The Aunts’ House is a delightful coming of age story set in 1942 Sydney. Author Elizabeth Stead has conjured an ensemble of quirky, lovable characters that would make Charles Dickens envious. Angel Martin is an orphaned child foisted upon long-suffering boarding house mistress, Missus Potts. Enraged upon discovering Angel hasn’t brought the inheritance she’d counted on […]
World War II
The Choice: An Auschwitz memoir of survival, hope and healing
The Choice is the memoir of Edith Edger, an Auschwitz survivor. In 1944 she was arrested with her family as a Jew and sent to Auschwitz. One year later she was pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive. In this incredible book she tells her own story of living with trauma and how she […]
Book review: The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
I’d heard so many good things about The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society. My mum read it the week before I did and rushed over to tell me all the best anecdotes from the first 50 pages or so. Now that I’ve finished it, I have an overwhelming desire to tell you all the […]
Finding beauty in the horror of war – The Lace Weaver – Book review
I finished reading this book while sitting on a commuter train trying to hide my tears from fellow passengers. To create such beauty out of such horror is a rare skill, and one that debut author, Lauren Chater, possesses in spades. At its heart, The Lace Weaver is a story about preserving the culture of […]
Book review: The Paris Seamstress, by Natasha Lester
Natasha Lester writes romance the way it should be written – fierce and passionate with strong men and, most importantly, strong and independent women. Her third historical fiction novel, The Paris Seamstress, is the story of Estella Bisette – forced to flee France in 1940 with little more than her sewing machine and a dream of […]
