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Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

December 3, 2014 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: Various friends of mine have been telling me I need to read this book. I was warned about possible ugly-crying and an emotional wringer. It seems to be a much beloved book. I bought it a while ago and finally decided to actually read it. From a quick survey of my Twitter friends, it seems I’m a bit of an outlier. So, YMMV. A LOT.

Warning: This book has been out a while so I feel less guilty about spoilers. What I most want to talk about is very spoilerish. So, ALL THE SPOILER WARNINGS. If you haven’t read Jellicoe Road and you want to, don’t read this review. It’s a very plotty book and while the structure of it didn’t always work for me, I think it probably works best not knowing all that much going in. (It is “safe” for romance readers to read.) I also think that if you haven’t read the book you won’t get a lot of out the discussion below and it could colour your view because I have Things. To. Say.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) I’m dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago.

Taylor is leader of the boarders at the Jellicoe School. She has to keep the upper hand in the territory wars and deal with Jonah Griggs – the enigmatic leader of the cadets, and someone she thought she would never see again.

And now Hannah, the person Taylor had come to rely on, has disappeared. Taylor’s only clue is a manuscript about five kids who lived in Jellicoe eighteen years ago. She needs to find out more, but this means confronting her own story, making sense of her strange, recurring dream, and finding her mother – who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road.

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AMAZON KOBO BOOK DEPOSITORY

I’m putting the entire review under the jump because: SPOILERS

November Round Up

December 1, 2014 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Holiday Sparks by Shannon Stacey, narrated by Savannah Richards – B I read this novella in the Naughty and Nice anthology when it first came out (scroll down a bit to see the brief reviews). Sometimes when I can’t decide what to listen to next a novella length story is low risk – this one was only a couple hours long so the time investment was small. And, I had fond memories of the story. Chloe Burke is a web designer who lives in Boston but has come back to her small Maine hometown ot housesit for her parents in the weeks before Christmas. Electrical problems lead her to electrician and all round hotty, Scott Quinn. They went to school together but he looked a lot different then (he was a nerd). Sparks fly (heh) and they start a fling. The conflict is that Scott is embedded in his hometown and Chloe is going back to Boston. Given Chloe’s job, it has a relatively easy resolution once they are committed to seeing if the relationship holds to its early promise and it is perfect for a novella length story. It’s sweet, sexy and low angst and I liked it very much.

I hadn’t heard Savannah Richards narrate before. She had convincing deeper tones for Scott and generally a pleasant voice to listen to. However, there was one thing which bothered me and it’s very much a “it’s not you it’s me” thing – articulating it is hard because it is an aural thing. The best I can do is to say there is kind of a lowering of pitch and a kind of … trailing off at the end of many sentences. It bugged me a bit. I’m sure others won’t notice it at all and others who do, won’t mind it but it’s the sort of things that I hear straight off and, over time, it gets a bit like fingernails on a blackboard to me. Fortunately, it’s a short novella so I didn’t have time for annoyance to truly set in. Honestly, the rest of the narration was very good. I think I’m just fussy.

I’m sure I bought this as a stand alone – but my records don’t tell me if it was a special release. All I could find at Audible today was the entire anthology.

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AUDIBLE

Put Your Bats Out

November 28, 2014 / Kaetrin

It’s been a tough week here in Australia and around the cricketing world. We lost someone special this week and we are sad. Normally I talk about romance and romance books on this blog but I wanted to share my thoughts and try and explain maybe why the events of this week have had such a broad effect on us.

Unlike Aussie Rules football (AFL), rugby (union or league) or even soccer, cricket is our national sport. It’s played all over Australia – all year round indoors and outdoors all summer long. Our cricketers play all year round all over the world these days. I think every Australian kid has played cricket at some point. Even me. We don’t have many (any?) indigenous cricketers in the state or national teams and that’s a problem (one for another day) but in many ways, cricket identifies us. On Boxing Day, the Melbourne Test match starts and TVs and radios around the nation are on all day and one of the most common phrases you’ll hear will be “What’s the score?”. We are largely a secular nation and in some respects, cricket is our religion. It connects us in ways that politics and religion does not. Even Australia Day is heavily associated with cricket. Cricket is certainly a place we draw icons and heroes from. Sir Donald Bradman, the Chappell brothers, Dennis Lilllee, Jeff Thomson, Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne – these are all cricketers revered by the Australian public in one way or another. They’re ours and they mean something to us. When they do surveys about who Australians trust the most, cricketers almost always top the list. We value our sportsmen more than our statesmen (that says something not very complimentary about our statesmen and women, but that’s for another day too and probably not this blog). In many respects, our cricketers are as revered as the royal family is in the UK. The Captain of the Australian Cricket Team is colloquially said to have “the second most important job in the nation”.

Philip Hughes was from New South Wales but he played state cricket for our own South Australia Redbacks for the past two years and that means he was ours too. Everyone’s a bit parochial about cricket. If a player was born in South Australia or played here briefly or possibly just holidayed here, we are inclined to include him as “ours”. The same holds true in all the other states as well; it’s not just South Australia. Philip Hughes was “ours” because he had played for Australia. He was “ours” because he played for South Australia and he was “ours” because he played for New South Wales. Continue reading

Review at Dear Author

November 27, 2014 / Kaetrin

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Straight from the Heart by Kimberly Gardner. I loved what was there but was left wanting more – and not necessarily in the good way.

Review at AudioGals

November 25, 2014 / Kaetrin

I’m over at AudioGals with a review of His At Night by Sherry Thomas, narrated by Kate Reading. This is my very favourite Sherry Thomas and I was full of the squee when I found out Kate Reading was narrating. Vere just slays me.

Her Holiday Man by Shannon Stacey

November 24, 2014 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I was provided with a review copy by the publisher via NetGalley.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Christina Forrester is starting over. After a financial scandal sent her ex-husband to prison, she’s left raising her young son without any of the comforts of their old life. Budgets, coupons, lawn care—you name it, she’s learning to do it all on her own. Well, almost on her own—she’d be lost without Gail Broughton, the kind widow across the street. But when Gail’s son comes home, Christina’s vow to never trust a man again is put to the test.

Will Broughton left town because he was tired of being “that poor man” who lost his wife and unborn child in a tragic accident. But years have passed and, with his dad gone and his mom alone, it’s time to go home. Only his mother’s not alone. She’s taken Christina under her wing, and the beautiful and determined single mother awakens something in Will he thought was buried forever.

As Will and Christina are forced to spend more time together, feelings that are more than neighborly grow between them. And with Christmas coming and a child filling both houses with holiday cheer, it becomes nearly impossible not to embrace the joy—and the love—in their lives.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Oh, man! I needed tissues for this book. Of course it has a HEA (it’s a romance after all) but Will has been through the wringer after losing his wife and their unborn daughter shortly before Christmas a few years before the story begins. He’s stayed away from his hometown at Christmas since then but, after also losing his dad suddenly six months before, he feels he needs to come home to stay and make sure his mother is okay. When he’s doing things like going through his dead wife’s hope chest – well, let’s just say I had convenient dust in my eyes. Continue reading