Kathryn's Inbox

YOU is a deliciously terrifying stalker tale that grabbed hold of me on page one and kept me captivated right until the very end. Joe is a young man working at an independent bookstore. Beck, the young woman he meets in the F--K section of the store, is his perfect match in every possible way ... even if she does not realise it. The narrative--told as though Joe is speaking directly to Beck--tells the story of Joe's obsession with Beck and the extent to which he mercilessly stalks her and anyone else who gets in their way. Sealing the deal on the creepiness factor on this stalker tale is the fact that Beck is not entirely innocent herself ... Caroline Kepnes is a talented author. Her ability to demonstrate the extent of Joe's delusions and Beck's deceptions and make them easily identifiable to the reader without being explicit or obvious is commendable. At times I found myself questioning who was truly calling the shots as Beck's ability to manipulate others--pa...

Perhaps one of the more modest works of street art in Adelaide, this small fountain sits in the small section of park bordered by Pirie Street, Grenfell Street and East Terrace. Despite doing some research on the area, I am unable to discover if this park has an official name, or if it is considered to be an extension of Rymill Park. ( This map leaves the question unanswered. ) If anyone knows, please feel free to tell me in the comments below.

Someone asked me what asthma feels like. This picture from the University of Calgary website pretty much sums it up. While everyone else in Adelaide is off enjoying the great spring weather, I am stuck indoors with my inhaler. While being indoors for a long stretch really isn't such an ordeal for someone who loves reading and writing anyway and has a few reviews that need she needs to catch up on. But, anyway, asthma is a bit of a scary disease. Here's why: Asthma can strike at any time. I take my medications like I am supposed to, and try to avoid things that may it worse (long aeroplane rides for example,) but that doesn't mean that I never have an attack. Anyway, an asthma attack can happen at any time, meaning that no matter where I am or where I'm going and for how short a time, I always have to have my medication on me. People really don't know how to react when someone has an attack. This includes people in the medical profession. I re...

Whenever I hear this song (which, sadly, is often as it seems to be on high rotation inside every supermarket and shopping centre in Adelaide, despite being more than twenty-five years old,) the first thing that springs into my mind is Footrot Flats. Dave Dobbyn's most memorable hit comes courtesy of being the theme song for New Zealand's most popular animated film of all time, The Footrot Flats Movie. This clip has some great bits from the movie, mixed with some terrible (and by terrible, I mean great,) 1980s fashion. 

Welcome to Writers on Wednesday. This week I'm chatting with debut crime writer, Sandi Wallace. Tell me a bit about yourself … As a tiny kid, I was a shy bookworm with an overactive imagination – and not too much has changed. I fell in love with crime and adventure in film and print thanks to the likes of Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. At about the age of six, I penned my first book (don’t ever ask to see that one!) and invented songs in the shower too. It would be around that time that I decided I wanted to be a crime writer when I grew up. Well, it has taken a while to develop my individual style and hone my skills but in the meantime, I’ve served my writer’s apprenticeship in a variety of jobs from banker, to paralegal, office manager, journalist and personal trainer, and that all certainly provides plenty of fodder for my stories. I still say, though, if I hadn’t become a writer, I would’ve been a police detective....

Take a stroll along the southern side of Hindley Street and odds you'll encounter this smiling chap (who, more often than not, seems to be wearing part of a McDonalds ice-cream, courtesy of the aforementioned, which is located on the opposite side of the road.) This chap has lived on the street since early 2000 and is a tribute to Adelaide born comedian Roy 'Mo' Rene who helped to popularise well known Australian ocker phrases such as "Fair suck of the sav," and "Don't come the raw prawn with me." Just to Roy's left is a small plaque that pays tribute to his history. 

Irish folklore, fairies and modern day Dublin come together in this brilliant, funny debut by Irish-Australian author Ellie O'Neill. Reluctantly Charmed is a story about fairies. It's also a romance. Most importantly, it is also a great deal of fun with a loveable heroine and a lot of self-depreciating humour.   Kate McDaid is working in an advertising agency in Dublin and believes that her career prospects are going nowhere. She is also a little, well, concerned about her love life which seems to be going about as well as her career is. Then something completely unexpected happens, in the form of an inheritance from a great aunt who died 130 years ago. This aunt, who was also named by Kate McDaid, was a witch. In order for Kate to receive her inheritance, she must publish a series of seven poems each week. The poems each contain a surprising request--that people reconnect with the fairies of Irish Folklore. Kate publishes the first letter on an obscure website. Hilari...

