Out for Blood is the third and final book and will be available November 2010.

http://www.alyxandraharvey.com/
http://www.thedrakechronicles.com/

The Poison Diaries

by Maryrose Wood
Based on a concept by the Duchess of Northumberland

Harper Collins Publishers. History, Mystery, Crime, Fantasy, Romance. Paperback rrp $19.99


Reviewed by Barbara Brown

Jessamine Luxton’s father, Thomas, is an apothecary in 18th century England. He is renowned throughout the area, so famous that the local Duke of Alnwick Castle has given him Hulne Abbey to live rent free so long as he tends the locals with their ailments. But Thomas Luxton couldn’t save his own wife and when the time comes he will not be able to save Jessamine.

Thomas agrees to employ Weed, an orphan boy who was working in a mental institution until his ‘special tea’ interfered with business by appearing to cure patients. Weed seems to know a lot more about the healing powers of plants than Thomas does. Could Weed assist Thomas with his desire to know all about the good and evil of plants? But Weed is a strange lad who doesn’t speak and likes to stay underground and in the dark.

With Jessamine’s help and patience, Weed changes and opens his heart and mind. Soon a love develops between the two and that is when the plants from the poisonous garden Thomas Luxton has locked away, begin to wield their magic.

Jessamine is betrothed to Weed but on her engagement night she becomes ill and Thomas and Weed have no idea how to save her. Weed is drawn to the poisonous garden and sets on a quest to save his beloved.

Weed has a special knowledge of plants and seems to be able to talk to them – or do they talk to him? What would it be like to be able to talk to the plants and flowers? The Poison Diaries is a tale of mystery, intrigue and magic with a plot that takes Weed, Jessamine and Thomas on a journey into their own hidden agendas. A wonderful story that will make you look at nature differently.

http://www.maryrosewood.com/

The Duchess of Northumberland lives in the real Alnwick Castle (also used as the set for Hogwarts Castle from the Harry Potter movies) and tends her own garden including the Poison Garden. You can view both the castle and the garden at these web sites http://www.alnwickcastle.com/ and http://www.alnwickgarden.com/.

Fatal Tango

by Wolfram Fleischhauer

Pan Macmillan Australia. Mystery, Romance, History. Paperback rrp $32.99

Set across two countries, Germany and Argentina, Fatal Tango is the story of lovers who try to defy their births and their history, to be together.

Giulietta Battin is a ballerina in the corps of the Berlin Opera Company. Damian Alsina is an Argentinian tango extraordinaire who is touring Germany. Giulietta is preparing herself for a new piece Tango Suite and wants to learn more about the dance of the tango and its music. Two people, different worlds, destined to collide.

Their passionate affair awakens Giulietta to the wonderful world of the tango and a man she has completely fallen in love with. But her dominating father is not happy and when Giulietta arrives home to her flat to find her father bound and gagged and Damian gone, she is devastated.

Desperate to find Damien, Giulietta takes flight to Argentina but what she discovers is a country lost and in despair.

Everyone Giulietta meets warns her to stay away from Damian or el loco (crazy), as the locals call him, but she knows there is something important in his unusual dance style and has started to interpret what he has been trying to say through dance.

Fatal Tango is about the tango, attraction and the political history of a country run by a cruel dictatorship. A fantastic story.

http://www.wolfram-fleischhauer.com/

The boy/friend

Girlfriend fiction 19

by R M Corbet

Allen and Unwin. Australian, Young Adult, Romance. Paperback rrp $14.99


Two teenagers living in the same street their whole life. Boy and girl. Best friends. One a punk rocker named after Louis Armstrong, the other, smart and intelligent and transferring to an all-girl school after winning a scholarship. What happens when both kids see each other as more than just friends?

Maude and Lou have been friends since childhood. They have their own secret spot down by the river, they built their own tree house together but now they are older and their lives are diverging in different directions. Neither can see the friendship as it was.

Eventually Lou makes the brave move of asking Maude to the movies.

