Author Archives: alysonebaker

The Chimes by Anna Smaill – 2015

Posted on May 4, 2015 by alysonebaker

The Chimes is a debut novel set in a dystopian London where society has fallen back into medieval struggle.  The ‘Order’ has wiped, and continues to wipe, memory from the general population under the guise of paternalistic caring – violence … Continue reading →

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Reach by Laurence Fearnley – 2014

Posted on March 21, 2015 by alysonebaker

What a lovely book about choices and relationships and art and deep sea diving.  Quinn is an artist worried that her best creative days might have passed but unwilling to compromise her lifestyle.  And did she knowingly wreck Marcus’ marriage, … Continue reading →

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New Hokkaido by James McNaughton – 2015

Posted on March 9, 2015 by alysonebaker

I so wanted to like this book!  McNaughton’s debut novel New Hokkaido is set in a counterfactual New Zealand where there was no bombing of Pearl Harbour, the US did not enter the Second World War, and the Japanese invaded and … Continue reading →

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The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing – 2014

Posted on February 24, 2015 by alysonebaker

The Petticoat Men is a good historical novel which plunges you into the febrile atmosphere surrounding a scandalous trial in 1870s London.  It tells the story of the arrest and trial of Ernest Boulton and Frederick Parks – or Stella and … Continue reading →

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Carnival Sky by Owen Marshall – 2014

Posted on February 17, 2015 by alysonebaker

“There is a form of idleness that is not relaxation, but the expression of malaise, a disenchantment with life.”  Sheff has become disenchanted with his newspaper job and resigns with vague plans of travelling overseas.  His father is dying of … Continue reading →

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The Secret Life of James Cook & James Cook’s New World by Graeme Lay – 2013/2014

Posted on February 5, 2015 by alysonebaker

Despite much being written of James Cook’s achievements – both positive and negative – little is known of the man himself.  Cook certainly kept a Captain’s log for the Admiralty during his voyages – but in these two novels Graeme … Continue reading →

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The Silk Thief by Deborah Challinor – 2014

Posted on January 17, 2015 by alysonebaker

The Silk Thief is the latest and third of four books in Challinor’s The Convict Girls series.  I hadn’t read the previous two and that wasn’t a bad thing, as I loved being plunged into the deep end of the … Continue reading →

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The Stove and the Stage by Des O’Regan – 2014

Posted on January 9, 2015 by alysonebaker

The Stove and the stage is the tale of Danny Mulligan who arrives in Constant Bay, Charleston in the early 1870s.  But Danny doesn’t arrive for the gold; Danny is an entertainer, and seemingly escaping a shady past in Ireland.  … Continue reading →

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Dawn Chorus by Ray Ching – 2014

Posted on January 5, 2015 by alysonebaker

What an absolutely stunning book.  Dawn Chorus, like Ching’s previous Aesop’s Kiwi Fables (2012), re-imagines Aesop’s moral tales with New Zealand animals as the protagonists.  Dawn Chorus frames the fables with a tale about Aesop himself, in which he posthumously … Continue reading →

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Landscape with Solitary Figure by Shonagh Koea – 2014

Posted on January 2, 2015 by alysonebaker

“… when you return to where you belong you find that you belong there no longer”, Landscape With Solitary Figure is the beautiful but quite ominous reminiscence of Ellis Leigh, a woman who has isolated herself in a cottage a … Continue reading →

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