Losing Your Head

Finished February 21

Losing Your Head by Clare Kauter

This humorous mystery was a great read. It is the first book in the Charlie Davies series, which is set in a small town in New South Wales, Australia. Charlie, nineteen, has been working as a cashier in a run-down grocery store in town, living at home with her mom, and hoping to save up for a better car. Her boss at the store is a creep and always makes her do extra work. When he asks her to lie for him and she does, albeit sarcastically, his wife threatens him with divorce. Charlie decides enough is enough and quits. 

Charlie goes to explain to the wife that she wasn't serious, and ends up inviting her back to her place to stay. 

With a new housemate and no job, Charlie goes looking, and finds herself in the right place at the right time to get hired as a receptionist for Baxter & Co., a security and investigation company. When she encounters her high school enemy James McKenzie, a man estranged from his family and who has lived with his uncle for years, the conversation turns to the recent murder of said uncle. Charlie bets James that she can find the real killer in exchange for a few thousand dollars and a house, he jokingly agrees, but she's serious. 

As she investigates, using tools at her new job, and enlisting the help of her new housemate, she finds herself in some interesting situations. 

Charlie is delightful. She's a tad klutzy, and known for sabotaging herself, but she has a great wit, isn't afraid to talk back, and is impulsive. She's also a hard worker, and isn't afraid to try new things, which serves her well. 

The mystery was interesting, and I liked the vibes of future romance between her and James. 

Crescent Calling

Finished November 17

Crescent Calling by Nicole R. Taylor

This is the first book in The Crescent Witch Chronicles series. The main character is Skye Williams, a young woman from Australia who is dealing with the recent loss of her job and her boyfriend and spending time at her late father's beach house. While there, she is visited by a strange small Irishman who tells her that her estranged mother has died and left her everything she owns, which includes a house and a shop in Ireland. She must go to Ireland to inherit.

In the small town of Derrydun, she finds herself the owner of a successful new age shop with a capable Goth employee and a lovely small house. There is also a cat who seems quite comfortable staying with her every night.

She's still not sure whether she wants to stay or sell up and go back to Australia until she sees the attractive young Irishman who's helpful to all around town change into a fox in front of her. Boone came to town a few years ago and stayed with her aunt until moving into his own place. He gives her some information on her mother and her mother's death and lets her know that she's the last in a line of local witches known as Crescent Witch. He also lets her know about imminent threats to their community and what she might be expected to do to combat them. As she learns how to wield the powers she has inherited, she also finds herself growing roots into the community.

I enjoyed this light fantasy as well as the touch of romance it promises. Skye is strong and open and a woman who is kind at heart. The plot  is a good opener to the fantasy element and promises more in future books. 

An Academic Affair

Finished November 10

An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister

This is a romance novel with its own special setting and the details are so well done. Sadie Shaw and Jonah Fisher have been academic rivals since first year university where they argued interpretations during an English seminar. They have also lived in the same large shared house with several other roommates in Sydney since Jonah's master degree time when Sadie was working to save up money. They ended up graduating with their English literature Ph.Ds. at the same time and have both been working at whatever teaching jobs they could since then. I really liked how this novel showed academia for what it truly is, underpaid, lots of unrecognized time spent in prep and marking, and few opportunities for permanent positions. 

When a permanent position is announced at the university in Hobart, both are aware the other will be applying. For Sadie, who specialized in popular fiction, the job mentions this as one of the specialties they are looking for, something that is rare indeed. For Jonah, the permanent position also mentions his specialty as one of the three they are looking for. Plus he has strong motivation to move close to his sister Fiona, who is dealing with the end of her marriage. 

When Sadie is going over the contract, she notes that their is an option for partner hire. This is an interesting detail of academic that definitely shows possibilities, the idea that one's life partner could also get a position, making the move more appealing to couples. 

Sadie approaches Jonah with the idea of getting married so that they both get the job, after all they are already living in the same house, which works to make it look that they've been together for a while.

The personal side of their lives was also something that added to their character. Sadie is very close to her older sister who pretty much raised her. Jonah grew up with a professor father who encouraged debate among his children and pushed them toward academia, something that only Fiona rebelled against. But Jonah knows that this advantage isn't always something he likes in his life, and makes choices about his own wants when he can. 