When it occurred that I had never created a Friday Funnies post featuring Hagar the Horrible, I could not resist hunting this little gem down and sharing it with you. Hagar the Horrible works brilliantly as a simple parody of both contemporary life and also of life in medieval Norway.  Or perhaps it suggests that humanity has not really changed all that much over the years ...

Welcome back to Writers on Wednesday, that feature where I put my questions to a different writer each week. Please make welcome Pollyanna Darling ... Tell us a bit about yourself … I am a Nature-loving, introverted writer, living in a beautiful part of Australia with four kids (all boys), my partner and a couple of wily dogs. I have been writing stories since I was four years old, it's the only activity that really stuck. Everything else has passed with the seasons. I write because I love both the magic that happens in the creative process, and the Otherworld that I inhabit while I write. Imagination is a deliriously blissful place to hang out. Tell us about your most recently published book? Heartwood is a story about a group of forest creatures who must work together to save the heart of their ancient forest from the Smashbasher (a silver-fanged bulldozer). It is also the story of one very ordinary foreman who finds his heart in the forest. Heartwood ...

How well can you really know another person? How well do you really know your best friend? Your spouse? Can you trust them? That is the premise of Trust in Me , a new novel by British thriller writer, Sophie McKenzie. Livy has enjoyed a comfortable life as a wife and mother of two and has a great friendship with Julia. Her happy life has only been tainted just a little with two events--the brutal of her sister, Kara, eighteen years ago and when her husband had a brief fling with one of his work colleagues. Julia has been the friend that Livy has depended on during these hard times. Through Livy's eyes we see Julia as a strong and capable woman. So when Julia dies in an apparent suicide, Livy is certain that Julia's death was not self inflicted. She starts to investigate ... and discovers just how little she knew her supposed best friend and some of the other people around her. Trust in Me is a novel that is unpredictable and sometimes impossible to put down. The au...

Picking up where The Fiery Heart left off, Silver Shadows , the fifth novel in Mead's Bloodlines series tells about Sydney Sage's horrific time spend in an alchemist rehabilitation centre while her forbidden love, Adrian, fights to find and free her.  Although entertaining and a fun distraction, Silver Shadows is the eleventh novel that Mead has set in this universe (the first six novels make up the Vampire Academy series, while Bloodlines serves as a spin-off) and the series as a whole is starting to feel a little tired. That said, there is still a lot to like within the narrative. Fans of Sydney and Adrian's romance are in for a treat. The novel ends of a (not entirely unexpected,) cliffhanger that will lead perfectly into the sixth and final novel of the series.  Strictly for fans or for those eager to know what happens next. 

I am sharing this one for no good reason. Seriously.

Luna Tango is the first novel I have read to be set almost entirely in Argentina and I loved author Alli Sinclair's depiction of Argentina and, more importantly, the famous Argentinian/Uruguayan dance, the tango. The novel opens with Dani, an Australian journalist, based in New York but sent to Argentina to do a piece researching the history of the tango. Dani's personal life is a bit of a mess--her fiance has just ditched her for his ex-wife and her connection with Argentina is unpleasant in a very personal way--when she was a small child, Dani's mother abandoned her and moved to Argentina where she became an exceptionally famous dancer. Add to the mix the fact that Dani's grandmother (who raised her) is staunchly refusing to speak to Dani until she leaves Argentina and that her interview subject, Carlos is quite an eccentric man who refuses to answer any of Dani's questions until she learns some dance steps and we have quite a colourful story. As the story pr...

Time once again for Writers on Wednesday. This week I am chatting with Australian journalist, author and editor Tony Berry.  Tell us a bit about yourself … Known variously as an old curmudgeon, the marathon man and dedicated pedant. Started in journalism way back when as an apprentice reporter whose Wednesday night duty was to read and check galleys under the beady eyes of the paper’s proofreaders. Since then I’ve travelled the world as reporter and feature writer and spent more than 40 years in Australia as feature writer and editor with a broad mix of daily newspapers, trade journals and magazines, much of the time as a freelance. a dozen years or so ago I eventually got around to indulging in a lifelong wish to write a book rather than report on events. These days more time seems to be spent on editing other writers’ books than on writing my own. But I love it. Tell us about your most recently published book? This is The Devil Deals in Diamonds , the th...

