Kathryn's Inbox

Chocolate display, Rundle Place In 2013 when the Rundle Place shopping complex opened in the city (an opulent new centre in the once daggy old Harris Scarf building, and we all remember how horrible that basement was,) it came complete with pictures of Hollywood film stars--made entirely out of Haighs chocolate! This particular photograph features a luscious chocolate Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's mode. 

Every week for the next little while, I will be introducing you to a character from my latest novel,  Cats Scarves and Liars .  Meet Ivory Black. Some men are bastards. Some men are complete bastards. But only one man is Ivory Black.  Ivory's last, lingering shred of morality disappeared years ago, but that doesn't mean that he isn't happy to life under the guise of being a successful, fifty-something businessman. You don't want to know where he really gets his money. No, really. You don't. Cats, Scarves and Liars by Kathryn White. Coming soon!

A teenage girl on the cusp of adulthood discovers her mother's dead body in Aishah Macgill's novella, The Day My Mother Murdered Herself . From there, we watch as nineteen-year-old Amber, a sheltered young woman from a wealthy Melbourne family, questions why her seemingly perfect and happy mother would decide not only to shoot herself, but to video the act. Amber's journey is quite a dark one, as she discovers various truths about adulthood, sexuality and the harm that broken people can inflict--on themselves and on the people who they are supposed to care about. It's certainly a darker, albeit less explicit, look at the world of BDSM which has become quite popular within the realms of erotic fiction in the past few years thanks mostly to the phenomenal success of one particular trilogy. Amber's journey is quite heart wrenching to follow. On the whole, I enjoyed reading this one and it's certainly an indie novel worth giving a chance, despite the surpris...

Source: Go Comics Another classic Peanuts storyline from 1996 features Peppermint Patty and Marcie attending a camp that they don't enjoy, as they have to sleep in pop up tents and the French toast is the wrong thickness. Their solution? Telephone Charlie Brown and ask him to send in a helicopter.  By 1996, in my opinion, many of the best Peanuts comics and stories had come and gone. This one is a lot of fun, though it never feels quite as detailed as some of the other stories.

Catch of the Day is a charming romantic comedy set against the backdrop of Kingston S.E. in South Australia. The novel tells the story of Winnie, a young journalist who is banished from Sydney to a beachside South Australian town after an 'incident' at a work Christmas function that just happened to involve someone who is very high up in the company and very, very married. Winnie has now been poked away to the costal town in order to set up a new beach lifestyle magazine. Winnie gets off to a bad start when she attracts the ire of local fisherman, Alex Bass, but the worst is yet to come when she discovers that Alex is also a freelance photographer who has been hired by the magazine. From there, Winnie begins to meet many of the quirky locals, making friends with some and enemies out of others, while being constantly thrown in situations where she has to rely on Alex. I thought that Catch of the Day was an amusing, lightweight novel. As a South Australian, I always enj...

Welcome back to Writers on Wednesday. This week I'm chatting with US author Armand Rosamilia ... Tell me a bit about yourself … I am super sexy, super interesting and (obviously) super humble.  Here is my official bio thingy… Armand Rosamilia is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida, where he writes when he's not watching the Boston Red Sox and listening to Heavy Metal music... and because of him they won the 2013 World Series, so he's pretty good at watching! He's written over 100 stories that are currently available, including a few different series: "Dying Days" extreme zombie series "Keyport Cthulhu" horror series "Flagler Beach Fiction Series" contemporary fiction "Metal Queens" non-fiction music series He also loves to talk in third person... because he's really that cool. He's a proud Active member of HWA as well.   You can find him at http://a...

Helene Young is a romantic suspense author who is at the absolute top of her field. Seriously. Take a quick look around some of the most well-respected Australian book review blogs and you'll find an absolute slew of five star reviews, particularly for her 2013 release Half Moon Bay.  Young has also won numerous awards from the Australian Romance Readers Association in recent years and (as of March 2014) has an average rating of 4.31 on goodreads . And with all of this to live up to, how does her latest release, Safe Harbour , stack up? Brilliant, filled with page-turning suspense and with a heroine that I could not help but cheer for. Plenty of the supporting characters, like Rosie are wonderful as well. Definitely a winner. Safe Harbour opens with Darcy Fletcher, a woman in her early thirties who has returned to the small Queensland town of Banksia Cove after shutting the doors on her pride and joy, a Sydney based restaurant. In Banksia Cove, she hopes to open a new r...

