Snatched by Pirates by Patricia Bernard.

The book is part of the My Australian Story series. It is set in 1899. As a baby, Billy Hamilton was left to die by his Chinese parents. He has a birthmark shaped like a dragon's claw; his family believes this means he will grow up to kill his father. Billy is taken in by two missionaries. They raise him in Shanghai until it becomes unsafe. They then move to Thursday Island (in the Torres Strait).

Aged 15, Billy and two Torres Strait Islander friends are captured by pirates (blackbirded). The pirates force the boys to dive for pearl shells. Billy's journey involves a number of different vessels; he meets friends and enemies, good captains and bad.

The book has lots of rich vocabulary and mentions a number of potential areas for research including pearling, whaling, various fauna and flora, Aboriginal totems and dispossession, and slavery. The crew members Billy meets come from all parts of South East Asia.

Like all the books in this series, the story is quite gritty and there are parts that could cause anxiety. There is mention of previous crew members taking their own lives, one person is bitten in half by a shark and Billy passes fat crocodiles who have obviously eaten people. In the final pages, there is a mutiny and the ship's captain and his son are murdered.

I felt that the book was longer than it needed to be and students may get bored, particularly towards the end. Lots of new characters are introduced with only 30 pages to go. At this point, I just wanted to read a conclusion.

Wonder by R.J Palacio

Wonder tells the story of ten-year-old August (Auggie) Pullman, who was born with severe facial differences. Auggie is starting at Beecher Prep School, having previously been home-schooled. The book explores Auggie's experience and also that of his older sister Via, who is starting her first year in high school.

The main themes are tolerance, kindness, friendship and parental angst. Auggie's teacher Mr Tushman gives his students a monthly precept. These precepts help to articulate the author's message.  Beecher Prep is a private 'non-inclusion' school. This brings up the debate as to whether looking different is a disability.

The first part of the book is written from Auggie's perspective. The second part details the same time period from Via's viewpoint. Auggie's friend Summer then covers the same period. Another student, Jack, takes the story forward. This is followed by a few chapters from Justin, Via's boyfriend. The story returns to Auggie for the final part.

The book is similar to Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper but more predictable and feel-good.  It would be a good book to share with a Stage 3 class (10-12-year-olds); it provides lots of opportunities to discuss both bullying and pro-social behaviour. Via's experiences at high school (her two best friends drop her) would also be interesting to explore.

Someone Else's Child by Helen Klein Ross

This book tells the story of despairingly childless Lucy who walks off with a four-month-old baby in a shopping trolley at IKEA, and the effect this has on the baby and her family, particularly the mother Marilyn. It quickly becomes clear that Lucy raises the baby until she is twenty-one and then something happens. The mystery is what happened and where is Lucy now?

Each chapter is just a page or two and is written from the perspective of one of the characters. It's fast paced and I devoured the second half in one sitting. There is a lot of internal dialogue and introspection; I thought this was well written and credible but others may not. Marilyn turns to yoga and alternative therapies to deal with her grief. She's into crystals and readings etc. I found this became a bit cliched, or even comic, towards the end.

The baby loses three mother figures. A major theme is 'who is your mother?'; the person who gave birth to you, the person you've always called Mum, or the person who was there for you? I wasn't keen on the ending, but it did address the question.

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

This is the second book by Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train. It's completely different but I liked it just a much. Each chapter is named after the character it is about; some are written in the first person and some in the third. The protagonist is Jules. She has been trying to distance herself from her sister Nel for some years, but gets dragged back to her hometown when Nel drowns in suspicious circumstances. Over the years a number of women have drowned in the same pool and it is considered to be a local suicide spot. Jules moves in with her troubled teenage niece Lena, while the police investigation takes place.

Some reviewers have said that the book includes too many characters, that they struggled to keep track of them, and that none of the characters were likeable. I liked Jules, but I did end up writing a character map to remind myself who everyone was (see below). Parts of the book reminded me of The Good People by Hannah Kent. There was a mix of folklore and mysticism thrown in. I found this made the book very different from The Girl on the Train, as well as distinguishing it from every other crime thriller.

