Kathryn's Inbox

I decided to pick up Roald Dahl's clever The Twits again and go on a bit of a nostalgia trip after reading Danny Champion of the World recently and also Dahl's autobiography, Boy . In this short, clever book for children there is a lot of humour as Dahl depicts the gross and ghastly behaviours of Mr and Mrs Twit. Dahl dislike of beards is obvious (Mr Twit has a shocker,) and the eventual revenge that both the monkeys and the birds get on this horrible pair is as perfect as it is hilarious. And so too are Quentin Blake's illustrations. I wish that I could add more to this one, but it is what it is. Some books don't require in depth discussion and recommendations, they exist to be enjoyed. Anyway, this one is great for a nostalgia trip and also great for sharing with primary school aged children. Highly recommended. 

Laline Paul's debut The Bees is a cleverly imagined and executed thriller with a surprising setting and characters ... ones that may just be more like humans than we care to admit. Flora 717 has just hatched and discovered that she belongs to the lowest caste in her hive and has only narrowly escaped death for being too large, too ugly and too damn smart. To survive Flora must follow the rules.   Accept. Obey. Serve ... I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. The Bees is the first book that I have read that is from the perspective of well, a bee. The subject matter is well researched and much plays as a bit of a take on humanity--particularly on how survival of the fittest does not necessarily mean survival of those who are the strongest but, rather, those who are the most cunning. It was a bit gut wrenching watching a number of sacrifices (sacrifices: a euphemism for mass murder and, in one instance, genocide, while murder is generally referred to as The Kindness) and th...

Welcome once again to Writers on Wednesday. This week I am chatting with prolific Australian author Sally Odgers. Sally has been writing for a long time--in fact, I can remember borrowing her book Amy Amaryllis from my local library when I was in my upper years at primary school. (I think I may have owned a couple of the Blinky Bill adaptions as well.) Anyway, welcome Sally ... Tell me a bit about yourself … I was born in Tasmania and still live in the same road. I grew up on a dairy farm with one elder sister, and a lot of animals. My sister and I used to share books and pets and played a game called “quotations” in which one of us came up with a quote from one of the books we’d both read and the other had to identify it. We did this while walking, rowing, riding and feeding or grooming animals. My first story was published in 1970, and my first book in 1977. Since then, just two years have passed without a new book coming out. As well as writing, I run a small man...

When I read in The Advertiser that South Australian author Trish Morey had penned a novel set in one of my favourite parts of the state, I knew that I just had to wander down to my local bookstore and purchase a copy. Although I do not read a lot of rural romance, I had a gut feeling that I would very much enjoy Stone Castles and I am pleased to report that gut feeling was spot-on about that one.  Stone Castles tells the story of Pip Martin, a girl born and raised in Kadina, South Australia. The combination of a tragic loss and a lie left Pip questioning everything she knew when she was just eighteen years old. She left Kadina for Sydney, and then New York and has enjoyed a successful career in the finance industry. Now in her thirties, Pip has returned to Kadina to say good-bye to her grandmother and soon finds her past catching up with her ... As I said before, I enjoyed reading this one. I loved the level of research and accuracy that the author put into her work, ...

Grilled cheese sandwich anyone? This business has a very innovative way of gaining the attention of their customers. Most days, you can find this awesome Kombi Van parked somewhere along Rundle Mall, serving their delicious grilled cheese sandwiches to a grateful public. Sometimes restaurants don't have to be expensive to be awesome.

Choose Format Amazon|Kindle Amazon|Paperback Blurb: Fairytales don’t always happen once upon a time. Fables don’t always have a happy ending. Sometimes the stories we love are too dark for nightmares. What if waking Sleeping Beauty was the worse thing the Prince could have done? What if Rapunzel wasn't in that tower for her own protection—but for everyone else’s? Assembled by The Bearded Scribe Press, Twice Upon A Time combines classics and modern lore in peculiar and spectacular ways. From Rapunzel to Rumpelstiltskin, this unique collection showcases childhood favorites unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Both traditionally-published and independent authors will take you on a whirlwind ride through fairytale and folklore, myth and majick. Cherished stories are revisited and remastered into newly-treasured tales of hope and heartache, of adversity and adventure. This collection features 43 short stories ranging in length from 2K-12K words from the followin...

Great news! Poison Ivy is now available for pre-order from the Amazon Kindle Store ahead of its release next week on February 28. Poison Ivy is my seventh novel and my first release for 2015. The blurb reads: Don't get me wrong. I wanted to tell you a nice story. But the truth is, life is not like that... Ivy Brett-Masters has always been a bit of a prankster. But when an act of revenge goes wrong, fashion model Ivy finds herself in a lot of trouble. She might even go to jail. Poison Ivy is not just a story about that. This is a story about family. About friendship. About loyalty. Most of all it is a story about a young woman finding the courage to accept herself.     Poison Ivy by Kathryn White $2.99 from the Amazon Kindle Store. Pre-order your copy here. 