Cockroach Who can resist this patriotic chap? Once a proud part of the scenery on Port Wakefield Road, this guy was destined for the scrapheap until a successful public campaign saw him relocated to none other than Adelaide's Rundle Mall. He's shifted around the mall a couple of times, thanks to the current upgrades and the Fringe Festival, but it will be nice to see when and where he will find a permanent home. 

Each week for the next little while, I will be introducing you to a different character from my upcoming novel, Cats, Scarves and Liars . This week, I am proud to introduce to you all to Peppa Grove ... Meet Peppa Grove. Recently graduated from university, this spirited, red-haired and tattooed young woman works part time at her local post office, but her real passion is music. She gets the odd gig around the local pub and club scene, singing and playing her acoustic guitar and dreams of a day when she might become a professional singer/songwriter. She finds herself putting her dreams aside when her husband of seven months is killed in a hit and run. Meanwhile, other sinister things are afoot, mainly in the form of a customer-turned-stalker and a somewhat unusual black and white cat ... Cats, Scarves and Liars by Kathryn White. Coming soon!

Well. It's been a long, tiring week. I've been very busy preparing for the release of my next novel, Cats, Scarves and Liars . One of the smaller parts of the promotion involves offering some of my previously published books for review (it all helps get my name out there,) so if anyone is interested in PDF review copy of my YA novel Behind the Scenes  please contact me at inboxreviews@gmail.com Anyway, on to other things, this weeks question for Feature and Follow Friday is: How have your reading habits changed in the past few years? Did you get interested in a new genre? Do you read more? Less? Why do you think your habits changed, if they did? Ooh, this is a good question. I think I've seen a bit of a change in my reading habits over the past two years, ever since I started this blog. This is mostly because I got a lot of review copies and recommendations for books that I may have been hesitant to pick up or never thought of otherwise. I've discovered...

Source: Go Comics Another of Snoopy's famous personas is, of course, Joe Blackjack the Famous Riverboat Gambler. Despite his reputation Joe Blackjack seemed unable to win a game and was rarely interested in playing anything other than Old Maid. He appears in the comics infrequently, and this appearance in June 1996 was probably among his last. 

Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl  is easily the best YA novel that I have read in a very long time. Eighteen year old college freshman Cath is having an identity crisis of sorts. She's used to doing everything with her twin sister, Wren, but now that they're at university, Wren has decided that she wants to expand her social horizons further and not be part of a pair. Cath, meanwhile, is struggling with her new world and finds comfort in hiding away from people and writing fan fiction about Simon Snow, a series of books that are not unlike Harry Potter. Or, as her roomate Reagan puts it, "You've got some weird thing about Simon Snow." Then again, Cath is quick to argue, "I don't have a weird thing with Simon Snow ... I'm just really big in the fandom." Fangirl follows Cath through her first year of college as she makes the jump from child to adult and her struggles with social anxiety. It's lovely to watch as her world slowly expands--al...

Weclome back to Writers on Wednesday. This week, I've put my questions to Australian horror writer, Raymond Gates ... Tell me a bit about yourself … I’m an Aboriginal Australian writer based on the Gold Coast, in Queensland, whose childhood crush on everything dark and disturbing has led me to a love affair with writing horror and dark fiction. Since 2010 I have had a number of short fiction pieces published, and am hoping to drag my first novel kicking and screaming into the light of day in the not-too-distant future. Tell us about your most recently published book? I have yet to have my own book published, however my last published short story was All I Want for Christmas in Grinning Skull Press’ Christmas-themed anthology O’ Little Town of Deathlehem . It tells a tale many writers can probably relate to: a writer struggling to overcome writer’s block to meet his publisher’s deadline gets his Christmas wish... at a price. All I Want for Christmas is one ...

Melanie is a very special little girl. She is academically gifted, loves her school and her teacher, Miss Justineau. She also lives inside an Army bunker is taken to class each day strapped into a wheelchair while Sergeant Parks points a gun at her head. Melanie lives in a chilling, future version of Great Britain, riddled with a disease that turns ordinary people into zombie-like creatures known as Hungries. Like the other children in the bunker, she is a second generation Hungry and certain members of the government are very keen to experiment upon the children and discover how this disease can be defeated and eradicated. And then war breaks out ... The Girl With All the Gifts proves itself to be a very different book than what is indicated on the very short blurb on the back cover. Melanie is the standout character, however, the story does shift to the perspective of a number of humans. It's interesting to learn more about their fears for humanity, particularly those of...