He Said She Said by Erin Kelly

This 2017 psychological drama is fabulous. My only criticism is that it could have been a little shorter (it's 400 pages). That said, it's written in five parts and each has a plot and a climax that sheds light on an event that has previously been hinted at, so perhaps it's already been trimmed to perfection.

The story follows Kit and his girlfriend Laura. Kit has spent his life studying and viewing solar eclipses. In 1999, he and Laura travelled to a festival in Cornwall to view an eclipse and Laura stumbled across a rape in progress. The aggressor, the son of a wealthy businessman, claimed it was consensual. The story follows the rape trial, and a dysfunctional relationship that develops between the victim Beth, and Kit and Laura. The relationship has led to Kit and Laura needing to change their identities and go into hiding.

There are some great plot twists, but the book offers much more than that. It provides fascinating insights into the world of eclipse chasers. There are also well-researched portrayals of characters who struggle with addiction and mental health problems. Finally, the book explores how difficult it is to remain anonymous in an age of smartphones and social networking, and how the internet can be used to present a face to the world.

Those we Left Behind by Stuart Neville

This 2016 crime novel is the first in the DCI Serena Flanagan series.

In 2007, two brothers, Ciaran and Thomas Devine, killed their foster carer David Rolston. DCI Flanagan interviewed the brothers at the time and was convinced that the younger brother, Ciaran, confessed to the murder to save his older brother from ending up in an adult prison. Seven years later, Ciaran leaves the juvenille detention centre and is reunited with Thomas. His probation officer Paula Cunningham contacts Flanagan after she is approached by David Rolston's son Daniel, who claims it was Thomas and not Ciaran who killed his father.

Both Thomas and Ciaran find it very difficult to adjust to life outside of detention and Daniel, whose mother commited suicide after his father was killed, is looking for the truth. 

It's a great story. It's not full of clever plot twists, but it does a great job of portraying a world most of us would rather not think about and there are some surprises. It's set in Northern Ireland. Flanagan is a middle age mother of two with a husband who wants her to spend more time at home. She also meets a lot of opposition from police colleagues who don't want to admit that Ciaran's confession might not have been true. There is some sort of sexual tension between Ciaran and Flanagan that I didn't find credible, but other than that the story was depressingly believable. It explores the impact a sudden moment of anger can have, not just on the perpetrators and the victims, but also their families, and the lives of the investigating officers. The second DCI Flanagan book comes out in paperback in July and I'll definitely read it. 

Behind her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

This 2017 psychological thriller should have been called a supernatural thriller. It's good, but it's more like The Sixth Sense than Gone Girl. I was two-thirds of the way through the book before I realised that the ending was going to involve some kind of extraordinary phenomenon. This meant I was disappointed by the ending, but I still thought it was very clever and it made me want to go back and read parts again (knowing what I now knew).

The book tells the story of Adele and Louise. Adele is beautiful, seemingly a little unhinged, and married to psychiatrist David. They have recently moved to a new town. Single mother Louise kisses a man in a bar; he turns out to be her new boss and Adele's husband, David. Adele orchestrates a secret friendship with Louise, as Louise and David's affair blossoms.
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Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall

This 2016 debut novel made the longlist for the Australian Independent Booksellers awards. The story is based on a true story. It is set in the 1880s; Kate and Harriet are two young girls whose fathers both operate a lighthouse on a remote cape in New South Wales, Australia.

The book is written from Kate's perspective and begins with a prologue; something has happened that Kate is trying to forget. The rest of the book details the girls' life on the cape. Harriet is two years older and the more beautiful, while Kate is more of a free spirit. They are both attracted to an older fisherman who moves into a cottage. It is not until Chapter 35, with 40 pages to go, that the reader finds out what Kate is trying to forget.

The book is beautifully written and well researched and I enjoyed it, but it's a good book rather than a great one. The friendship between Kate and Harriet, the envy and intimacy, rivalry and camaraderie, is beautifully detailed. The life of a lighthouse keeper's wife and family, and the bonds and tensions between men working alongside each other but miles from civilisation, are also brought to life.

