Category Archives: Book Review

First Names Only by Elaine Blick – 2015

Posted on July 3, 2016 by alysonebaker

This novel claims to provide ‘insight into the very sensitive issues surrounding the unmarried mother and adoption’.  The main character, Janice, falls pregnant at 18 and ends up in Sunnyvale, a home for unmarried mothers in Auckland.  It is the … Continue reading →

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Cold Hard Murder by Trish McCormack – 2015

Posted on June 19, 2016 by alysonebaker

Philippa Barnes, glacier guide and amateur sleuth is back – but global warming means glacier guiding is no longer a promising career, so she is maintaining tourist tracks for DOC in Paparoa National Park.  She isn’t too worried about the … Continue reading →

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Inside the Black Horse by Ray Berard – 2015

Posted on June 18, 2016 by alysonebaker

“What had changed so abruptly to discard logic and calculation?”, Brian Duncan, an ex US undercover cop and now a NZ PI, asks this of himself as he heads off into the bush alone at one point in this fast … Continue reading →

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Whispers of the Past by Owen Clough – 2016

Posted on June 12, 2016 by alysonebaker

Whispers of the past is a good old Boys’ Own style yarn about three blokes, Bob (‘Brill’), Shane (‘Grunt’) and Sam, all decorated heroes and best mates, who go off on a DOC pig-culling trip in the Tongariro National Park … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Historical | 4 Comments

Blood and Ink by Adam Christopher – 2016

Posted on June 11, 2016 by alysonebaker

I was thrilled I was going to be able to review a Sherlock Holmes novel on my blog – as Adam Christopher is a Kiwi.  And Blood and ink started off well enough – but this Sherlock Holmes is the … Continue reading →

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Daughters of Messene by Maggie Rainey-Smith – 2015

Posted on June 10, 2016 by alysonebaker

Artemis’ mother, Nysa, was one of the ‘Greek Girls’ who arrived in Wellington in the 1960s to provide domestic staff for hotels and hospitals.  Many years later she is finally going to return to Greece, and Artemis is going to … Continue reading →

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Absence by Joanna King – 2016

Posted on May 28, 2016 by alysonebaker

Sometimes you pick a novel up at just the right time – after a string of adrenaline reads and rich historical dramas I was in the right mood for Joanna King’s debut novel; an introspective piece about what it is … Continue reading →

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Napoleon’s Willow by Joan Norlev Taylor – 2016

Posted on May 22, 2016 by alysonebaker

Bishop Pompallier says in this book: “We do not live in the Garden of Eden, though we may try to make our small corner resemble it” – but as well as the Tree of Life, the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge … Continue reading →

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The Chain by Antony Millen – 2015

Posted on May 7, 2016 by alysonebaker

The Chain takes us into the privacy / security debate, it is set in 2043 where the democratising power of the Internet has gone ballistic – with no national borders or jingoistic-causing historical place names, and where all information exchange … Continue reading →

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Love as a Stranger by Owen Marshall – 2016

Posted on April 30, 2016 by alysonebaker

What a terribly human book!  Sarah meets Hartley when she is temporarily living in Auckland while her husband Robert undergoes Cancer treatment.  Hartley is a lawyer whose wife has died a couple of years before and who is despairing at … Continue reading →

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