Kathryn's Inbox

Internationally bestselling author Armando Lucas Correa (The German Girl) takes a bold new direction with his latest offering The Silence in Her Eyes, a psychological thriller about a woman with motion blindness who just wants to keep her newfound friend safe. Leah has suffered from motion blindness since she was eight years old. She can see, but she cannot see movement, with the world appearing to her like a series of still pictures. After her mother passes away, Leah's life is one where she is dependent on the kindness of others. And things are getting a bit tricky, now that she suspects that someone might be breaking in to her apartment and she can hear a new neighbour calling for help. Alice, it seems, is going through a difficult divorce. Leah only wants to keep her neighbour safe ... I was very much drawn to this one for its premise. I've heard of motion blindness previously, a rare condition, and it is obvious that the author has done his research and I found his descri

Adelaide based author Amy T Matthews' latest offering is a tale of grief in highly unusual circumstances. Readers will find themselves on an emotional rollercoaster as they meet Bree--sunny, optimistic, determined and hugely popular online. Bree is an influencer of sorts. Or, a professional poser, as her younger and much more introverted sister Jodie puts it. Anyway, the reader meets Bree in sad circumstances. She is in hospital, battling leukaemia and it's Thanksgiving--a holiday that she will not be spending at home with her beloved family this year. Her only hope is a bone marrow transplant from Jodie. Fast forward one year. It is Thanksgiving once again, and Jodie and her family are grieving the loss of Bree. The transplant was not a success and the family find themselves facing absolutely crippling medical debts. Then comes the plot twist. Before she passed, Bree brokered a deal with a corporate sponsor that if Jodie completes the unfinished items on her bucket list, that

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The BSC Graphix series continues to go from strength to strength with a new series adaptor coming on board--Arley Nopra. Nopra's first (and, hopefully, not last,) addition to the series is Claudia and the Bad Joke. This one retells the story of how a slapstick film festival at the Stoneybrook Public Library leads to all of the local kids playing pranks on each other, which in turn leads to an incident in which Claudia breaks her leg whilst on a babysitting job. Which, in turn, leads to the other members of the BSC declaring a practical joke war on Betsy Sobak, while Claudia takes the more mature path of contemplating whether babysitting is such a great idea.  This was an entertaining read. As is often the case with these books, the characters and situations aren't entirely realistic. The kids go about solving the problems for themselves without adult involvement and come up with a unique solution that works--which makes for fun reading, though I doubt things would work out so n

Before the Coffee Gets Cold was such a charming story that, unsurprisingly, it has inspired an entire series, with each volume featuring stories of the many different people who visit the cafe and their unique and touching reasons for wanting to travel back, or occasionally, forward, in time in the cafe. Tales From the Cafe is the second volume in this series and it hits just as much of an emotional punch as the first. In this volume the reader meets a man who wants to see his best friend and tell him all about his daughter--who the man has raised as his own, and through the generosity of his friend he has lived a good and successful life. There is a police officer who wants to give a gift to his wife, a son who could not come home for his mum's funeral and a man who wants to travel forward in time to see the women he won't be able to many due to the most heartbreaking for circumstances. And, surprisingly, in this volume we learn the identity to the mysterious ghost who occupi

Tom Felton's Beyond the Wand is an honest and heartfelt memoir by an actor who has lived a very unusual life. In Beyond the Wand, Felton takes us through his personal journey--of how he became a child actor purely by chance, his first big role in The Borrowers and, of course, of being cast as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. Felton gives an account of his time working on the films--and of the times between films, when he was an ordinary kid, who loved fishing and went to a working class high school and got up to various teenage hijinks which, though relatively minor, could have cost him his part on the films if the media found out about them. There is also an account of his life after fame, living in LA where there were more auditions than parts for him, and where addiction slowly began to take its toll. This was an interesting read. While, obviously, Felton spent years of his life working on the eight Harry Potter movies, he was spared the level of work--and scrutiny--tha

