Book Review - Blessed Are Those Who Thirst by Anne Holt

"It was so early not even the devil had managed to put on his shoes. In the west, the heavens showed that intense hue only a Scandinavian sky in springtime is blessed with – royal blue on the horizon and lighter towards the meridian, before dissolving into a pink eiderdown where the sun was still lying lazily in the east. The air was invigorating, undisturbed by the dawn, with that amazing transparency possessed by radiant spring mornings at almost sixty degrees north." Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen finds that her days do not live up to the spring promise as she is increasingly bogged down in too many cases and not enough leads to solve them. A girl is raped and her father seeks revenge, can the police solve the crime before he does? This is the second Hanne Wilhelmsen story and it is a shorter book than most contemporary crime fiction but continues the promise of the first one, with gritty characters and good plotting. Wendy

Book Review - Queen of the road by Tricia Stringer

This is a rural romance with a twist – the heroine drives a long haul truck. Angela needs a change and the sleepy country town in South Australia's Eyre Peninsula is a place to escape to. She takes a temporary job driving for her father's transport company. She meets Coop, a farm hand with a knack for dealing with her 4 year old daughter but she has had trouble with men and isn't sure she is ready to trust him, even if her heart tells her to. Coop has always been reluctant to settle down until now due to a troubled childhood. Throw in a clever and lovable working dog, trouble with a rival transport firm and some issues with the farm's neighbours and you have a pleasantly readable Aussie story. Wendy

Book Review - The Virgin Cure by Ani McKay

Set in New York in the 1870s, the author set out to write a novel that would memorialize her ancestor, a woman doctor who worked among the poor of New York at that time. When she came to write it however, the strongest voice belonged to the character of Moth, a poor girl who is sold to a brothel at age 12 to be schooled in the ways of elegant prostitution. Poor girls would probably lose their virginity sooner or later and the best they could do was choose the circumstances. It was also a time when men could buy guides to all the houses of pleasure and it was erroneously believed by many that having sex with a virgin could cure you of syphilis. That said, it doesn't really have much to do with Moth's story and the title is rather more PR than reflective of the book's contents. The narrative is well researched, however, we spend an awful lot of time getting ready and learning how to walk and talk. It is really almost a boarding school novel except for the last small part. The searing poverty is everpresent and the lady doctor's ethical dilemmas are well explained but I'm not sure that the topic has been given justice in this novel. Wendy

Book Review - Delicacy by David Foenkinos

This is a beautiful and delightful book. Strange things are written but when you read them they have the refreshing clarity of a mountain stream and they are so ineffably right that you couldn't imagine how the author could have said them any other way. Natalie is happily married to Francoise but he dies in an accident and she must go on. She must decide what to do with the book where the bookmark delineates when her husband died. Can you just go on reading a book that is separated into the part you read before your beloved husband died and the part that comes after? She survives in a numb state but gradually goes back to work and comes back to life, where there are two very different men, Charles and Markus. This is her story but also their story and it is charming and true. I loved it. Wendy

Book Review - Valentine Grey by Sandi Toksvig

The author is familiar to ABC viewers from a variety of British TV shows but she is much more well known in the UK. This is a story of a girl who was brought up in India with a degree of physical freedom unheard of for Victorian young ladies, who is sent to live in London after the death of her father. In London, she must live with restrictions on clothing and behaviour that she finds intolerable. Meanwhile, her cousin Reggie, is finding true love with another man, which was illegal at that time. She conceives a mad idea to take Reggie's place as a volunteer n the Boer War. Both Valentine and Reggie get what they want – only to find it wasn't really what they expected. A readable, illuminating and well researched offering. Wendy