Aussie Readers discussion

My teaser is from Crimson Lake by Candice Fox

"Between the vigilantes out the front and the crocs out the back I felt like I was in prison again, which wasn't so bad because it was secure. I was free from the decision to run,........I still had an avenue out."

Carolyn wrote: "Brenda wrote: "I have this one to read too Carolyn :) Must get to it - that sounds enticing!"

Will be interested to see how you like it Brenda. It wasn't really for me - after that promising begin..."

Oh :( Well, we'll see I guess :)

Jenny wrote: "My teaser is from Crimson Lake by Candice Fox

"Between the vigilantes out the front and the crocs out the back I felt like I was ..."

I loved this book, Jenny! Candice Fox rocks!

"Perhaps it's not fair, but I find it preferable to suspect virtual strangers rather than people I've known for years. Which is why I asked ****** to use her real estate job to find out what she could about the newcomers who were there the day **** died."

The Spring Cleaning Murders: An Ellie Haskell Mystery by Dorothy Cannell

Tien wrote: "Jenny wrote: "My teaser is from Crimson Lake by Candice Fox

"Between the vigilantes out the front and the crocs out the back I fe..."

Glad you enjoy Crimson Lake, Tien. I found Crimson Lake hard to understand in parts.

I've just started reading a non fiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. It's about the investigation of a large number of murdered Osage Indians and the founding of the FBI:

Hoover had been purging many of the frontier lawmen from the bureau, and as White headed to Hoover's office, he could see the new breed of agents - the college boys who typed faster than they shot. Old-timers mocked them as 'Boy Scouts' who had 'college-trained flat feet,' and this was not untrue; as one agent later admitted, "We were a bunch of greenhorns who had no idea what we were doing."

"the editor, Dave Gleddings, had stormed up to me at nine thirty that morning as I sat at my desk...'Nell, there's no one to cover the Mitrovic Trial. Get down there now...When I'd pointed out that I was a fashion and beauty columnist.....'You've got a BA in English....I nodded. 'You write this damned women's column... ' I nodded. ......he barked."

Taking a Chance by Deborah Burrows

Jenny wrote: "Glad you enjoy Crimson Lake, Tien. I found Crimson Lake hard to understand in parts. "

Aww :(
She's a fave of mine & so lovely though she does admit being weird too, I guess we're just on the same wavelength lol

Gibson puffed out a breath of relief. This was for the best; he had no right to fantasise about anything more. Despite this truth, every muscle in his body remained trip-wire tight as Charlie's car stopped a few metres in front of them.
Why did life have to be so damn unfair?

Man Drought by Rachael Johns

Tien wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Glad you enjoy Crimson Lake, Tien. I found Crimson Lake hard to understand in parts. "

Aww :(
She's a fave of mine & so lovely though she does admit being weird too, I guess we're ju..."

I believe that Crimson Lake is one of these books that you either like or hate it. Talking to my friends about Crimson Lake half enjoy reading it 5 ★ and other half were divided between 2 and 3 ★. However, it is a great book to encourage discussion.

Did you like any of her other books, Jenny?

"The guy Decker had shot was dead, and the other three, handled by Mars, were still unconscious but alive. The fifth man, the one in the hole, was identified as Roger Baker, a low level enforcer for a local gang. "

The Fix by David Baldacci

Tien wrote: "Did you like any of her other books, Jenny?"

I have enjoyed other books by Candice Fox Tien for example Never Never.

"Therese hadn't expected it. Not at all. As she lost her balance and went down right on the guy's chest, her only thought was how long it was going to take to get back on her feet and run into the restaurant to find his brother.
Because hello, as a pair of vampires, they were not calling 911. The last thing they needed were human medics showing up and taking him into a human hospital - where he'd get admitted and knowing their luck, go up in flames when sunlight came through the window by his adjustable bed.
Except that whole get-brother idea didn't happen. As she pushed against his pecs to lift her head, everything came to a crashing halt. Their eyes met, their breath caught - and then he slipped an arm around her waist, a hand onto her nape... and pulled her to his mouth."

The Chosen, 15th in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward

The Harbinger of Death tried to find a grocery shop, but the only one open had sold out of all fresh fruit except for a single, questionable-looking bag of apples. He ate alone in the hotel restaurant, ox burger with a side of chips. He ordered coffee, and the waiter brought him a cup that he proceeded to set on fire in an alcoholic explosion of blue-yellow light and curling acrid smoke. It didn’t taste too bad, all things considered.
The End of the Day by Claire North

"Anselm is the one to point out the train in Schwerin: a long line of cattle cars stuffed with human beings, their frightened faces visible through the small windows at the top."

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

I've just started A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald by Natasha Lester so here is the opening line:

"How did I get here? How did I get here? The words reverberated between each click of Evie's heels as she stepped off the moon and executed a perfect Ziegfield strut."

Love it Carolyn :) You're in for a treat..