Quite possibly the most boring Peanuts comic ever?

Camille Preaker is returning home and her welcome could not be any less warm. The illegitimate daughter of a wealthy and controlling, but oddly distant, mother, Camille has found some sense of self in her job as a newspaper reporter in Chicago. Sent back to the small town where she grew up to cover an investigation into the murder of two young girls, Camille ends up uncovering more than she bargained for ... Many readers will already be familiar with Gillian Flynn who is the author of the brilliant thriller Gone Girl, which has recently been made into a feature film. I read Sharp Objects after a recommendation from my cousin April who assured me that this one is even better than Gone Girl and she was spot on there. Sharp Objects is a surprising and often eerie psychological thriller and sometimes it is difficult to know what is worse--what is going through some of the characters heads, or the harm that they cause others.  Camille's estranged family--controlling mother A...

Tell me a bit about yourself … I'm a Sydney based author with five books traditionally published. I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I wrote my first 'novel' when I was 12 and decided it was something I wanted to do in my life. I love to write. It transports me to another time and place and   it allows me to be someone else for a little while. I'm always thinking about writing, my brain doesn't stop with possible characters, ideas, titles, themes. It can be exhausting! I'm currently submitting my next historical fiction and writing my first science fiction. I live with my husband and two budgies. Tell us about your most recently published book? My next release is my first dystopian Edge of Tomorrow in April. I wrote it during a difficult time and it sapped all my energy and passion. Its partially inspire by the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner. I've always had an interest in 'end of the world',...

Maud may be having a little difficulty with her memory of late, but she knows one thing. Her friend Elizabeth is missing and that she needs to find her. Elizabeth is Missing is a surprising novel and an intriguing mystery, told from the perspective of an elderly woman who is suffering from dementia and one that reaches a surprising conclusion--though much like Maud's memory, the pieces of the puzzle are all there, it is just a matter of looking and putting the right things together. Elizabeth is Missing has been available for a while now and has been on my to-read list for some time after I read positive reviews from other bloggers. When I saw that the novel was being rereleased and was available on netgalley, I snapped up the opportunity to read it. I am glad that I did. I found myself challenged in all the right ways--to think what it must be like to be old, losing ones memory and to be treated rather condescendingly by carers and by family. Add to the mix that Maud has ...

The Three Rivers fountain sits proudly at the southern tip of Victoria Square. The three pronged fountain was designed by John Dowie represents the three main rivers in South Australia--the Murray, the Onkaparinga and the Torrens. It was switched on in 1968 by the Duke of Edinburgh after many years of planning, and formed an integral part of the redevelopment of Victoria Square during the 1960s. In 2013, Victoria Square was redeveloped again and the fountain was moved further south.  The fountain has also been subject to a popular urban myth, regarding how the penis on one of the statues was broken. Practically everybody who lives in Adelaide, it seems when they witnessed a classmate, a friend of a friend, or some random kid, fire a rock at the rock at the fountain. (Where anyone would even find a rock in Victoria Square is, of course, questionable, as is the extreme force and precision that would be required for such a hit to occur.) This photograph was taken from th...

Couldn't resist. Sorry.

Guess what ladies! Adelaide's most eligible bachelor is looking for a girlfriend. Or not. Actually, I've been tempted to write a post on this for a long time, about two years in fact. I keep seeing ads popping up all over the internet, inviting me to meet a man called James who is 32 (and has been for at least the last eighteen months,) is a very rich businessman and who is looking for a girlfriend. The link, if you're dumb enough to click on it like I was, takes you to a site about James that is backed by a well known Adelaide dating agency. The whole thing is about as suspicious as it comes, for reasons that should be fairly obvious (if not this hilarious YouTube video describes it fairly well,  as does this Meet James forum on reddit .) My guess is that the whole thing is a scam to encourage people from the desired demographic (i.e. young, wanting love and naive,) to sign up to the agency.  Has anyone else seen these ads? What is your opinion? Update 9 Januar...

The combination of sparky father, pheasants and a top secret adventure makes Danny Champion of the World  a winning read for children (and adults) who love Roald Dahl's quirky novels. Danny is a nine year old boy who lives in a tiny gypsy caravan with his single dad. Danny's mum died when he was still a baby and consequently, Danny and his dad are very close. Together, Danny and his dad run the local service station and enjoy a quiet, easy existence. But when local businessman Mr Hazell begins to make their life difficult, the pair plot a clever revenge to poach Mr Hazell's prized pheasants, that leads to some unexpected surprised ... Like all of Dahl's work, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Danny Champion of the World . I never read this one when I was a kid--during my primary school years, my oldest brother Ben would buy me one of Dahl's books every year on my birthday and eventually, I suppose, there came a year when the dreaded word 'teen' was tacked...

