This book had me in with both hands and both eyes – unblinking 😉 I COULD NOT put this DOWN 👏🏼
Now, I know this has had varying reviews, most saying that too much happens towards the end and it all a bit extravagant. And yes, I agree that there is a lot that happens and it is a bit extravagant but for me, that was the BEST PART!
In The Only One Left we follow Kit, who takes on the new role as caregiver/home nurse to Lenora Hope, the unconvicted murderer of her father, mother and older sister when she was a teenager. Lenora has suffered a stroke in later years, and now an old woman now has limited movement in her body, and is harmless. Or so Kit is told.
Mysteriously, Lenora’s previous caregiver left unannounced. She has introduced a typewriter as something to assist in communicating with a non-verbal Lenora. Lenora and Kit slowly develop a friendship/relationship through writing back and forward about Lenora’s life and her past. Slowly, Lenora begins to share her story and Kit begins unravelling the pieces of what really happened that night.
Who was really there and who saw what? Did Lenora really do it and if she did, what made her commit such a hideous crime?
This dark, moody and addictive chapter cliffhangers, I had this finished in 3 days! If you’re looking for a novel with a stream of suspects, unforgettable twists and turns, and the need to be up way past midnight reading – try this!
I cannot thank my dearest reading friend Anna enough for this recommendation! She knows me well and she continually spoke so highly of this fantasy romance. I 100% see why ⭐️
Now I’m going to break this down a little differently to other reviews I’ve done. I want to take you through some pivotal aspects of this book but I’m only going to give you breadcrumbs. I really enjoyed not knowing a lot about Fourth Wing and it just being handed to me with a statement, “Read it. Just read it.” I want you to have that experience too, so here we go ⏬
Dragons: Yes, Dragons you say. Would I ever have thought I’d be recommending a book about dragons, dragon riding, dragons bonding with riders, dragon telepathy and dragon fighting? Heck no! But was this an epic aspect of Fourth Wing? Heck yes! I absolutely adored the relationship that Violet had with her dragon 😉 (if you know you know) and I could immediately feel how essential this relationship and bond was going to be throughout the book – and throughout the soon to be series.
Xaden Riorson: You, my friend, are one spicy main love interest 🌶 Xaden is a character that I think was perfectly placed to challenge Violet’s beliefs of herself, the world around her and the past that she’d so willingly accepted. He also encouraged her to have this wonderful self-belief that I think a partner should be able to do and hold space for. His title, knowledge of the dragon riders that have come before him and what it takes to be a good leader, is everything and more that I think makes him the perfectly imperfect spark in her story. He is witty, protective and a good liar. But does he keep these secrets from Violet to protect her? … read to find out
Basgiath War College: This place is brutal! There are characters dying left, right and centre – and you don’t even see it coming! I mean, one moment they’re there, the next they’ve been burnt to a crisp by whichever dragon sees them as weak. I mean, ruthless. I enjoyed reading how Violet’s intelligence from originally training to become a Scribe, assisted in keeping her alive at the most deadly of times. Her building up of mental, physical and emotional strength was something that progressed really well I thought. There was also a core group of other riders who became her close friends, helping with training, relationship advice and on missions. Rhiannon was a great best friend figure, as was Liam – oh Liam 🥺
Violet (or Violence as Xaden calls her): I am left with so many unanswered questions and feeling when it comes too Violet. Why is her hair silver? Why does she have physical weakness when her sister and mother do not? What happened to her Father? How were her Mother and Father even compatible when they seem so incredibly different? What does her sister know? Did she know about everything (what happens at the end)? Why is Violet the ‘chosen one’ ? What will truely happen between Violet and Xaden when they and their dragons are apart? … so many questions.
You could say this is just a story about a woman and a movie star. And it is, but it is also so much more.
Ann’s writing style is something I feel I cannot compare to any other author. Tom Lake reads so easily, as if it were a breeze to write. Yet on the flip side, part of you can just tell each sentence has been deeply mulled over and crafted with care. I felt as though Ann knew what the reader would want at the perfect time.
Gracefully, we flick through past and present. In the past, we are watching Lara grow up. We see her first unexpected audition in Our Town, to her first interactions with the movie star and love interest, Duke. Lara’s career progression is quick, exciting and forgein. Her success in theatre was not where she expected her life to go yet her experiences brought her to where she is now, and that’s on a her family run cherry farm, with her husband Joe and retelling her life story to her three early 20’s daughters during Covid-19.