I love photographing street art. I am not the worlds greatest photographer and most of my pictures are taken on an iPhone, but I love this funny little personal photograph collection that I have amassed over the past couple of years. I have decided that it would be fun to share, so over the next few weeks, I am going to be posting a few of my favourites ... Yellow Bicycle on Grote Street Shortly before Chinese New Year, this adorable bicycle appeared on Grote Street, just outside the entrance to Adelaide's Central Markets. The sculpture behind also got a bit of a makeover. Just how the bicycle got to be there and who is responsible is a bit of a mystery, but it was fun to walk past and wonder about, anyway ...

Drumroll please ... Here is the cover for my next novel, Cats, Scarves and Liars . Cover image copyright © Kathryn White 2014 Cats, Scarves and Liars is a bit different from my other books. It is a thriller that is fun, sad and just a little bit offbeat. (I mean, how many thrillers feature talking cats? Really?) Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this one, just because it was a little bit different to the novels that I have written so far. This is the blurb: Meet Peppa Grove. Peppa is just your average Australian young woman, really. 23 years old, widowed and the owner of a black and white cat who can speak perfect English. (But no one will believe her about the cat.) Why is she being stalked by one of the customers from her job at the City South Post Office? What secrets does the mysterious and sinister Ivory Black know about Peppa and her past? What does he know about the strange murders that are happening all over Adelaide? And was it really necessary of him to ...

Ladies and Gentlemen, for your reading pleasure today, I have a brilliant guest post from freelance blogger Spencer Blohm who takes a look at how Veronica Roth's novel Divergent has made the transition from book to the big screen ... Divergent : From the Page to the Pictures On March 21st, the much anticipated Divergent will officially hit theaters in the U.S. (readers in Australia will have to wait a few more days, until April 10th, to see the film). You’ve likely seen reviews here on Divergent , the book , but watching the journey from the page to the big screen has been a long and exciting one, especially for author Veronica Roth.             Roth has become a celebrity of sorts in the literary world after the massive success of Divergent , which was published in 2011 when she was only 23 years old. She wrote the book two years prior, at only 21, while attending classes at Northwestern University in Evanston, Il...

For the past few months now, I have been following the latest Phantom Daily Comic Strip storyline, titled The Scoundrel.  The basic premise is this. Reporter Lara Bell wants a scoop, so she decides to do what no other reporter has done before, to journey into Bandar territory. Despite being warned not to disturb the Bandar, Lara hires sleazy and self-serving tour guide Rick Gruber. Gruber poisons her in an attempt to not only find the Bandar, but persuade them to take him to the Skull Cave, which he figures will be filled with treasures. Anyway, Gruber ends up being taken prisoner outside the skull cave, while the Phantom offers Bell a tour of the Skull Cave. At the end of the tour, comes this foolish moment where Bell makes a pass at the Phantom, which is quickly rebuffed. The picture of Bell in the first frame clearly shows the distress she feels at the news. Sure, it was a silly thing for her to do, but, the story shows that as reckless as she is, Bell is basically a goo...

Mister Pip , I suspect, is a book that is going to stay with me for a very long time and not just because of all of the wonderful references to Dickens. Set in Bougainville Island during the early 1990s (read, during the civil war,) the novel introduces us to two wonderful characters. Matilda, a girl who has grown up on the island with her mother (her father is away, working in Australia,) and her school teacher, Mr Watts, who is the only white person left on the island. Mr Watts is not a qualified teacher, but fills in his days by getting the parents of the children to share some of their personal knowledge and experiences. More importantly, he reads to the children selections from Dickens' Great Expectations . The book fires Matilda's imagination and she finds herself a little, well, enamoured with Pip. She writes his name in the sand, which is discovered by soldiers and thought to be a code, which in turn sets about a catastrophic turn of events ... I thoroughly enjo...

Welcome back to Writers on Wednesday. This week I'm chatting with Jessica Kirkpatrick, author of the horror poetry book, Doll Maker ... Tell me a bit about yourself … I'm a senior at Hollins University. I major in Creative Writing there with a minor of Sociology. Its actually snowing outside while I reply to this. Back in July of 2013, I married the love of my life and that following October I had a little boy. Now, Freddie is just the cutest. I could talk about him all day. I grew up in Virginia, USA and my little family and I hope to move away someday. Tell us about your most recently published book? Doll Maker is a book of poetry about a serial killer abducting girls and turning them into living dolls before killing them. I based the book off of a bunch of pictures I found online of models who look like dolls. Instead of writing something about the love of porcelain dolls I have, it sort of turned into a horror series of poetry. Tell us about the first...