THE CHAIN by Adrian McKinty, Book Review: A chilling plot
Adrian McKinty’s Detective Sean Duffy (The Troubles) Series titles have routinely featured in my annual best books lists. I recommend his award-winning In The Morning I’ll Be Gone, Gun Street Girl and Rain Dogs unreservedly. So it was with high expectations that I embarked on this, his new standalone thriller.
Firstly, the story concept is an absolute cracker. It is no surprise to me that Don Winslow’s agent sent McKinty a $10,000 advance on hearing it, and that it has been sold to 36 countries and scored McKinty a seven-figure movie deal with Paramount, all pre-release. The psychopathy of The Chain perpetrators and the ease with which they toy with their victims is chilling. Continue reading >>
THE RETURNS by Philip Salom – Review, Author Post & Giveaway
The new novel from Miles Franklin finalist Philip Salom. To celebrate its release we have 2 copies to giveaway – entries open worldwide. We also had the pleasure of reading this title and welcoming Philip to Booklover Book Reviews to share the inspiration behind it.
BOOK REVIEW
I found this such a delightful read. Not delightful in a light and fluffy, sugar candy kind of way. It was delightful in its capacity to beguile with the commonplace.
The best writers are keen observers of the human condition, and Salom is clearly that. But it is the way he translates what he and his characters observe onto the page that I found so engrossing. For example, Trevor is ‘as orderly as a single conventional sentence’ (a sly nod to the author’s own predilection for unconventional sentence structure). Continue reading >>
MOTHER OF PEARL: Angela Savage on the inspiration for her new novel
The idea for Mother of Pearl was sparked by a 2013 newspaper article that mentioned a ‘sharp rise’ in citizenship requests for Australian children born in Thailand, and attributing this to Australians flocking overseas ‘to find birth mothers for their children’. Already a medical tourism destination, it seemed Thailand had added surrogacy to its mix of available services, prompting an increasing number of Australians—singles and couples, straight and gay—to hire Thai women to be implanted with embryos and paying these ‘surrogate mothers’ to gestate, give birth to and hand over the resulting babies.
An expert quoted in the article said, ‘People don’t want to go to a poor country and behave harmfully’ and suggested the solution lay in permitting paid surrogacy in Australia, where it is currently illegal: ‘Parents say the idea that they would ask someone to do that for free is abhorrent.’Continue reading >>