Lara retelling her story to her three daughters is fascinating and a topic our book club really chose to flesh out. We all agreed that after reading this book, there must be so many parts of our parents lives that we just don’t know. For me, I think these thoughts swirled as we heard Lara relay areas of her life in a certain way to paint a certain picture or image of herself and others around her at the time. Lara also chooses to not tell certain parts of her life to her daughters because they are too harrowing, raw and would change their perception of her. I think this could be true for so many parents. As listeners and readers, we take certain parts of a story and flesh out the bits in between with our own imagination. I think Ann painted a really great narrative around this action and how it can impact familial relationships and memories we thought we knew so well.
Tom Lake has been my first Anne Patchett novel and I can safely say, it won’t be my last. And I must admit, I know have a temptation to pick up more Reece Witherspoon Book Club books as this is the 2nd I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
There is something about Izzy and Lucas that had me needing to stay in my pyjama’s until 3.30pm and finish this book! Yes, you’re hearing that right 🙈
‘The Wake-Up Call’ is our October book pick for THE ROMANTICS book club, of which I’ve started with a book friend this year. It covers all things love, spicy and fun. If you’d like to join our online book club, click here💖
Izzy Jenkins is a bright, bubbly English gal who passionately despises Lucas, a sexy, strong headed and co-working Brazilian at New Forest Boutique Hotel. Both share the job of receptionist slash hotel managers. Yet sharing the role is proving quite difficult, as the two of them are competitive, quick witted and always have the upper hand on one another.
But see the thing is, Izzy has (and actively does) suppress the fact that she has feelings for Lucas … strong feelings, even when he is a stubborn pain in her behind! So much so that in December 2020, she sends him a Christmas card, openly expressing her feelings and suggesting he meet her under the mistletoe. Oh man, did this go horribly wrong! Que laughing at card, Lucas kissing Izzy’s roommate instead and a totally disastrous next year of Izzy and Lucas trying to work side by side.
I really enjoyed the rollercoaster that is Izzy and Lucas’ enemies to lovers romance. Their back and forth banter, constant teasing of one another in the hotel lobby and in front of Poor Mandy. Gosh, I loved Poor Mandy and laughed every time I read her name and scenes. She’s not in fact poor, but is rather referred to as poor due to having to put up with Izzy and Lucas bickering, competing and disturbing each other every week she works with them.
I will admit, there was a part there where it started to lull for me, but then we got into the heated arguments becoming heated emotional and intimate scenes .. and snap! my attention was well and truely captured again!
Australian Country Romance Author, Clare Fletcher 📸 by James Alcock
Clare Fletcher is an Australian novelist who has studied journalism, spent time freelancing and discovering different parts of the world. Yet, her stories continue to come back to the wonderful setting of rural Australia.
Clare and I had the pleasure of meeting in person this past July, to talk about Five Bush Weddings, her first novel, on a panel with talented romance/love authors.
Love Match is Clare’s second novel. It follows Sarah as she navigates dating in the small rural town of South Star after a recent breakup & Mabel, as she reminisces on her pieces of beautiful wardrobe, remembering the loving stories that come with each stunning outfit
I grew up in regional Queensland, in a town called St George. Even though I’ve lived away from there for many years – I went to boarding school, then uni in Brisbane, moved to Sydney to work, and even lived in New York for a while – my writing has often returned to those small town roots.
In Five Bush Weddings I wove in a lot of experiences of the country parties and weddings my friends and I would drive vast distances for. I hadn’t seen that part of Queensland on the page before, and so it felt right to keep real place names as a little gift to people from home. So many of the rural-set books published today are dark crime stories, so I wanted to celebrate the joy and resilience and creativity and complexity of regional Australia.
South Star is entirely fictional. WithLove Match I wanted to get deep into small town dynamics, the richness and claustrophobia of a place where everyone knows everyone’s business, so I couldn’t use a real town. I didn’t want readers to be distracted by errors in geographic detail or by trying to guess who characters are based on. It’s all made up!
Love Matchfollows the dual storylines of Mabel and Sarah, which is so fun and funny to read! When writing Five Bush Weddings, did you know that Mabel and Sarah would reappear in Love Match? And what do you feel made these two connecting characters?
I wish I had been smart enough to plan ahead, but I had finished 5BW when I decided to write a second book around Mabel and Sarah. My mentor Emily Maguire asked what happened to Sarah after 5BW, and the idea came to me pretty quickly – I wanted to explore someone discovering their queer identity under the small town microscope. I thought it would be powerful to mirror that journey with someone in an earlier time, and Mabel was so much fun to write. Once I started researching the period when she would have been a coming of age (1960s deb balls, country dances, the Miss Queensland Quest) I knew there was something special there.
Sport was another thing I wanted to incorporate. I think women often write off sport as something that’s not for them, but my own experience playing footy as an adult was really special. There’s a lot for women to gain from community sport, not just physically but socially, psychologically. And as a storyteller sport offers a lot of rich territory to mine.
