Debbish

Book review: The Butler by Clare Mackintosh

June 13, 20263 min read

I read The Butler by Clare Mackintosh in a sitting (though it is quite short at just over 200 pages). I’ve long been a fan of Mackintosh, ever since a twist in her 2015 debut novel I Let You Go almost made me drop my iPad into the bathtub (where I read). Here, what starts as a somewhat tense week-long birthday celebration in a luxurious mansion in the French Riveria, becomes a whodunnit and I very much liked the way Mackintosh pairs amateur sleuth and butler (Baxter) up with an unlikely but surprisingly canny partner when unpicking clues, motives and means to uncover the murderer.

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Book review: The Second Wife by Ali Lowe

June 5, 20262 min read

The Second Wife by Ali Lowe is the third book I’ve read by the English-born Aussie author and features warring siblings of the grown kind and a punitive and ill-tempered father… albeit one who’s a billionaire and celebrating his 70th birthday. It unfolds from several points of view that of birthday boy Irving’s wife, (Gen), Irving’s daughter in law (Celia) and Molly the cruise concierge for the elite 9th deck revellers. Their stories are interspersed by transcripts of a podcast, made following the fateful cruise which ends in a death… or two.

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Book review: Barren Cape by Michelle Prak

May 24, 20263 min read

I missed getting Barren Cape by Michelle Prak for review last year so am a latecomer to this, picking it up at my local second-hand bookstore. I read and enjoyed Prak’s 2023 novel The Rush and her second book sustains the sense of foreboding she instilled in her debut. This unfolds from several points of view and again Prak takes this in an unexpected and somewhat shocking direction. Prak also reflects on housing security and homelessness here and our female narrators also experience a sense of menace thanks to several men featured in the novel.

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Book review: The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

May 22, 20264 min read

The Midnight Train by Matt Haig is the second in a series peeking into life and death. In The Midnight Library we spend time with a woman teetering BETWEEN life and death. Here we meet a man, recently-dead, who’s offered a chance to drop in on his past selves at pivotal moments in his life. He’s not meant to intervene or be seen, but here octogenarian Wilbur asks… what if there’s a chance to rectify a mistake that will haunt you for years. One you might not even realise the extent to which you regret it until you’re dying. Or (ahem… you know) dead.

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Book review: Dove by Georgia Harper

May 18, 20264 min read

I was a latecomer to Georgia Harper’s award-winning debut novel, What I Would Do To You, buying a copy after meeting her at the BAD Sydney Crime Writing festival a few years ago. I missed out on a review copy of her second book, Dove, but picked one up when I went to a (rare) local author event featuring Harper and Penguin stablemate Mercedes Mercier (whose book I also missed for review*). And I must confess, this book stayed with me after I turned the last page. In fact, the night I finished the book it somehow became muddled in a work-related dream I was having and I woke very discombobulated.

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Book review: The Bookshop of Buried Pasts by Sarah Clutton

May 18, 20262 min read

The Bookshop of Buried Pasts by Sarah Clutton is the Australian author’s second book and I very much enjoyed her first The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains , giving it a rare 4.5 star rating. I confess I didn’t love this quite as much as her debut (I’m a sucker for a child narrator – ie. Alfie) but I enjoyed it a lot. She delivers the perfect measure of bittersweet sadness and hope. It’s themed around families – those you’re born into and those you find along the way and it offers a reminder of the lengths we go to, in order to protect those we love and hold dear.

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Book review: The Couples Retreat by Mercedes Mercier

May 14, 20262 min read

The Couples Retreat by Mercedes Mercier is a departure from her two previous novels featuring psychologist Dr Laura Fleming, and I really enjoyed this latest book. She’s left prison here (the setting for her previous books) and we’ve journeyed to Kangaroo Island – incidentally a place I’d love to visit. The setting and sense of place here is very strong, but the island’s isolation and the onslaught of a raging storm also makes this is a locked-room mystery and (setting-wise) I loved that Mercier able to to reflect both the impending threat and the sense of pampered luxury.

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Book review: Happy Woman by Abby Corson

May 9, 20264 min read

Happy Woman by Abby Corson is an interesting and clever read. For much of the book it’s a study in family relationships, personalities and whether a leopard can really change their proverbial spots. It also veers, towards the end of the novel, into one of suspense or mystery with Corson throwing in several twists… just when we think we know where this is heading.

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ARC review: Lit by Anna Woods

May 5, 20263 min read

Lit by Anna Woods was a slow burn for me and I almost put it aside several times in the first half. I found the way Wood hints at past happenings without offering explanation until late in the novel frustrating, but I guess it also kept me reading. Ultimately though I was kinda disappointed that the supposedly dire event that set things off here felt a little anticlimactic. I was also disappointed in the ending, but purely from a social justice or ‘what’s right’ perspective.

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