‘Tonight?’
‘You got a problem with that?’
‘No. Except that it’s Friday and …’
‘And what?’
‘It sounds like you’re asking me out.’
‘I am asking you out.’
‘It sounds like you’re asking me out on a date.’
‘It’s not a date. It’s a movie.’

And so the friendship starts to unravel. Jealousy, dances, a new band, a few hairy bikies, another boy or two, another girl or two, a lot of junk – how will these two ever get together now!

A light hearted look at best mates growing up and discovering what it really is that makes their friendship work so well.

My Life and other Catastrophes (Issue 5), What Supergirl Did Next, Something More, Little Bird and Fifteen Love (also by R M Corbet), A Letter from Luisa, Thirteen Pearls are Girlfriend Fiction Series titles previously reviewed in the Reading Stack.



http://www.allenandunwin.com/girlfriendfiction/

Reviewed by Barbara Brown

Thorn on the Rose

by Joy Dettman

Pan Macmillan Australia. Australian, Adult Other, Romance, Paperback rrp $32.99

It’s 1939. Jenny Morrison is fifteen years of age and already a runaway from an attempt to force her into marriage.

Pregnant after being raped by local twin brothers, the small town solution is for her to marry one of the boys. Jenny has other ideas. Leaving instructions with her maternal grandmother, Gertrude, to give the baby to the hospital Jenny disappears only to return months later pregnant again – except this time she has expensive clothes and money.

The judgemental Woody Creek residents make cruel assumptions and Jenny is labelled the town slut. Her own dysfunctional parents are not supportive and she finds refuge with Gertrude.

Pregnant for the third time, Jenny runs away again to Sydney. This time the father is Jim Cooper, the only son of Gertrude’s one-true love, Vern Cooper. All Jenny wants is to one day be a famous singer and be with Jim. But the war is hovering over them and soon Jenny is left with another baby and a father missing in action. Vern is not going to let her have the life she hoped and things grow even worse. She could lose everything, especially baby Jimmy.

Jenny’s life is a roller coaster ride of great heights and great lows. After many months she is forced to return once again to Woody Creek. What could possible force her to move back to the place where she is not wanted?

This is a story that will keep you on your toes. Jenny will bewitch some readers but and antagonise others but ultimately Thorn on the Rose is a historical and social commentary that through fiction addresses more than one woman’s story of the times.

Thorn on the Rose is the second instalment in Joy Dettman’s Woody Creek series. I had not read Pearl in a Cage and found that there was no catching up. Thorn on the Rose kept me reading it’s 500+ pages until the end and I just know there is going to be a third instalment. Jenny’s life isn’t finished with yet.

http://joydettman.com/

Bright Angel

by Isabelle Merlin

Random House Australia. Australian, Young Adult, Mystery, Romance, Crime. Paperback rrp $17.95


Isabelle Merlin has done it again! Bright Angel is the fourth book in Merlin’s YA female mystery genre and just like, Three Wishes, Pop Princess and Cupid’s Arrow, I was hooked from the first page.

Having witnessed a very traumatic experience, Sylvie and her older sister, Claire, are invited to the south of France to relax and forget. Their Auntie Freddy is staying in a quiet village writing a book. What better way to recuperate from the horrific scenes they witnessed in Australia.

But the surrounding region of St-Bertrand is not so quiet. It is bustling with a French movie crew and some very interesting young men who keep Sylvie and Claire occupied.

Daniel is aloof and fiercely protective of his much younger brother, Gabriel. Why does Sylvie hate this arrogant guy but at the same time, can’t stop thinking about him? When Gabriel is kidnapped, both Daniel and Sylvie re-evaluate each other’s feelings, not necessarily correctly.

This is a great read with some interesting historical facts threaded throughout. If you have a teenage girl who is over vampires and werewolves then Bright Angel is just the book!

http://sites.google.com/site/isabellemerlin

A Stairway to Paradise

by Madeleine St John

The Text Publishing Company. Australian, Romance. Paperback rrp $29.95

Alex is in a marriage where he and his wife Claire are only staying together for the sake of the children. Andrew, Alex’s friend, has been dumped by his wife and has come back to England leaving his young daughter with his ex-wife in America.