After Love Match, I thought I was done with South Star. But now there are more stories I want to tell and I’m just using my own books as elaborate writing prompts! It’s all the side characters I have the most fun writing, so it’s quite fun thinking about how to use people in new ways in new stories.
Love, dating and connection are such strong themes in both your novels! Is this an element of writing that you always knew you’d incorporate or did it happen by chance?
For a long time, I was a bit of a literary snob. Only when I realised I was writing a rom-com did I start reading a lot more in the genre; but of course I had always loved reading and watching rom-coms, I just didn’t think they were as ‘important’ as more high brow culture. It felt liberating, energising and so joyful to realise there were so many talented women writing romance and rom-coms, and that I wanted to be one of them! I was a very romantic kid (in my head – no one wanted to kiss me until I was almost finished high school) so it feels inevitable in a way.
Sometimes I think dating men from Queensland trained me to be a good romance writer. With these blokes who are often quite reticent, if not emotionally constipated, you have to get quite good at finding romance and tenderness in small gestures! Being able to dial up the romance in a perfectly-made cup of tea or a dropped pie I think is more relatable than grand declarations of love from a bush bloke. That said, I love writing male characters and I find giving them strong women in their life helps shape them into realistic men who respect and treasure the women they fall for.Five Bush Weddingswas very much about the fact that people falling in love is critical to bush communities surviving and thriving.Love Matchgoes deeper into the relationships and institutions that hold small towns together and, I hope, makes a case for building a beautiful life there even if sometimes the gossip and lack of privacy might be challenging. I poke a bit of fun at small towns, but it comes from a place of love.
Clare, thank you so much for joining me on Author Talks and spending the time chatting on our Instagram Live. It has been an absolute pleasure to host you and meet in person! You’re now a staple in my growing library and I cannot wait to fill a shelf with your novels one day 📚⭐️
Click on the titles of Five Bush Weddings & Love Matchthroughout this interview, to purchase your own copies from Booktopia 💚
This book has got me in with both hands and I’ve been immediately immerse.
Kate Mildenhall’s writing has taken me by surprise, I must admit. I was definitely not expecting to be reading a novel that has me physically cringing, squirming and churning my stomach as I’m reading. And I cannot stop!
Last night while I was inhaling this novel, I had the thought “I don’t think a novel has ever made me feel like this.” And by ‘this’, I mean such physical reactions.
To give some reference, The Hummingbird Effect is set in 4 different times in our society. Those being; 1933; 2020; 2031; and 2181. As you move through the book, you’re seeing little snippets of how our society is changing and becoming more reliant on mechanical, technological and alternative devices to limit our man power & skillsets. It is eery. It is scary. And it is real. Even though this is a work of fiction, you can feel so much history and research in its pages.
Kate’s ability to describe all aspects of an environment in which she places the reader, such as sound, smell and texture that all interconnects to the scene we’re reading – is just phenomenal!
I am looking forward to spending more time reading this afternoon & hopefully having this book finished before next weekend, where I’m listening to Kate in person at Write Around the Murray book festival ⭐️📚🎤
Kate, owner of this hidden gem of preloved books, is one of the most knowledgeable bookaholic’s I know! Kate’s passion for preloved books started back in 2004 and her ability to source quality, perfectly curated and selective books has only grown with time.
Walking into Two Brown Cats Bookshop, located inside Little Triffads Florist, is like walking into a warm home library. As you look up towards the back of the shop, you’re greeted with the vision of timber top bookshelves, covered in plants and collectable books. The level of care and love is immediately evident, I can assure you.
As you wander down (because how can you not?!) you will find a variety of genres that are cleverly placed for your movement around the shelves. Kate’s fiction section, cooking and gardening sections cease to amaze me. It’s as if you’re looking at all the books you have on your wishlist that you’ve continually told yourself ‘one day’. Kate holds classic modern fictions from authors such as; Trent Dalton; Kate Grenville; Helen Garner; Garry Disher; Zadie Smith; and Jane Harper. She also hold beautiful children’s classics, both modern and collectable editions of; Winnie the Pooh; Peter Pan; Enid Blyton; and more.
Upon this visit, Kate recommended a gritty, rock and roll read in Lily Brett’s Lola Bensky. It was also incredibly hard not to walk away with this special edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale. It is a hardback edition with red edges and an awesome indented dust jacket.
Kate has also encouraged me to add The Spare Room by Helen Garner to my TBR! Her recommendations are always spot on ⭐️
Make sure you visit this hidden gem sometime soon 💎
Tommy Llewellyn is like no other character I’ve read before and I can honestly say that his story is one that has stuck with me.