I am already Brenda! I've been having an excellent run of brilliant books this month :)

Phrynne wrote: ""Anselm is the one to point out the train in Schwerin: a long line of cattle cars stuffed with human beings, their frightened faces visible through the small windows at the top."

[book:The Women i..."

Looking forward to your review Phrynne as I've been trying to decide if I should read this.

The opening lines of my new read, Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher

Down here in Victoria he was the Rising Stars Agency, but he'd been Catwalk Casting up in New South Wales, and Model Miss Promotions in Queensland before that. Pete Duyker figured that he had another three months on the Peninsula before the cops and the Supreme Court caught up with him again, obliging him to move on.

Carolyn wrote: "I am already Brenda! I've been having an excellent run of brilliant books this month :)"

Wonderful :)

Carolyn wrote: "Phrynne wrote: ""Anselm is the one to point out the train in Schwerin: a long line of cattle cars stuffed with human beings, their frightened faces visible through the small windows at the top."

[..."

I would say yes Carolyn - it has a very interesting perspective of Germany after the war and how people justified to themselves what had happened. And it is very well written.

Juries might be the bedrock of the criminal justice system, but you can never tell what they will do. One Taylor Square jury took a ouija board into the jury room to consult the murder victim and ask him who his killer was (he apparently told them it was the man on trial). A year before Daryl Suckling's trial, a high-profile rock promoter, Ian Saxon, had been recaptured in California after three years on the run from Long Bay Jail, where he had been on remand for multimillion-dollar drug charges. At his trial for escaping from lawful custody, he pleaded not guilty, claiming he had not escaped but rather had been abducted by men dressed in black. The jurors couldn't decide who was telling the truth and the trial ended in a hung jury. (He was subsequently convicted of escaping.)

Killing Jodie: how Australia's most elusive murderer was brought to justice by Janet Fife-Yeomans (True Crime)

Bea wrote: "I am finishing up The Mists of Avalon for my Bookopoly jail roll. Although the story has been interesting, I have tired of all the royal intrigue that fills this mammoth book. I will ..."

That was an abandoned book for me... I don't think I got that far at all when I left of. Shame as I loved her Atlantis books :p

She'd found socialising with the school mums difficult enough when her life was in perfect order. The chat, chat, chat, the swirls of laughter, the warmth, the friendliness (most mums were so very nice) and the general hint of bitchiness that ran beneath it all.
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Tien wrote: "Bea wrote: "I am finishing up The Mists of Avalon for my Bookopoly jail roll. Although the story has been interesting, I have tired of all the royal intrigue that fills this mammoth b..."

I enjoyed it but I think I remember remarking it was too long - there was quite a lot of repetition.

ooh, dear... lol, I was having trouble posting my comments on GR and look what happened oops!

Sorry ;p

Tien wrote: "ooh, dear... lol, I was having trouble posting my comments on GR and look what happened oops!

Sorry ;p"

And I replied to you as well!!! Another fun day on Goodreads:)

I put on the shoe covers and plastic gloves and step onto the transparent plastic plates that the technicians have placed seemingly at random in the hall. The smell of blood is so intense and nauseating that I almost retreat, even though I know it all too well. The pounding in my gut growing stronger. Despite all the crime scenes I've been at, all the corpses I've seen, there's something about being in the proximity of, cold, naked death that still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Maybe it's the reality of how fast it can happen. How quickly a life can be extinguished. But then again sometimes it's the opposite---the way a crime scene, or a body, bears witness to unbearably protracted agony.

The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe

Li'l Owl wrote: "I put on the shoe covers and plastic gloves and step onto the transparent plastic plates that the technicians have placed seemingly at random in the hall. The smell of blood is so intense and nause..."

Added to TBR! That sounds really good!

I'll let you know, Tien, I just started it! =o)
I like reading books by authors around the world. This is written by a Swedish author.

His heart racing, he reached out and gently squeezed it. It was cold and rubbery.....The Light from the iPhone cast the frozen surface in a murky green, and underneath he saw a hand, reaching up to where the finger poked through the ice.....face of a girl.

The Girl In The Ice by Robert Bryndza

The tag-alongs had returned by the time Amber was heading back from the shower, the smell of cooking filling the night air as she followed the dusty roadway back to the tent. Theirs was at the end of the row and she eyed the other sites warily as she passed, remembering the scowls as she'd left the mine.

Amber and Alice by Janette Paul

'The voices told what had happened after the atomic bombs fell, like the whispered words of ghosts. Can you imagine a wind so strong that it ripped a man's face away where he stood? Can you imagine how internal organs exploded, clothes and bodies burst into flames, disintegrated on the spot? Can you envision a mushroom cloud formed by smoke and debris that could be seen for miles by the naked eye, followed by a black rain falling, black tears they called it, radiation spreading in its wake? Those who died were the lucky ones, the voices continued. Those who lived through it would never be the same.'