The day that Martha Winter decided to tear her family apart started out like any other day ...  Or so begins the haunting first sentence of A Place For Us, a haunting new novel by British author, Harriet Evans. I found this novel somewhat reminiscent of Maeve Binchy with its cast of colourful characters and multi-layered storytelling set in a rural town ... but with a bit of a sinister twist--one that I was not prepared for or expecting, despite many of the clues that the author lays through the narrative. Martha Winter and her husband David have enjoyed a good life in a small English village. Martha has enjoyed her role as a wife, mother and as a hostess to many parties that the family has become famous for. David is a successful cartoonist with his own daily comic strip. They have three children--Bill, a doctor who lives nearby and who has recently remarried the much younger Karen (a woman who just does not 'get' people); Florence who is currently studying in the city...

Game of hopscotch, anyone? While walking along the Esplanade at Glenelg, I was amused to discover this painted on the shared footpath/cycle track. It's a part of the South Australian Government's Be Active promotion, which encourages residents to think outside the square and do fun, little things to be more active in their every day life.  

Mothers Grimm is a deliciously wicked, modern-day take on fairytales and motherhood. Popular fairytales, such as Hansel and Gretel are retold from the perspective of modern day, Australian mothers who are struggling to reconcile the differences between what they were told motherhood would be and the reality of what motherhood truly is.  Wood's prose is funny and often wicked and the retellings quite inventive.  Lettuce  is set in a group of mother-to-be where the supposedly perfect mother turns out to be anything but perfect. (She's the kind of mother who may just exchange her child for some leafy greens.) Sleep is a twist on Sleeping Beauty with references to sleep depravation, Cottage examines the guilt mothers feel for leaving their children in child care and Nag talks about mother/daughter relationships.  As a woman in her thirties who is childless and will very probably remain so, I suspect that I could not relate to this book in the way that many...

Real by Katy Evans is another self-published works of erotic fiction that found itself picked up by a mainstream publisher and propelled to the New York Times bestseller list. It plays out like a kind of porn fantasy, set in the world of underground fighting with a real hard, fast and now edge to the narrative that does not tie itself down with either sentiment or sensuality. Evans writing has a kind of urgency to it that is rare for erotic novels aimed at a predominantly female audience.  Real tells the story of Brooke, a once hopeful Olympic athlete who has her dreams smashed after an injury. She finds herself work as a sports therapist and one evening encounters fighter Remington Tate. The pair immediately become infatuated with one another and Brooke finds herself propelled into a world of luxury and alpha males. The first half of the novel works up to some rough, steamy scenes and there is a bit of a gut wrenching sub-plot involving Brooke's sister. Real is very muc...

Source: Go Comics Another of my favourite Peanuts comics has Peppermint Patty throwing out a not-so-subtle hint, one that could only be totally misheard (and misunderstood,) by Charlie Brown. 

Welcome to Writers on Wednesday. This week I have with me M. R. Cosby a fellow Aussie and author of the recently released Dying Embers ... Tell me a bit about yourself … I write short, dark fiction – mostly interpreting my own experience, and from my dreams. I try to find the strangeness in the everyday, and to expose the gaps that people unwittingly find themselves slipping through. I started writing in order to capture something of myself, to set it down and to make it permanent. My father died when I was young, and I know almost nothing about him. I don’t even have an example of his handwriting, and I often wonder at how so little of him lives on. I didn’t want to risk the same thing happening with my own children, hence an attempt to write my memoirs. From this effort came some rather autobiographical tales which, collectively, became Dying Embers . Tell us about your most recently published book ... Dying Embers is a collection of ten short stories, publ...

Australian author Anna Romer's second novel Lyrebird Hill is a fascinating tale of amnesia, family secrets and loss. On the surface, Ruby Cardel would appear to have a happy life. She runs a successful business and a loving and supportive boyfriend. Soon, her life begins to unravel--first by the discovery of lingerie in her boyfriend's pocket and then by the discover that the death of her older sister was far from accidental. Ruby returns to her childhood home, where she discovers more than she thought possible--including the diary of Brenna, a woman imprisoned for murder in the late nineteenth century. Running parallel to Ruby's own story is that of Brenna--a young woman also brought up at Lyrebird Hill and eventually trapped in an unhappy marriage.  The duel narratives of Lyrebird Hill work well, and I found Brenna and Ruby's stories to be quite interesting. With Brenna I knew, (or at least thought that I knew,) what would happen, though the questions of how...