There is also a storyline around wine, with Sadie's sister having a passion for the national wine industry, and Fiona being close to two brothers who run a winery and restaurant. With Jonah's older brother having his own competitive rival, I can see possibilities for more books involving these characters.

This a read with believable characters with depth, interesting career and personal situations, and both fun banter and serious conversations. A definite winner for me. 

Out of the Valley of Horses

Finished May 10

Out of the Valley of Horses by Wendy Orr

This children's novel is set in a near future where a family decides to leave the city during a difficult time. There has been a spreading illness, and societal unrest as a result. The main character, Honey, is a young child, and her grandfather used to drive an ice cream truck. After he retired, he and her grandmother converted the truck into a small camper van equipped with solar panels. Honey's parents and her grandmother took her and her younger brother and went into the countryside looking for a place to camp and live for a while. They came to a place where a bridge took them into a mountain valley where there were a number of extraordinary horses. 

This all happened seven years earlier. Honey and her family discovered that they could no longer find their way out of the valley soon after they arrived. Since then, they've lived off the land and the supplies that they brought with them. They are generally content there, but miss their extended family. 

They have grown close to the horses. Each family member has been chosen by a horse who will let them ride it and whom they have a close relationship with. Honey's horse is Moongold, a name she knows belongs to it. The horses do dances together and sometimes make communal noises that sound like a song to the family. 

The story is interspersed with texts from the family looking for them, and hoping they are well, unsure what happened to them. Each of the adults in the family has phones, but they aren't connecting with the outside world. 

When Honey's father starts feeling unwell, they try harder to find a way out, but nothing they try seems to work, all trails leading back to their valley. They are reminded of a story of their great-grandfather's when he took a ride out of the city on his horse and found a valley. He stayed there for seven years, in a cabin he built himself, and then was able to leave and come out to the rest of the world. 

Honey's upcoming eleventh birthday will be exactly seven years since the family entered the valley. She can't help but wonder if this will be the chance they have to leave the valley they love to save her father, even if it means leaving the valley forever. 

I really enjoyed this tale of magic and resilience. The family has used their skills and resources well, growing some food, and finding others in their environment. The adults teach the kids, and share stories as part of a routine. Honey is at the age where she is adult enough to notice changes in the situation and look for ways to help. A great story. 

Memorial Days

Finished March 2

Memorial Days: A Memoir by Geraldine Brooks

This memoir moves back and forth between two times: one beginning on May 27, 2019, when her husband Tony Horowitz died suddenly; and one beginning in February 2023 when Geraldine went on a solo retreat to a small beach house on Flinders Island in Australia, her home country. 

Tony was on a book tour at the time, after writing a book that required intense research, and a tight deadline. She had met up with him at other points on the tour, but decided not to on this weekend. Their older son was on his way to Australia with his girlfriend, and her younger son was at boarding school. Tony's mom and siblings were at a family get-together in Maine. 

Geraldine was notified of Tony's death through a terse phone call from a hospital. When the follow-up call from the police came, they were, at least, kind. 

Because she was alone and far from where he died, on a holiday weekend where travel was difficult, she felt that she couldn't react the way that she wanted to. She had to hold herself together, and do what needed to be done. It wasn't until the trip she went on nearly four years later that she was able to truly grieve. 

The book moves back and forth between these two times, as she points out flaws in the system that she dealt with, the lack of planning for death she and Tony had done, and the various bureaucratic issues that she had to deal with immediately after her terrible loss. 

Geraldine grew up in Australia, and until she met Tony, an American, had every intention of living there and making her career there. Flinders Island, part of an archipelago between Tasmania and the rest of Australia had drawn her early in her adulthood, and in 2023, she tries to imagine what her life would have been like if she had spent it there instead of where her life took her. 

The beauty of the island, the nature that she describes paints a picture that is both wild and immersive. She watches the ocean, the sky, the land, and its creatures as she comes to terms with her loss and where it leaves her now, facing a future that is different than what she had imagined. 

This is a moving book, one that brought out emotions in me as I read it. She is an author I have read a lot and enjoyed immensely for her beautiful prose. Highly recommended. 