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On Father's Day 2005, a horrific incident occurred in rural Victoria when a Holden Commodore plunged into a dam. The driver pulled himself free of the vehicle and swam out of the damn. The three passengers, his sons aged 10, 7 and 2 drowned inside the vehicle. As far the police were concerned, the evidence was obvious. Robert Farquharson was soon charged with murder. Things were more complex behind the scenes. In This House of Grief beloved Australian author Helen Garner turns her hand to investigating the crime, and details the evidence presented in court at both trials--during which she was present as a member of the public. Through this she tells a story of an unhappy marriage, of Robert Farquharson's obsession with getting revenge on Cindy Morales, mother of the children and his former wife who had left him for another man, and of Cindy Morales herself, a woman who had married on the rebound and who, in her grief believed that her ex-husband was innocent, though as she cont

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This One is Ours is a passionate YA novel about the importance of finding your voice ... and a higher purpose. Sofie has always been a bit of a dream. A talented artist, she spends much of her free time searching for things to draw. When she is given the opportunity to take part in a student exchange and study art Paris, she jumps at the opportunity. However, the reality of Paris does not match her expectations. The city is dirty, attending school where she is expected to learn in another language is confusing and exhausting and the Yellow Vests Protests (see more here ,) are causing her to think of things other than art and beauty. Fortunately, her host sister Delphine soon shows her how she too can speak out about the things that concern her, and Sofie returns home ready to fight for what she believes in. This was a beautifully written novel, shaped around the experiences of what it means to be young and living in a foreign country for the first time. I very much enjoyed the narrati

The Search Party had me hooked from the first page. Although on the surface it appeared to be a by the numbers thriller--friends reunite in an isolated place, old tensions flare up and someone goes missing--the author's clever, suspenseful storytelling and complex characters transform this story into something unique. Max and Anna have relocated from London to Cornwall with their adopted son Kip, where they are in the midst of creating a new and exciting glamping business. Before they open to the general public though they decide to invite some of their old university friends and their families for a weekend away. It is clear from the storytelling, which opens at the end of the weekend, that something has gone terribly wrong--it's just that we, as the readers, don't know what yet. The storytelling weaves between the end of the weekend and the beginning. Tensions soon begin to rise between the old friends, and much of it seems to somehow involve Dom, whose day job is as a j

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The world of Sweet Valley has been crying out to be satirised for years (after all, now that the fans are grown up, we know just how terrible the books really were,) and Saccharin Valley Twits and Fiends delivers. Introducing the reader to twelve-year-old twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wastefeld, we soon enter a world where we have unprecedented access to laugh at them. Here, the fact that they have experienced multiple Christmases, Halloween's and various other holidays as twelve-year-olds is acknowledged, as is the fact that they never really learn anything from their adventures and the moral lesson is forgotten as soon as their next adventure starts. Add in the fact that this series also sends up the many children's horror novels that were popular in the same era and you have a winning, laugh out loud story. This one follows a typical plot. The parents of the twins (and of their older brother Steven) are going away for a few days, so naturally they invite a complete stranger to

What a ripper of a read is It's Probably You, a romantic comedy by Jayne Denker. Set in a small American town we meet Gillian, a pharmacist who is happily single. She loves her job and her quirky friends and neighbours and she takes a considerable amount of pride in entering the town's annual gardening competition. So what happens when the house next door is sold and Noah, a man whose life has been turned upside down by a broken heart and who suffers from extreme allergies moves in? Utter mayhem, that's what. Soon Noah is trying to remove the plants on his side of the property line that are causing his allergies and Gillian finds her plans for this years gardening competition thrown into chaos. Add some matchmaking neighbours into the mix, a dud dating app and a group of friends who just love Noah (to Gillian's chagrin,) and the story is a whole lot of fun. This was a light, fresh and entertaining read. I appreciated reading a romantic comedy where the characters weren

How well can you ever really know your parents? That is the premise of The Death of Noah Glass, the winner of the Prime Minister Literary Awards and Finalist of the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2019. Shortly after Noah Glass is found dead in the swimming pool at his apartment complex, the police begin asking his two children, former addict Martin and savant Evie, some surprising questions. Noah has just returned from Italy and is accused of an art theft. Their father, an art thief? It makes no sense whatsoever. Martin travels to Italy to investigate the crime for himself, while Evie moves in to Noah's apartment to do the same. Going between duel perspectives--that of Noah and his time in Italy and that of Martin and Evie's investigation, the reader learns about lives that are shaped not so much by what is said, but by what is not said. This was an interesting read, and an interesting insight into the lives of three unusual people. The coincidence of one of the characters b

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