Then there is Barbara. Men her own age see her as attractive but these two older men see her as a goddess.

Two years previously Alex had a brief dalliance with Barbara but ended the affair when he decided he couldn’t live a lie. Alex still loves Barbara and over the years tries to dull his feelings by concentrating on his work.

At a chance party, Alex reconnects with Barbara, but also introduces her to Andrew. Andrew too, is besotted with her.

Barbara is confused and doesn’t know which choice to make. Surely if Alex loves her, he will leave his wife? And Andrew, sweet and kind, she could be happy with him.

St John’s short chapter style makes this an easy book to enjoy. You are teased and tugged to read “just one more chapter” – then suddenly you realise you have reached the end. Brilliant.

Madeleine St John’s Essence of The Thing was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1997. She died in 2006.

Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill

by Dimitri Verhulst

Allen and Unwin. Romance, Adult Other. Paperback rrp $24.99

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Young Madame Verona, a renowned beauty, comes to live with her husband the composer, Mr Potter, in the ‘increasingly isolated village’ where they ‘inhabited the most isolated house’ high on a hill. The day Potter discovered he had cancer he went home and started cutting and stacking firewood. He cut every dead tree found on and around his property, and piled it all around the house till he considered it was enough to last Verona till the end of her life. After they made love, he went and hanged himself from a tree in the yard, unwilling to succumb to the humiliation of a wasting, dependent body. Not wanting to live without her beloved, Verona, a woman who has attracted dogs to her all her life, sits in the snow with her latest stray in the hope of freezing to death. But fortunately there are unfinished things awaiting her attention before she departs years later in this way at the age of eighty-three.

The main story is about this life, filled with love till the last breath, the strength to endure, and the making of a cello. It is all the other stories, the lives of the surrounding people of the area and each one’s incredible way of surviving that forms the bricks and mortar that holds together this beautiful and moving piece of work. These are included within the main frame like singular stories.

All the unique characters in this book have been precisely constructed and the perfect prose is unforgettable. Humour and passion is woven into the ordinary lives of the mainly male cast which transforms them into extraordinary individuals beneath the masterful manipulation of the writer.

The descriptions of the surrounding forests and rivers, the snow, the isolation and the way the natural world is regarded and protected, puts the reader right into the story with all their senses awakened. Finely crafted and superbly translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, this is a book not to be missed.

The Jewel Box

by Anna Davis

Random House. Romance, Adult Other. Paperback rrp $24.95

Diamond Sharp is an enigma. She writes a weekly column for a London newspaper about her life - the late nights, the parties, the men, the dances, the fashion and the places to be seen or not. Most women want to be like her. Most men want her.

It is the Roaring Twenties in London and a single woman writing about her outrageous life keeps readers glued to the page. Who is Miss Sharp? Does she actually exist?

Only Grace Rutherford knows. Grace works as a copy writer during the day, the only female employee in a very old established male company. She lives with her mother and widowed younger sister and two children. Grace loves her family and provides and protects them after the death of her brother-in-law. But when the sun goes down, Grace turns into Diamond Sharp. She has all the latest tips and tricks on how to be fashionable in London and gets invitations to all the right places.

But then Grace and Diamond’s worlds collide. Grace meets a man. Diamond also meets a man. Which man is the right one for this one woman? Secrets unravel. The one person who Grace doesn’t want to hurt is her sister but her sister has her eye on one of the men. The two men know each other but are sworn enemies.

A fun and exciting book that captures the past perfectly. I could envisage everything happening and sometimes woke from my daydream thinking I was Diamond. The twists and turns on every page will keep the reader mesmerised right to the end. Yes, I loved it.

http://www.annadavis.co.uk/

How Do I Love Thee?

Stories to stir the heart

Edited by Valerie Parv

Allen & Unwin. Australian, Romance, Adult Other. Paperback rrp $27.99

Let me make one thing clear – this is a book for EVERYONE. Women and men! Men: give this to your love for Christmas. They will think you are romantic and appreciate your thoughtfulness. Women: give this to your love for Christmas. They will look surprised, maybe open the book up, glimpse a page here and there, start to read to please you, and suddenly they will be half way through the book.