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama

That looks & sounds like a cute book, Brenda.

I see him standing by the corner of the bank. He's putting money into his wallet, sliding it into his back pocket. He looks different with short hair and a beard, but the way he moves is so familiar, the shape of his head, the shrug of his wide shoulders.

The cement walls of the bank are rushing toward me as though there are only inches standing between me and Andrew. I can smell his skin, his soap, see the edge of his mouth, the way it turns up. Sophie's smile. He's going to see me, then he's going to say my name with that tone that sounds loving and angry and scolding and disappointed all at once.

Run.



Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens

From The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

"It struck her that everything under that white sky was made of the same substance—not quite animal, but not merely earth; where branches had sheared from their trunks they left bright wounds, and she would not have been surprised to see severed stumps of oak and elm pulse as she passed. Laughing, she imagined herself a part of it, and leaning against a trunk in earshot of a chattering thrush held up her arm, and wondered if she might see vivid green lichen stippling the skin between her fingers."

Tien wrote: "That looks & sounds like a cute book, Brenda."

I'm loving it Tien :) I'm having to smother my laughter at times! lol

"We have some forty sounds in English, but more than 200 ways of spelling them. We can render the 'sh' sound in up to fourteen ways (shoe, sugar, passion, ambitious, ocean, champagne etc.).

Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language by Bill Bryson
Bryson makes you think and laugh at the same time! He has whole sections on Aussie English which are funny and true:)

Phrynne wrote: ""We have some forty sounds in English, but more than 200 ways of spelling them. We can render the 'sh' sound in up to fourteen ways (shoe, sugar, passion, ambitious, ocean, champagne etc.).

[book:..."

Wow! I've heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. No wonder!
Over in my neck of the woods people speak Spanish, which I can speak, but also many Native American languages that I can't even begin to speak. I think I can speak only one word correctly in Navaho. And that's it! It's fascinating and I love to listen to them talk. I have a few Indian jeweler 'friends' that I see often enough in Santa Fe who have tried to help me learn some words, but I'm pretty hopeless and they get a good laugh about it!

Michael wrote: "The Alchemaster's Apprentice by Walter Moers

'Now listen, all of you,' he cried. He abandoned his crouching stance and..."

Now that sounds interestingly different!

Oh! They have The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear the first in the Zamonien Series in the library!!!
Thanks Michael!

Some Were In Time by Robyn Peterman

My teaser is:
‘You want me to kill him or maim him?” Granny asked as she squinted at the target.
‘Maim’ I challenged.
She took aim and nailed every non-kill spot on the body, missing all major arteries and organs...

Wouldn't want to mess with Granny - and not just because of her sharpshooting skills - she is also a werewolf!!!

"I crouched next to the bodies. The man was taller and broader than my lover or than Billy.
Think Warshawski, save the melodrama for the daytime soaps. Romeo I supposed. Romeo Czernin. He looked very dead to me but I tried to find a pulse in the purply pulp that had been his neck."

Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky

" as a Librarian she had one big advantage that nobody else had - not necromancers, Fae, dragons, ordinary humans or anyone. It was called the Language. Only Librarians could read it. Only Librarians could use it. It could affect certain aspects of reality. It was extremely useful, even if the vocabulary needed constant revision."

From The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

" Get those bloody tanks out of my pasture!" the farmer shouted, angrily jabbing the air with his finger.
The bull watched him, fascinated, for a moment, then swung his head back around. To look directly at Ernest.

Blackout (All Clear #1) by Connie Willis

Two really good books there Carolyn and Tien:)

"Perhaps I will never leave you Mother," I said. "Perhaps no suitors will ever come for me, or perhaps I'll not receive any if they do. Perhaps Father will teach me the trade and I'll become the first female lighthouse keeper of this Great Southern Land."

At this, all three of them broke into laughter.

I bristled. "Perhaps I won't stay after all. Why could I not go to Melbourne, if Harriet does, and see the grand theatres, the library, the bustling city? What stops me from boarding a ship and setting sail for Europe and touring the great cities of the world and reading their literature and hearing their foreign tongues, and seeing the remnants of the birth of civilisation?"

My speech was all garbled now, words spilling out on top of each other. I thought myself so very mature, a few months shy of fifteen, and so full of ideas about my place in the world, my singular potential, my possible greatness, that I had no room for the knowing smiles of the mothers, the blank look of Harriet, who had endured my rants before.

Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall

We were all grinning and everyone had their eyes open for once. Ian must have been moving - his hand was blurred. It was exactly how I imagined us, right down to Kieran's arm around me and the peace sign he was making above Matty's head. The big carving was behind us, and the other trees leaned into the picture, like giant people.

Then a cloud went over the sun and Ian said he had better get going. I wished we had taken five pictures so that we could all have a copy. When I looked at the image again, the colours had already started to fade, as if it was a moment we could never have back.

Where the Trees Were by Inga Simpson