Aussie Readers discussion

It took them a fraction more than thirty minutes to push the two-plus miles. They rolled to a stop where the track came out of the trees. It ran on ahead of them, grey and ghostly in the moonlight, through the flat two acres, to the curve of buildings in the distance. The motel, dark and quiet. The barn, dark and quiet. The house, dark and quiet. Five thirty in the morning, by Patty's watch. Easily an hour before the first hint of daylight.

Past Tense by Lee Child

He pushed her away, closed the door and leaned against it. With Afra gone the room was a shell. The scrap of land would be sold; as week, two at the most. That would give him something. Jameel wished he could go at once. Leave Mundhi forever. He blew out the candle. This was the saddest day of his life, but his mother had been right.
Girls liked stories about love.

From Out of the Silence by Owen Mullen

'... I don't want to hear her name spoken. I don't want to see that woman within a fucking kilometre of this hotel.'
The door burst open beside me so hard it slammed against the stacks of chairs along the wall, almost toppling them over. As though summoned by the chief's words, Amanda strode triumphantly into the room and thrust her arms in the air.
'Never fear! Crack a beer! Let the people cheer for Amanda is here!' she bellowed.

Gone by Midnight (Crimson Lake #3) by Candice Fox

Sounds like Candice's writing Tien!! lol

Yes! She definitely has an unique voice, doesn't she?! lol

Ha! Yes!!

Brenda wrote: "It took them a fraction more than thirty minutes to push the two-plus miles. They rolled to a stop where the track came out of the trees. It ran on ahead of them, grey and ghostly in the moonlight,..."

Haha, and what a complete waste of time that was!!!

Hahaha!!! You've read this one Ace?!!

Brenda wrote: "Hahaha!!! You've read this one Ace?!!"

Yes, Brenda I hope I didn't spoil anything for you. It was such a comic and desperate scene...

Oh no - completely finished by the time you commented :)

Dani kept her mouth closed. The world wouldn't end if they found out who her mother was but life wouldn't be easy, either-especially with Diego on the scene. She got the distinct impression that if he found out who she was, he'd hound her for information about Iris.
'Daniela?' Carlos used his eyebrow as a question mark.
'What?' God, please no, don't ask.
'Do you know La Gringa Magnifica?'

From Luna Tango by Alli Sinclair

I've had that one on my kindle for ages! Another I must get to :) I'll be waiting for your review Kylie :)

"Not much. I get tired after about fifty yards."

"Well, we'll do fifty yards whenever you feel like it, then we'll sit down and talk until you can go on again." She hesitated. "You - it doesn't trouble you to sit down?"

"Oh no!" said Hardress, laughing for the first time. "It's an awfully docile leg!"

Captain Jim by Mary Grant Bruce

Kylie wrote: "From Luna Tango by Alli Sinclair Luna Tango (Wandering Skies #1) by Alli Sinclair"

Oh, I loved this one! But then again, I loved anything to do with dancing :)

The heat from the front room rose up through the floorboards so that the room, although bare, was warm. Willie crawled under the bed and curled up into a ball.
‘What you doin’?’ asked Tom. ‘You gets into it, not under it.’
‘Wot, right inside?’ exclaimed Willie.
Tom drew back the sheets and Willie climbed in between them. He stroked the blankets with his hands.

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

I'm loving Luna Tango so far guys :)

Good news Kylie :)

OK - well its teaser Wednesday for me :)

One of my current reads is In the Dark of Light by Bettina Melher - it's YA paranormal - and just a little bit scary!!!! Is being told from different POV - First Victoria, then Regina and now Liam:

"...Liam struggled to get comfortable in his bed. Eventually sleep found him, exhaustion taking over, but he was completely oblivious to the dark figure standing beside his bed..."

At work the next day, I heard the news that ******* had been taken in for questioning from at least five patrons before I told Sunny that I needed to go straighten the shelves.

"I just did that yesterday," she said, but I mumbled something about the Nightingale having made the rounds as soon as we opened and headed for the stacks. I knew I'd done the right thing but still felt conflicted.

Past Due for Murder by Victoria Gilbert

My teaser today is from Texas Destiny by Lorraine Heath - it is a mail order bride western - and as you can tell from the cover it is a romance.

Houston has collected his brother's mail order bride from the train and is escorting her to his brother's ranch - a three week journey.

...Amelia awoke to an anguished wail that ripped through her dream. With trembling fingers, she turned up the flame in the lantern...

Ulf's life, normally so settled and ordered, had now become markedly more complicated. What had been the Bim Sundstrom case had now become the Signe Magnusson investigation, and had, in the process, transformed itself from a case of the suspected non-disappearance of a non-existant person to one involving the actual disappearance of a real person.

From The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

There was a brief delay before the old man opened the door, naked except for a towel around his midriff. Leon was horrified to see all that loose, saggy skin. Worse still, beyond Grandpa, perched on the bed with his green-checked dressing-gown clutched around her shoulders, was an old woman with a blue-rinsed perm. Under the gown, she was clearly naked too.