I don’t mind the odd love story and I like the idea of short stories bound into one book. How Do I Love Thee? is the perfect combination. You can read a story (or more) in one sitting and not have to wait for days or weeks to reach the finale. I laughed uproariously (Killer Smile by Anita Bell), shivered with fear (Night of the Superheroes by Judy Neumann), and cried with anguish (A Much-Needed Wife by Anna Jacobs).

This book is a collection of stories from 12 different writers, each sharing their personal view of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet How Do I Love Thee. The authors were asked to choose a few words from the sonnet and base a story on them. All 12 stories were magnificent. Funny, sad, modern, historical and even science fiction. Something for everyone.

A brilliant book with some fascinating and thought-provoking ideas. If you don’t have someone to buy this for Christmas, do yourself a favour and buy it for yourself!

Heart’s Blood

by Juliet Marillier

Pan Macmillan. Australian, Romance, History, Mystery, Fantasy. Paperback rrp $32.99

A few months after her father’s death, Caitrin, daughter of Berach, is fleeing from the family home in Market Cross. Her mother died years before and her sister has married a wandering minstrel and left to be with her new husband. Distant kin have moved in and they torment Caitrin, depleting her strength with fists and words. Anything is better than staying in her home.

Caitrin travels as far away as possible to the strange fortress of Whistling Tor and its even stranger chieftain, Anluan. Despite villagers warning of the disappearances of local folk, the ghostly beings that surround the forests of the Tor and the odd assortment of staff who serve Whistling Tor, Caitrin accepts a position for the summer to translate and scribe the unusual books that are Anluan’s history.

While getting back her self esteem and letting her body heal from the wounds of her kin, Caitrin realises that Whistling Tor and its occupants are not as they seem. What is the Host and who controls it? Is Caitrin the only one who can save the lost souls of the Host? And what is the dark and powerful force that tries to stop Caitrin and Anluan from finding the answers?

This is a tale that has been referred to as the re-telling of the classic tale Beauty and the Beast - it contains the same elements and characters but is more dark and oppressive. At the same time it is still a wonderful story of sorcery, deception, curses, challenges, ghosts and love. I didn’t want it to end.

Juliet Marillier’s Heir to Sevenwaters was reviewed by the Reading Stack in Issue 15.

http://www.julietmarillier.com/

The Brightest Star in the Sky

by Marian Keyes


Penguin. Romance. Paperback rrp $32.95


One address. Four flats. Seven occupants. At 66 Star Street Dublin there seems to be a lot happening and someone is watching them all. We start off at Day 61 and as we turn another page and pass another chapter we also are counting down to Day 1. But what will happen on Day 1? And why is the “watcher” counting the days and picking and choosing?

Of the seven occupants at 66 Star Street, the “watcher” is trying to decide who to choose. There are some obvious choices and some not so easy. Jemima is in her 80’s and can sense a presence but she isn’t ready … just yet. Matt and Maeve are married who live on the bottom floor only seem like the perfect couple. Young Lydia, stuck living with two unfunny Poles, has a lover but much anger and hatred. And then there is Katie on the top floor. She has a perfect man in Conall, she is turning 40. Could she be the one?


Love, lust, passion, death, tragedy, friendship, endings and beginnings; it is all happening at 66 Star Street. When secrets are uncovered the “watcher” knows it is time to choose.

The Brightest Star in the Sky kept me entranced. How could so much happen in one tiny block of units? How many endings could one book have? And not tied with neat bows either. This is a book with wide general appeal. Buy it for yourself and give it as a gift. You won’t regret either decision.

This Charming Man by Marion Keyes was reviewed in Issue 7 of The Reading Stack.

http://www.mariankeyes.com/

The Stranding

by Karen Viggers


Allen & Unwin. Australian, Romance, Adult Other. Paperback rrp $32.95

Everyone has a past. And in the small town of Merrigan, a coastal village down the south of New South Wales, it seems that there are a lot of ‘ghosts’ in people’s closets.

