Kathryn's Inbox

This book was completely fucking ludicrous, lacked depth and was completely full of smut. And maybe that is why I loved it. Ruin & Rule is one of those books, an emotionally charged page turner full of good looking people. This one was published a couple of years ago, when contemporary romances set in illegal motorcycle clubs was a thing. (Seriously, what is it with contemporary romances and trends? At one point, the heroes were all rock stars. At another point in time they were all wealthy businessmen. Then there were the rural romances. What next? Will we soon all be reviewing contemporary romances that praise the swoonworthy qualities of dark and brooding Formula One car drivers? Or what about Sam, the hunky bad boy emergency services worker who is the male lead in Dial Triple Zero My Panties Are on Fire ?) Anyway, this one opens with a female lead who has just been abducted. She's suffering amnesia. She has no idea who she is, but she knows that she's been abdu...

Spotted these lovely artworks at Noarlunga Interchange recently #publicart #noarlunga #noarlungainterchange #fluerieupeninsula #adelaide #adelaidemetro #southaustralia A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on May 20, 2018 at 1:53am PDT

The Magic Finger was another of Dahl's books that never seemed to be around when I was a kid--I don't know if it was out of print, but I do know that my primary school library didn't have a copy and neither did our local council run library. Apparently, it was reissued with new illustrations in 1995, which would have been the exact point in time when I would have considered myself too old to be reading children's books and probably would have felt very grown up and sophisticated as I picked up a seemingly grown up novel by Christopher Pike instead. (Yeah, who?) Anyway, I was a little surprised and a lot delighted when I found a copy of this one on sale for $4.99 at my local QBD. (Apparently it was surplus stock from a recent promotion by News Corp.)  Anyway ... The Magic Finger is a short, fun tale that tells the story of a little girl with a strong sense of justice and a finger that is able to perform powerful magic when she gets angry. And there is no...

Morbid, probably not true and completely befitting of Dahl ...

A Superior Spectre is a haunting novel about secrets, shame and a sense of self. It opens with Jeff, a man living sometime in the not-too-distant future who is both dying of cancer and struggling with the burden and shame of his sexual desires. He has fled his family, and home, in Melbourne for Scotland. Armed with a special piece of technology, he is able to enter the mind of Leonora, a young woman living in the Scottish Highlands in the 1860s. Jeff is warned only to use this technology three times, but he decides to take matters into his own hands, and soon, Leonora is plagued by visions and a strange feeling of darkness ... This was an intriguing read, with a gothic feel that reminded me so, so very much of one of my favourite authors, Daphne du Maurier. The writing is crisp, and clever and I could not help but get drawn into the life of Leonora, the introverted young woman who is sent away from her beloved home due to her fathers not entirely unwarranted fears that she is ...

Imagine watching someone shoot your best friend. The friend you grew up with. Imagine if that same person then kept a gun pointed at you until an ambulance arrived. Imagine if this wasn't the first time that you'd seen one of your closest friends shot. Imagine if the person wielding the gun was a cop. That's the premise of The Hate U Give . Starr is a sixteen-year-old from the Garden District, a poor area, regarded by many as a ghetto. Her parents have found a way to send her and her brothers to a private school forty-five minutes away from home that's filled mostly with wealthy white kids. From the age of ten, Starr has found that she acts one way at school, and another at home, but when Starr's best friend Khalil, is shot by a police officer, she finds herself struggling, not only with a huge sense of injustice at the tragedy that has occurred, but with the idea that perhaps she hasn't been as true to herself and the people she loves as she cou...

Fans of H.P. Lovecraft are almost certain to be intrigued by Providence , the latest offering from bestselling author Caroline Kepnes ( You, Hidden Bodies .) The novel opens with Jon and Chloe, two kids growing up in a small American town, who are slowly falling in love. Jon is a bit well, different from the other kids in town and, consequently, becomes prey for the local bully. Chloe is a bit different as well, but she hides it by trying to fit in. It's a plot within itself, but as the blurb promises, this is a Caroline Kepnes novel and the worst is yet to come. And it does, in the form of a nutty substitute teacher who has been unduly influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Jon is abducted by his teacher, made the subject of a strange experiment and is released four years later--and with newfound powers that allow him, very passively, to inflict great harm on others. From there we have a story about the mayhem that unfolds with a young man struggles to understand his newfo...

Spotted this rhino in a cafe in King William Street 🦏 #publicart #cafe #kingwilliamstreet #adelaide #southaustralia A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on May 24, 2018 at 6:39pm PDT

Did you know that there is a new Abigail short story up on Amazon? In this companion piece to Being Abigail we learn of all the mayhem that went on back home while Abigail was away in Sydney through a series of hilarious voice mail messages from Samuel, Ursula and a few other characters. Find out about how Cedric was abducted by a crazy old lady, what almost ruined Ursula's Christmas Lunch and who um, accidentally propositions Abigail in this short story which is exclusive to the Amazon Kindle Store. (Yep, that means it's free to read for anyone with Kindle Unlimited.) It's a lot of fun, there are plenty of laughs to be had and I hope you will read it. Anyway, the links are below: Amazon US:  https://amzn.to/2zAXtHN Amazon Australia:  https://amzn.to/2zNt09B Amazon UK:  https://amzn.to/2KUU7Vg

LOL 😂 #christiesbeach #beachroad #adelaide #southaustralia #justforfun #quirky A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on May 30, 2018 at 6:02pm PDT

Ahh, who could forget that classic Sesame Street moment when Ernie uh, pretended to lose Bert's beloved paper clip collection?

