Category Archives: Fiction

September 17, 2025 · 2:15 pm

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

After my success at listening to War and Peace, I decided to try Anna Karenina, and this version is read by Maggie Gyllenhaal (what could be better?).

Here is the Goodreads blurb …

Acclaimed by many as the world’s greatest novel, Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature – with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author’s own views and convictions.

Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, ‘He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.

I am sure that everyone knows the story of Anna Karenina. And I have watched several adaptations; this one – with Keira Knightley, this one – with Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean as Vronsky, and a modern Australian version, The Beautiful Lie – with Sarah Snook.

Given that I felt I knew the story, I was pleasantly surprised by the novel. I have always thought that Karenin and Vronsky dashing and heroic, and Anna makes really bad decisions. However, now I think Karenin was good, but too christian, and Vronsky is a cad, and Anna still makes really bad decisions.

Although to be fair to Anna, this was the time before divorce, and she was stuck in a marriage with an old boring man, and she had nothing to do.

Vronsky should not have pursued her so relentlessly. He was selfish and self-centred.

Anna reminded me of Madame Bovary – that need for drama, romance and love. Not to mention blowing up their own lives. Madame Bovary was serialised in 1856 and Anna Karenina was published in 1878. Was Tolstoy having a conversation with Flaubert? Or is this a common type of woman in the 19th Century?

I did, however, like Levin and Kitty. They made up for all of the awful, selfish characters.

A review.

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September 2, 2025 · 1:40 pm

The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin (Book 2) – Alison Goodman

The Ladies Guide to Utter Ruin – Alison Goodman

Miss A got this from Dymocks as an advanced reader copy. It languished on my pile until a friend read it, and then I finally dug it out. I have read the first one, and I think it is better if you read the first one before this one.

Here’s the blurb …

To most of Regency high society, forty-two-year-old Lady Augusta Colebrook, or Gus, and her twin sister, Julia, are just unmarried ladies of a certain age—hardly worth a second glance. But the Colebrook twins are far from useless old maids. They are secretly protecting women and children ignored by society and the law.

When Lord Evan—a charming escaped convict who has won Gus’s heart—needs to hide his sister and her lover from their vindictive brother, Gus and Julia take the two women into their home. They know what it is like to have a powerful and overbearing brother. But Lord Evan’s complicated past puts them all in danger. Gus knows they must clear his name of murder if he is to survive the thieftakers who hunt him. But it is no easy task—the fatal duel was twenty years ago and a key witness is nowhere to be found.                    

In a deadly cat-and-mouse game, Gus, Julia, and Lord Evan must dodge their pursuers and investigate Lord Evan’s past. They will be thrust into the ugly underworld of Georgian gentlemen’s clubs, spies, and ruthless bounty hunters, not to mention the everyday threat of narrow-minded brothers. Will the truth be found in time, or will the dangerous secrets from the past destroy family bonds and rip new love and lives apart?

These novels are adventurous romps. They’re full of period detail, but the heroines and heroes have modern sensibilities (at least as to how they view women). The villains are despicable and evil, and then there are the men (and women) who have extremely conservative views (Lord Duffy for instance).

There is an occasional reference to Austen – one of the characters is reading Sense and Sensibility and another character is given the false name of Miss Dashwood.

He glared at me. “I do not take my leave of you, Augusta. You will not receive my courtesy until you behave in the manner of a gentle woman and a sister.”

Very Lady Catherine De Burgh.

These are lots of fun and the end sets up the next one.

A review.

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August 26, 2025 · 4:23 pm

Love Forms – Claire Adam

Love Forms – Claire Adam

As you’re probably all aware, this novel has been long-listed for the Booker Prize. It sounded appealing so I bought a kindle copy (it’s not available in paper in Australia yet) and an audible copy. In the end I listened to it.

Here’s the blurb …

Trinidad, 1980: Dawn Bishop, aged 16, leaves her home and journeys across the sea to Venezuela. There, she gives birth to a baby girl, and leaves her with nuns to be given up for adoption.

Dawn tries to carry on with her life – a move to England, a marriage, a career, two sons, a divorce – but through it all, she still thinks of the child she had in Venezuela, and of what might have been.

Then, forty years later, a woman from an internet forum gets in touch. She says that she might be Dawn’s long-lost daughter, stirring up a complicated mix of feelings: could this be the person to give form to all the love and care a mother has left to offer?

This was beautiful. Dawn is telling us her story with lots of tangents and interesting side stories. The story unfolds slowly with gaps that get filled in later. It’s about parents, children, family life, the immigrant experience, and mistakes made when young.

A review.

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August 19, 2025 · 11:00 am

Falling Angels – Tracy Chevalier

Falling Angels – Tracy Chevalier

The theme for my book club is ‘Democracy’. I thought of the suffragettes and this was suggested (by google) as a book about suffragettes – is it though?

Here’s the blurb …

In her New York Times bestselling follow-up, Tracy Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives- wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and their servants, and a gravedigger’s son-Falling Angels follows the fortunes of two families in the emerging years of the twentieth century.

I am a fan of Tracy Chevalier’s novels. My favourites being The Lady and the Unicorn, and A Single Thread (neither of which I have blogged about).

This has all of the hallmarks of a Chevalier novel – well-researched, beautifully written, and focussing on women. It’s about two privileged families at the turn of the century navigating the societal and cultural changes. It’s about women and how little control they had over their bodies, money, and time. Some women no longer want to be ‘the angel in the home’.

A review.

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August 17, 2025 · 11:53 am

Whose Body – Dorothy L Sayers

Whose Body – Dorothy L Sayers

After reading Square Haunting, I was keen to read Dorothy L Sayers. This is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I listened to this one, narrated by Robert Bathurst.