I let you go by Clare MacKintosh

This fabulous 2014 debut novel, by former UK policewoman Clare MacKintosh, is the best book I've read in a while; I finished it at 2am! It's a crime story with some great twists. It begins with the death of five-year-old Jacob in a hit-and-run accident. His mum lets go of his hand for a split second, while walking home from school in the rain.  To quote the blurb...

"In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever."


The story switches between Jenna, who is trying to move on and put her memories of Jacob behind her, and the two busy detectives, Detective Inspector Ray Stevens and his talented new Detective Constable, Kate Evans, who are trying to track down the hit-and-run driver. The only criticism I have of the book is that one of the cases the detectives are pursuing involves a lot of physical domestic violence. I found reading some of these passages quite difficult. 



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Music and Freedom by Zoe Morrison

I found this book when I was looking through the longlist for the 2017 Australian Indie Book awards. Unlike The Good People, it didn't make the shortlist; however, I much preferred it. Zoe Morrison was a Rhodes Scholar and it shows. Her writing is fabulous, particularly the detail about music, academic life, and domestic violence. The book, her debut novel, brings together subjects she's very familiar with and areas that she had to research.

The book tells the story of Alice Murray, an Australian music prodigy who is sent to an English boarding school at the age of 7 to develop her skills. As a young woman, she meets Edward, a handsome Oxford academic, who makes just enough of an effort to persuade her to marry him; he then quickly begins to mistreat her. The story jumps between Alice's life in 2005, when she is in her early seventies and seemingly losing her mind, and her early life. Morrison begins each chapter with a date; this makes it very easy to follow the story.

Themes include friendship, marriage, love and family.  I noticed that there are over 100 books on Goodreads with the title Behind Closed Doors; this book doesn't quite fit with those. There are lots of detailed descriptions of piano playing that make it difficult to decide whether it's a book about music that touches on domestic violence or vice versa. I thought the relationship between Alice and her son Richard was particularly interesting. I was curious to find out what Richard would think of Alice when he became an adult and whether he would become like his father.

The book is not a thriller with dramatic plot twists. It's a carefully painted picture that brings Alice and her world to life. I hope it turns out to be the first of many novels that Morrison writes.

Conclave by Robert Harris

The book is set post-2018. The pope has died and cardinals from all over the world meet to elect a successor. There are three front-runners and a couple of outsiders who seem to be in with a chance. Some of the hopefuls have a skeleton in the closet that could leak out and dash their chances. The final skeleton was the only thing about the book that I didn't like; it seemed to have been thrown in to please a subset of readers.

I thought I might lose track of the different cardinals but the main characters were easy to follow. Harris is obviously an expert story teller. He included just enough detail of the rooms and the election process to hold my interest and help me picture the scene.

The book is written from the perspective of Cardinal Lomeli whose job it is to run the conclave. Harris's descriptions of Lomeli's thought processes, his struggles with prayer and how snippets of scripture keep popping into his head, struck me as credible. Harris reveals a world of scheming and politics, interspersed with meditation and prayer. He shows how electing a pope is a balancing act between the two. To his credit, he manages to do this in a way that is reasonably respectful of the Church.

The Litigator by John Grisham

I pulled this book from my husband's collection when I had nothing to read. It's years since I picked up a John Grisham novel; I tend to get enough courtroom drama from TV, but the book was preferable to the 300 or so war stories my husband has on his bookshelves!

I don't think it's one of Grisham's best novels (it hasn't been made into a movie) but it's still a good read. It tells the story of Wally and Oscar, two ambulance chasing street lawyers, and David, a high flying young corporate lawyer who decides that a 70+ hour week in a big firm is no life at all. The three team up and take on Big Pharma in a mass tort (class action) case. They are the little guys playing in the big leagues and soon find themselves out of their depth. Wally's love life, Oscar's bad marriage and David's disappointed family all add depth and interest to the story.

Grisham manages to make every aspect of legal work and every type of lawyer seem tarnished and unappealing. Two thirds of the way through the book it all seemed fairly predictable; the last 200 pages held a few surprises, but there was no shocking twist.


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