Lex Henderson escapes Sydney to peaceful Merrigan, running away from his past and his own private ghosts. But what Lex finds is a community that won’t let you dissolve, disappear and fade into the beautiful scenery. Then again, does Lex really want to be ignored and forgotten?

At first, Lex stays close to his isolated beach house at the Point overlooking the wild sea and land. His favourite company are the bottles kept under the sink. The locals want to know more about Lex and Lex slowly finds he wants to know more about the locals, especially Callista. Callista has her own demons and keeps important secrets from Lex.

When, on a particular ugly and wild night, Lex and Callista save Lex’s elderly neighbour from the sea, Callista finds her passion for painting goes into overdrive and Lex finds his attitude to his new community has completely changed. Where once he wanted to be remote and aloof, now he wants to belong.

Callista and Lex’s relationship is mirrored in the ocean. Their passion is as volatile as the waves thrashing against the rocks but it also has a solid depth, as beautiful and graceful as the large whales that pass by the coastline.

When a whale is stranded on a lonely and remote beach, Lex and Callista finally recognise the truth about themselves and their relationship. What happens to the whale further cements the inevitability of the days to come.

The Stranding is much more than a romance. It fits well in a number of genres. I have suggested that my husband would love this book. It is about power, love, death and what nature can bring to the table! Now when I look out to sea and watch the whales pass by, I see hope and beauty and something so graceful I am lost for words.

Ulterior Motives

by Lucienne Joy

Allen & Unwin. Australian, Romance, Adult Other. Paperback rrp$32.95

Ulterior Motives is the story of a woman in her 30’s, looking for love, to quote the old song, “in all the wrong places”.

Coco is an Australian journalist who has decided that the perfect man must be French, a certain age, height and weight, and loving, caring and good in bed. To meet this perfect man, Coco flies to France and starts working as a radio announcer for a radio station dedicated to the English expats working along the French Riviera.

She finds meeting the perfect French man is harder than she imagined. When an older American, Jack Villeneuve, asks her out she thinks it will be harmless fun. After all, she won’t be interested in him, he has none of her requirements for the perfect man.

Slowly Coco realises her perfect man might just be the one she is with . . . Jack! He is wealthy, charming, wonderful in bed, and from French-Swiss stock (so there is that little bit of French there). Besides he knows what he wants - Coco. When Jack goes to America on a business trip Coco realises the feeling is reciprocated. She wants him too.

Coco and Jack get married after only knowing each other a few months. Things start to take an unexpected detour in the bedroom for Coco. She isn’t a prude but Jack’s demands become more and more strange. Coco starts to question the basis of their marriage.

Ulterior Motives is a story of one woman’s journey into the sanctity of marriage and the side trips that only love can detour you from.

THE GOOD MAYOR

by Andrew Nicoll

Harper Collins Publishers. Adult, Romance. Paperback rrp $27.99.

For almost twenty years, Tibo Krovic has been the Mayor of the town of Dot in a forgotten part of the Baltic. Tibo is referred to by one and all as the good and honest Mayor. But Tibo doesn’t think he is good. Especially when his thoughts turn to his secretary, the beautiful Mrs Agathe Stopak.

Tibo cannot have Agathe – she is already married. But Agathe is lonely and unhappy in her crumbling marriage and looks at Tibo as a suitable companion. After Agathe loses her lunchbox in the town’s fountain, Tibo saves the box and finally gets the nerve to ask Agathe out to lunch. Their lunches become the highlight of both their days. But lunch isn’t enough.

When Agathe can’t wait any longer for Tibo to declare his feelings, she gives her pent up emotions of love to another. Tibo is too late.

Can Tibo outgrow his love for Agathe? Can Agathe see that her new relationship is shallow, temporary and will spiral downwards into places she may never escape from? Can she finally realise that Tibo is the man she should be with? And after all that has happened, can Tibo still be called the good Mayor?

The Good Mayor is a story of love, loss, betrayal, magic, ghosts, beliefs, food, art - all taking place at a slow pace, much too slow for Agathe but perfect for Tibo. A wonderful story, funny in places, with plenty of detail to ensure the reader feels they are part of Tibo and Agathe’s journey to find themselves and each other.