Here’s the blurb …

It was the body of a tall stout man. On his dead face, a handsome pair of gold pince-nez mocked death with grotesque elegance.

The body wore nothing else.

Lord Peter Wimsey knew immediately what the corpse was supposed to be. His problem was to find out whose body had found its way into Mr Alfred Thipp’s Battersea bathroom.

I loved it, and the crime was fiendish. All of the characters are brilliant – Lord Wimsey, his valet Bunter, fellow detective Mr Parker, and his mother the Dowager Duchess. I imagine all of these characters will reappear in future novels.

The setting is very 1920s London, with Lord Peter needing to dress appropriately for every social event, everyone is ‘jolly decent’ – even the murderer! These are well-written and lots of fun. I shall definitely be reading more. I am quite keen to get to Gaudy Night and Harriet Vane, but I shall read them in order.

A review.

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August 14, 2025 · 2:02 pm

The Nature of the Beast (Gamache #11) – Louise Penny

The Nature of the Beast – Louise Penny

I love these books.

Here’s the blurb …

Hardly a day goes by when nine year old Laurent Lepage doesn’t cry wolf. From alien invasions, to walking trees, to winged beasts in the woods, to dinosaurs spotted in the village of Three Pines, his tales are so extraordinary no one can possibly believe him. Including Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the little Quebec village.

But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal. Leads right to the door of an old poet.

And now it is now, writes Ruth Zardo. And the dark thing is here.

A monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now, Ruth knows, it is back.

Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, must face the possibility that, in not believing the boy, he himself played a terrible part in what happens next.

As usual this is beautifully written. There are lots of literary and biblical references. Plus some hints about what Gamache might do next (I started with number 12, so I know where he goes next). There is evil at the heart of this one, multiple deaths, a serial killer, spies and a reckoning for Ruth.

A review.

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August 7, 2025 · 2:19 pm

Penelope – Anya Wylde

Penelope – Anya Wylde

I have had this on my Kindle for a very long time, and it was selected by my random number generator.

Here’s the blurb …

Leaving behind the rural charms of Finnshire, Miss Penelope Fairweather arrives in London with hope in her heart and a dream in her eye. The dowager, no less, has invited her for a season in London, where she will attempt to catch a husband.

Thus begins our heroine’s tale as she attempts to tackle the London season with all her rustic finesse. Unfortunately, her rustic finesse turns out to be as delicate as a fat bear trying to rip apart a honeycomb infested with buzzing bees.

What follows is a series of misadventures, love affairs, moonlit balls, fancy clothes, fake moustaches, highwaymen, sneering beauties, pickpockets, and the wrath of a devilishly handsome duke.

At first, I found this slow going. It felt like a first novel where the author tries to cram in all of their good ideas – did we need so many misadventures? It picked up speed in the second half, and I enjoyed the relationship between Penelope and the Duke. It was well-written, witty and fun.

A review

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August 6, 2025 · 1:27 pm

Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid

Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid

My husband selected this on Audible, which is a bit weird, but he thought it was a love story about the atmosphere!

Here’s the blurb …

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.

I have read one another novel by Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which I enjoyed but didn’t blog about (I have no idea why).

The relationship between Joan and Vanessa is beautifully written. The misogyny and discrimination in the 80s is well described (and therefore incredibly frustrating – how could people be treated that way?). The physics might be a little bit dodgy, but I enjoyed all of the references to the stars and the mythology about the stars. And really, this is a story about people and relationships and how we treat one another, not a text book on astrophysics.

No spoilers, but I wasn’t surprised by the ending (it’s a pretty standard ending).

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July 31, 2025 · 3:03 pm

Joe Country – Mick Herron

Joe Country – Mick Herron

I have been slowly making my way through the Slough House series – this is number 6.

Here’s the blurb …

‘We’re spies,’ said Lamb. ‘All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.’

Like the ringing of a dead man’s phone, or an unwelcome guest at a funeral . . .

In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.

Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . .

And with winter taking its grip Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.

This time, they’re heading into joe country.

And they’re not all coming home.

I love the way Mick Herron writes – the way he describes sunlight like a person.

There is a high body count in this one and some of my favourite characters didn’t make it out alive. But that has always been the case, don’t get too attached.

It is terrifying to think that the secret service might actually be like this.

A review

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July 30, 2025 · 1:39 pm

Rise and Shine – Kimberley Allsopp

Rise and Shine – Kimberley Allsopp

I am not sure where I first heard about this novel. Possibly from one of the many book newsletters I receive. It took a while to track down, but in the end it was in the ‘Three for the price of Two’ section at Dymocks.

Here’s the blurb …

Charming, talky, wryly funny, poignant and original – Rise and Shine is a love story, yes, but it’s a love story that happens ten years into a marriage, when somebody wants out.

This is a story about marriage. It is also a story about life and love and happiness and the absence of happiness and what we need to do to find it again.

It’s a story about hope, baking, making music, lemon trees, painting, love, divorce, dogs, the families we create for ourselves, and the heat of the Brisbane sun.

It’s a story about August and Noah.

It begins at the end.

Rise and Shine is an utterly surprising delight, a break-up tale that is also a love story; endearing, astringent, talky, wry, wise, uplifting and so original.

First, I love that this novel is set in Australia.

It is a grown-up romance. The issues are real and no one is a villain. I loved all of the relationships – Noah and August, August and Regina, August and Jasper, Jasper and Noah, Noah and Adam, and Noah and Jeff. The writing is beautiful, there are poignant moments and funny moments.

A review.

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