How to be Remembered starts off much like Harry Potter (stay with me here!) and funnily enough, when I actually posed this to Michael upon our meeting at Collins Booksellers Wagga, where I hosted him for some of our local readers, he admitted that nobody had ever recognised that before.
Now I’m not saying Tommy is a wizard, that is not where this is going BUT Tommy is special. He is born with the unfortunate gift of not being remembered by those around him, the world, the universe.
On the 5th of January, Tommy’s Birthday, he is forgotten. All evidence of his life; who he was; a birth certificate; any clothing that is not on his body; a memory; pictures with him in it; they either disappear or alter to not have Tommy in them. So like Harry Potter, he’s a little bit alone in the world and figuring out how to navigate his life without a parent because (heart wrenchingly 💔) they don’t remember him.
I loved the fact that we didn’t miss one part of Tommy’s childhood. We really saw it all, year by year and written perfectly so we felt so utterly helpless knowing that nobody will remember Tommy’s first steps in a foster home, his tender relationship with Miss Michelle, making friends, learning skills, attending school and of course, meeting Carey.
Carey is a young girl living in the foster home as well. Of course, she like everyone else, doesn’t remember Tommy reappearing every year having only been there less than 24 hours before the 5th of January. Carey is troubled and has a history of events in her young life that have shaped the way she sees the world, people and relationships. Most children in this particular environment are, which is particularly why I think Tommy also found a place here.
Carey and Tommy’s friendship was sweet from the beginning and I just adored watching the two of their lives intertwine year, after year, after year. The persistent drive in Tommy to find a loop in the ‘Reset’ as he called in, was incredibly intriguing and had me guessing. I had no idea how or where this story would end (and I must say, I adored the ending!)
Tommy’s story isn’t one just about love, its about resilience, knowledge, not giving up on your friends, courage and compassion. Tommy is also just so genuinely sweet and empathetic that he even though he knows people won’t remember him in the future, what he does right now will benefit someone else in the long run. And in some ways, I think that’s a beautiful way to live.
Oh Hugh, you have my heart!! *calling on somebody to find me a Hugh*
I would describe The Last Love Note by Emma Grey in 3 simple ways; heart-wrenching; a direct but warm portrayal of grief; & from the heart. Let’s break these down shall we …
Heart-wrenching is the perfect way to describe Kate, Cam and Hugh’s story. At the beginning of the novel, we’re in the present and Kate is living with the grief of losing her once in a lifetime love, Cam. Cam was diagnosed with early onset dementia and his deterioration was rapid. Kate lost Cam over 2 years ago and living with that grief has been raw, brutal and hard. It smears a smog over each everyday action, conversation & decision. We learn to live with this grief as the reader just as Kate is, because we move through past and present watching how this horrible disease changed Cam and alter’s their lives forever.
I think Emma Grey has created a direct and warm portrayal of grief through her ability to make this novel a romance, incorporate humour AND take us on the hard, stressful and uncertain journey of Kate finding love again – all in one!
Hugh, Kate’s boss and workplace colleague, has always been a fixture in Kate’s life since her meeting him. And by ‘meeting him’ I mean falling off a treadmill in a hot sweaty gym, and then feeling very exposed when her breastmilk makes an entry, and Hugh, ever caring Hugh, hands over a spare shirt to help Kate cover up her chest and her embarrassment. The moment Kate enters her new job interview, all while Cam is sick and they’re needing income to support their small family, Hugh is taken with her. The grief she is living with is something he has experienced himself in a way we didn’t expect. He understands Kate’s grief process and gives her all the time, energy and support she needs. His silent yet reassuring manner is not what Kate realised she needed during the deterioration of Cam’s health and after his passing … until now. That’s right, Kate and Hugh are on an unexpected holiday together!
This novel is truely from the heart. Hugh’s grumpy personality (which we know is just his attempt to stay away from Kate, give her space and grieve) is just the reason we love him. But there is a challenge and reason for Kate and Hugh not exploring what could be … Hugh & Cam had a friendship and in this friendship there was a secret passed between the two of them that Kate was not allowed to know. This secret really keeps us guessing until the end of the book and when you find it out, my GOSH , my HEART!! I’m not usually one to shed a tear while reading but let me tell you, my eyes were brimming 🥺
The Last Love Note has been one of my favourite novels this year and to be honest, I may not have ever found it in the endless bookshelves until Emma walked into the shop, introduced herself and signed a few copies. I’m so grateful she did because we have now connected over books, met multiple times and had an awesome time in July with weekend of romance together 💖
Join Anita Heiss, author of Avoiding Mr. Right & Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, and I over on my instagram @melreviewsherbooks for a morning discussion about romance novels and pursuing a career in writing!
Mel Reviews Her Books 