Imagine waking up in a small coastal town in Australia and discovering that the sea has disappeared. Imagine if one of the local children had been seeing visions of such an event--and it's fallout--for years. That's the premise of Dyschronia, a solid work of Literary Fiction that has three different narratives. There's Sam, the young woman who had the premonition and is now living through the fallout, a collective "we" who make up the residents of the town who speak of the event directly after it happens and a younger version of Sam, who is having her premonitions and trying to work out what they mean. Together, they form a story that is circular in nature, one that is about to happen, one that his happening and one that has happened. It's a bold storytelling device, lending itself to all kinds of interpretations and it works quite well. The story and narrative itself is quite unsettling, though this is to be expected given the eerie subject matter. Ov...

Did you know that over its thirty year run, the writers of The Simpsons have managed to insert, well, numerous mathematical jokes into the script. This is no surprise, given that many of the team are also expect mathematicians. In The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets , mathematician Simon Singh explains some of the mathematical concepts to the layperson, lets the reader in on some of the jokes that they may not have noticed and adds in some of his own mathematical humour. This was a great read for me. I'm a massive fan of The Simpsons (and have been since the age of nine, when it debuted in Australia,) and I've loved the show for its depth and the fact that it often the script will cause different viewers to laugh at different things. As someone who does not come from a mathematical background (I never studied Maths in my final year of high school,) I was unaware of many of the maths jokes that had appeared in various episodes, and enjoyed having them explained...

A Thousand Perfect Notes tells the story of a young man who is tortured and abused by his obsessive stage mother. Beck--short for Beethoven--is expected to become a famous concert pianist so that he can carry on a family legacy that was cut short after his once-famous mother suffered a stroke. Unable to play, Beck's mother relocated him from Germany to Australia where he has has spent his childhood forced to practice at the piano for hours at a time. The premise, which is slightly reminiscent in places to the Scott Hicks/Geoffrey Rush film Shine   soon veers into YA romance territory when Beck meets August, a free spirited teen who may just help him play his own tune.  This one was an entertaining read with some well, interesting characters. Beck is the epitome of a downtrodden teen who only wants to be himself, his mother is almost cartoonishly evil in places and his baby sister is surprisingly articulate for a preschooler. As for August, she was certainly quirky an...

Work begins on Her Majesty's Theatre #hermajestystheatre #grotestreet #adelaide #southaustralia #southaustralianicon A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on Jun 6, 2018 at 3:45am PDT

Seeing as I shared a Yogi Bear joke last week, I figured that it was only fair that I shared a short clip featuring the real Yogi this week. When I was about nine or ten, I used to think this was the funniest cartoon ever, now I'm not so convinced ...

Hi All, today we're lucky enough to have author Dean Mayes stop by the blog with a guest post about his upcoming novel, The Artisan Heart. I really enjoyed this post about the metaphors in his latest work, and I hope you will too ... The Metaphors of the Artisan Heart A guest post by Dean Mayes The use of metaphors in story telling is as old as story telling itself. As a refresher to what metaphor actually is, I found a great explanation of story telling metaphor from Susan Perrow in an article for the National Storytelling Network .  “I simple terms, a metaphor shows us one thing as another, and in doing so extends the way we see the world, also often refreshing and enlivening our perception.” I have long been drawn to the use of subtle metaphors in my writing and I have continued this trend in The Artisan Heart as a way of illustrating meaning for narrative and artistic effect. I was mindful of doing it in such a way that may not seem immediately apparent to...

For Those Who Came in Late is the first trade paperback to be published by Frew and it's a fitting tribute to their most beloved superhero, The Phantom. (For those who are wondering, yes, Frew published other comics, in Australia the most notable of which are Popeye and Mandrake.) Anyway, this publication includes all of the comics that make up the stories behind the legend, and explains everything, from how the current Phantom inherited his title following the death of his father, to the origin of the infamous skull ring and for those of you who are wondering, yes, we do get to see when the Phantom, or Kit Walker, met Diana Palmer for the first time. This is a great collection, sure to please old fans and an excellent (and comprehensive guide,) for new fans of the comic. For those of you reading this from overseas, you should probably know, The Phantom is one of the most successful and enduring comics to be published in Australia--in fact, it's one of the few that is ...

Behold my new cattus plant! Apparently these piebald ones look sweet but have a lot of sass #cats #catsofinstagram A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on Jun 10, 2018 at 3:52am PDT