This somewhat neglected painting sits on the side of the Hopgood Theatre at Noarlunga Centre. Created by local artist Jimmy C it depicts the experience of watching live theatre. Considering the blandness of the surrounding wall and the amount of work that went in to the painting, it is a shame that this one has not been better cared for and is lightly decorated with graffiti. 

I was on the bus earlier this week, a little weary, and perhaps, a little bored, as I travelled home from a popular precinct. Seated almost directly in front of me were a guy and a girl, probably in their late teens. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the pair and I was not very interested in them, just as they were probably not very interested in me. Anyway, the pair probably would have escaped my attention completely, had the girl not suddenly pressed the next stop button, sprang up from her chair, and performed what all of us have learned at some point or another through bitter experience is a dud move. "Thank you so much!" The girl squealed, her voice high and excited. "Thank you so much for coming out with me today!" With about as much enthusiasm as your average lump of wood, the guy nodded and muttered a brief, "Yeah." It was at this point that I started to feel for the poor girl. Poor thing, I decided. She's going t...

Found this YouTube clip recently. It's a sort-of funny and clever take on Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, but parts of it also got on my nerves a bit as it felt a little bit over done. Still its all in the spirit of the Muppets and they one an award for this, so it has some magic and some value there.

No One Else Can Have You the debut novel from American author Kathleen Hale is a quirky black comedy set in a small town in Wisconsin. Sixteen year old Kippy Bushman is determined to find out who murdered her best friend Ruth. Unfortunately, she is having a hard time convincing the local police that they have arrested the wrong man ... From the moment that I picked up No One Else Can Have You , it was very obvious that this was going to be a book that would divide readers. It's quirky, dark moments are the kind of thing that you will either love or it will end up being one of those things that gets on your nerves completely. Pretty much every character in this book has an annoying, exaggerated personality trait and Kippy herself is far from a sweet, avenging angel. Most of the adults are complete morons. From reading extracts of her diary, we can see that Ruth is a spoiled brat and, perhaps, a borderline psychopath. And, you know what? I thought that all of it was brillian...

Welcome to Writers on Wednesday. This week I am interviewing another great Australian author, Jane Routley ... Tell me a bit about yourself …  My main ambition at the moment is to see a live volcano. I write Historical Fantasy with a chick lit twist. (Girls just want to have fun and agency as well.) I also do customer service for the railways.  I enjoy working with the public.  They are so quirky.  I’ve started writing about my experiences in my Blog. In my spare time I love to garden, read and bushwalk. Apart from ten years living in Copenhagen and Frankfurt, I’ve lived in Melbourne all my life.   Tell us about your most recently published book? My fourth fantasy novel the Three Sisters is coming out from Clandestine Press in December. Two sisters, a powerful warrior and a mage who refuses to grow up, seek to rescue their kidnapped sister from a ruthless colonizing power but the forces arrayed against them are darker than they think. My ...

From the moment that I read the first two sentences for blurb for The Two of Us  by Andy Jones I was completely and utterly intrigued. To explain, the first two sentences read: Falling in love is the easy part. What matters most is what happens next... The premise of the novel is this. William, who prefers to be known by his surname, Fisher, and Ivy have been an item for nineteen days and just know that they are meant to be together. From there, Fisher and Ivy's relationship develops in a number of unexpected ways.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Two of Us . Fisher and Ivy's relationship really did take a number of unexpected twists and turns, none of which were unrealistic and many that will be easily identifiable by a number of readers. (And, no, I'm not going to reveal what they are.) The twists are like precious secrets, best slowly learned and discovered by the reader. It is also a novel of how their adapt to the changes that take place, and the importanc...

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a people park! I discovered this little gem recently, which is located on Bank Street, a small but busy side street that connects the staid and sensible North Terrace with the deliciously ratbaggish Hindley Street. It runs for a good one hundred metres and seems like a nice spot to stop and sit for a while on a warm summer evening. (It also has the advantage of being situated just near a couple of cafes and a certain global takeaway franchise that specialises in hamburgers and what nice, Adelaide girls call chips.)

British author Roald Dahl's autobiography about his childhood may have been intended for middle-grade readers and contains the occasional tall tale (or possibly some light exaggerations,) but it is also an enjoyable, short read for adults. I picked this one up from a secondhand book store when I was feeling a bit down recently, and soon found myself laughing and smiling as the author recounted an event in his childhood where he and his chums got their revenge on the particularly vile old woman who worked at the sweet store in his town. The story reads very much like Roald Dahl's children's novels, which makes me think that there was more than more than the occasional exaggeration in there. Still, it's funny to think of their being such a vile woman, and running a sweet shop no less, and the inventive way that a group of boys who had not yet reached their tenth birthday got their revenge. There are sad moments--Dahl lost his sister to a childhood illness and then his...