Leon tried to back away. ‘Looks like I’ve interrupted something. I’ll drop in another time.’

The Orchardist's Daughter by Karen Viggers

From the start of my new read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Ayoola summons me with these words - Korede, I killed him.
I had hoped I would never hear those words again.

Carolyn wrote: "From the start of my new read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Ayoola summons me with these w..."

Ooh, I bought this one a few weeks ago but haven’t read it yet - I’ll be interested in what you think.

Andrea wrote: "There was a brief delay before the old man opened the door, naked except for a towel around his midriff. Leon was horrified to see all that loose, saggy skin. Worse still, beyond Grandpa, perched o..."

Haha! I loved that scene!!

Might be the last one today but I have been saving it from this beautifully descriptive book;

Thinking like this, after decades - a whole lifetime really - of pressing anything remotely like insight into a harmless paste with the heel of his habit, is difficult
by AAPeggy Frew

My teaser today is from The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith

One of the joys of reading this series is inhaling the wise musings of Precious Ramotswe - here is one of many examples in this book so far:

...She smiled at the memory. Her father, her dearest daddy, had become late many years ago now, but she still thought of him every day. Now she remembered his words about ‘the look’ and reminded herself that she used that expression about people, too. Some people had ‘the look’ and others did not. It was something to do with confidence, she thought. You had the look if you knew who you were, what you were doing, and why you were doing it. That bull had the look because he knew that he was good at being a Brahman bull; he knew what was expected of him, and he was not plagued by any doubts. Doubts were the enemy of the look – that was very clear. If you were not sure that you should be doing what you were doing, it showed – and you then became one of those who did not have the look...

The rain beat the metal roof. Maria stoked the coals and moved a large kettle into the embers. She chatted on. Her parents left Italy in 1882. they came from the north, Udine, in the Veneto and first settled in Sydney, where Maria was born. That explained her; she spoke Italian but with an odd accent, an Australian accent, and peppered it with words and sayings used by older people in Amelia's village, like Signor Gregorio.

Sweet Bitter Cane by G.S. Johnston

I'm not far into this one yet, but really enjoying it by another Aussie author :)

Come Closer

“Instead I walked towards the man, meeting him halfway. “Just miss a train?” I heard myself ask. He shrugged. I could not believe I was engaging this man in conversation. He was disgusting up close, with mottled, pitted skin and a shaggy grown out haircut. “I hate that,” I said. “Especially at night. Especially at night when you’re waiting for a train and there’s someone there. And you never know. I mean, in the city you just never know who you’re dealing with. They might have a knife, or a gun, or whatever. They might, I don’t know, be the kind of person who hates men who hang out in train stations, waiting for women. She might be the kind of person who takes men like that and rips them limb from fucking limb with her bare hands.” The man left the station without a word, and the train took me home safe and sound.”

"So Kelly told me she saw you at her makeup and perfume counter this morning," said Cindy through a feigned smile as the three friends continued their afternoon session of the Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club.
Carla also fixed a smile to her face. "Oh, yes, that's right," she explained, "I was running out of blusher. You know how much I LOVE my blusher," she stressed to her two friends.

From The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club by Duncan Whitehead

Woo hoo - two Tuesdays in a row - I'm on a roll!!

My teaser is from The Cop Who Stole Christmas by Christie Craig - and yes, I DO read Christmas books all year around!

Anyhow, Savanna's car has been repossessed by Santa Claus - her ex husband used it as collateral for something illegally. Her friend is trying to get it back for her - the cop from the title lives over the road from Savanna and has so far only made a brief appearance.

...Bethany looked at the paperwork. "Is the guy's last name really Clause?" She grabbed her phone and dialled a number. "Mr. Clause," she said, "this is Bethany Carver. I'm Savanna Edwards' lawyer. Can you tell me...'

My teaser is from urban fantasy Changes by Jim Butcher.

Wizard Harry Dresden's ex-lover Susan has just re-appeared in his life and is meeting his apprentice Molly for the first time.

Susan smiled at me, giving Molly the Female Once-Over - a process by which one woman creates a detailed profile of another woman based upon a million subtle details of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and body type, and then decides how much of a social threat she might me. Men have a parallel process, but's it's binary: Does he have beer? If yes, will he share with me?

This is from Baby by NZ author, Annaleese Jochems. The protagonist's dog is called Snot-head.
(Tell me if this is as eeuw for dog owners as it is for me):
In her best clothes, Cynthia uses spit and her finger to clean gunk from the corners of his eyes, then her own, as they go.
and later:
... and she licks him between his two big eyes.

That's totally gross Marianne!!!!

At the suite, Rowland stowed the easel, while Clyde took a minute to wash up, collect his jacket and put on a tie. They were dining casually this night. Rowland waited in the darkened sitting room, wondering vaguely why Jarvis, the fastidious valet, had drawn all the curtains.

He stepped towards the window to remedy the lack of light. Even as he did so, he sensed it: the movement from behind him, another from the corner of the room.

There was no time to react - an arm locked about his neck. Rowland twisted, lashing out instinctively.

Miles Off Course by Sulari Gentill

Butch opens the door for Nunzio. He enters and sits across from Mick McFarland.
'How are things with you and yours counselor?'
'That's not why I'm here.'
He feels his blood start to chill in response to the lawyer's disrespectful tone, but he fights it, forces himself to smile.
'No small talk. Straight to business. I can respect that.'
'What happened out side your office today...,' the lawyer begins. 'Does this mean the war's started?'
'That? That was just distant thunder.'
'But the storm is coming.'

From A Killer's Alibi by William L. Myers Jr.

From The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson

The Spanish have just arrived at the Allahmbra in 1492 to force the Sultan to accept their offer of peace and end the siege. Fatima is the Sultan's favourite concubine and has been escorting a woman with the peace party around the palace.

To her horror Fatima felt tears prick her eyes.
"You're an inquisitor," she said.
Luz looked back at the moon. "Only priests can be inquisitors," she murmured. "I have no title."
"But you're still.... Fatima had begun to shake. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep it from showing. "You said we should think of you as a friend. An advocate. Those were the words you used. You were lying."

Slightly cheating here, it's how I started my review of Lying and Dying by Graham Brack:

Josef Slonský is in a car with two other policemen and says
Nobody speak to me for a while. I have an idea, and I need to think deeply about it. To the untrained eye, it will look as if I am asleep, but actually my brain will be running like a hamster in a wheel.

'Just come and talk, OK? Just talk. Explain what's happened.'
'No. There's nothing I can say that you'll believe. I have to go.'
'Go where?'
I don't answer. I break into a jog and run into Green park. Bernice calls after me and starts to follow. But there's no way she's going to be able to keep up with me. I speed up along the perimeter path. Her voice grows fainter. I glance back and spot her in the distance, staring after me. And I can almost see the bafflement on her face.

From One False Move by Robert Goddard

The door had shut. The two cops had gone. Ryan had lost the knife and what had he got in return? A stupid card.

Detective Inspector Sarah Collins, Homicide Command.

'Call me any time, twenty-four seven,' she'd said. Stupid woman. He lit the corner of the card with his lighter and watched the flame curl up. Didn't she know that he could never carry a card like that? Everyone would think he was a snitch.

Gallowstree Lane by Kate London

DS Joanna Harper stood on the viaduct with the other police officers. On the far bank, across the great expanse of the reservoir, a woman paused at the water's edge, about to go in, her twin baby boys held tightly in her arms.

The opening paragraph from Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

"Africa again," Sam muttered, pulling the Range Rover to a stop off the dirt road. He shut off the engine and set the parking brake. "Had to be Africa."
"Don't let the locals hear you say that," Remi replied. "We're three hundred miles off the African coast. As far as these folks are concerned, Madagascar's a world unto itself."

Lost Empire by Clive Cussler

Brenda wrote: ""Africa again," Sam muttered, pulling the Range Rover to a stop off the dirt road. He shut off the engine and set the parking brake. "Had to be Africa."
"Don't let the locals hear you say that," Re..."

I do love the escapism of Clive Cussler, though I haven't read one for a while :)

After the first picture ran of Victoria in her bike gear, Ben came back from Los Angeles and the photographers came back with him. The day he landed, they were in front of Victoria's flat in the morning. She took the fire escape stairs at the back of the flat and went out into the garden. She climbed over the fence into the yard behind, taking treats for the dog. She walked down the side of the house to the street and from there to the station. Ha! she thought. She'd fooled them.

From The True Story of Maddie Bright by Mary-Rose MacColl

Kylie wrote: "Brenda wrote: ""Africa again," Sam muttered, pulling the Range Rover to a stop off the dirt road. He shut off the engine and set the parking brake. "Had to be Africa."
"Don't let the locals hear yo..."

That was my trouble Kylie - owned a few unread from years ago as I stopped buying, and stopped reading before I finished what I owned. So trying to get through them now. Only a couple left :) Always enjoyable reads :)

Kylie wrote: "After the first picture ran of Victoria in her bike gear, Ben came back from Los Angeles and the photographers came back with him. The day he landed, they were in front of Victoria's flat in the mo..."

Are you enjoying this one? I have it coming up.

Brenda wrote: "Kylie wrote: "Brenda wrote: ""Africa again," Sam muttered, pulling the Range Rover to a stop off the dirt road. He shut off the engine and set the parking brake. "Had to be Africa."
"Don't let the ..."

They are, so much fun :)
And yes, I'm really enjoying Maddie Bright, I think you'll love it!

Good to know..thanks Kylie 😊

Brenda, I am sure you'll love it!

Thanks Marianne :)