Last Post

Finished October 8

Last Post by Robert Barnard

This stand-alone mystery follows a woman, Eve McNabb, who finds a letter among the various sympathy envelopes in the mail at her mother's house after her mother's death. The letter is anonymous, but hints at a relationship between the letter writer and her mother, May. It also refers to her father Ted, who Eve was told died when she was a child. 

Eve's mother was a skilled a popular teacher, who quickly became deputy, then head of their local school. She was involved in her community and a woman who was very competent and knew her own mind. Eve is saddened by her death as her mother had recently retired and they were starting to grow closer and spend more time together. 

As Eve follows clues to find the letter writer, she also begins to suspect that her father isn't dead after all, and she begins to question what her mother has told her. 

She begins to delve into her mother's past, her friendships, and her father's life.

This is a tale of loss, of discovery, and of the dangers of digging too deeply into the lives of others. 

Homecoming

Finished March 8

Homecoming by Kate Morton

This novel starts in the past, on New Year's Day in 1959, and moves back and forth between that 1959  and the near present, late 2018. The 1959 portion takes place in the Adelaide Hills, around a family, the Turners, that lived in a large house that had a sad past, built for a wife that never arrived. The first scene is an interesting one, letting us into the mind of Isabel Turner, a woman who is beginning to question the life she lives. It also ends on an interesting mysterious note with the arrival at the house of a man Isabel hadn't expected. This is followed by tragedy nearly a year later, with a local man, Percy Summers, the one to make the sad discovery on Christmas Eve. 

This present day part of the novel starts in London, but is set mostly in Australia. Jess, a journalist, is off to meet a friend after time spent at her favourite museum, and grabs a cab as rain begins. She receives a call from Australia, where she was born and grown up, telling her of her grandmother's hospitalization after a fall. Jess travels back to Australia, where she finds herself alone in her grandmother's large house, and begins to reflect on memories as well as look for reasons for her grandmother visiting a part of the house that led to her fall. 

One thing she finds is an old book, written by an American journalist, that tells of the tragedy in 1959, with apparent access to personal papers of the Turner family. As Jess begins to realize the connection between this event and her own family, she must also deal with family issues much closer to home, the relationship between herself, her mother, and her grandmother. 

I found this a fascinating read. As is usual for Morton, the characters are complex and feel real. As Jess uncovers her family's history and faces the strange dynamics between the three generations of women, we see the insecurities, fear, and love that underlie all of it. 

A great read. 

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

Finished April 21

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman

This novel was one I chose by title alone and it was definitely a surprise. Set in Australia, inland and within a day's drive from Melbourne, most of the story takes place in the late 1960s, either on a small farm, or in the town nearby. There are also occasional flashbacks to one character's experiences during World War II and its aftermath. The main character here, Tom Hope, wakes up to a note from his wife Trudy letting him know that she's left him. This is devastating to him, as he loved her, but looking back he can see that there were signs that she wasn't happy. As she returns and leaves again, the experience leaves him with a child that he finds himself loving fiercely and forming a strong bond with. 

When he loses the child, he is once more devastated, losing himself in the routine of farmwork. Tom has sheep, and fruit trees, and makes enough to get by. 

When he hears of a bookshop opening in town, he is surprised and curious. When he meets the woman who is going to run the store, he finds himself drawn to her. She is Hannah Babel, a Hungarian Jewish woman who survived Auschwitz, but lost her own family. She has done a variety of things since then, but the bookshop is close to her heart. Although older than Tom, she finds herself drawn to him as well, and both of them dare to believe that they have found love. 

As they face emotional and financial barriers, their relationship is stressed and in jeopardy unless they can find a way forward despite their past pain. 

The characters are unique and have their own quirks and outlooks. Tom is a very giving man, one who cares about people and takes disappointment to heart. Hannah has suffered much loss in her life, and is afraid of more. These are characters with histories that are painful, and as they learn to understand each other and trust each other, there is hope that they can find a future together. 

The setting comes alive here, and one can picture the farm and the hills and river. There are many interesting characters besides the two central ones, and I would be interested in learning more about many of them. As the plot brings Tom and Hannah together and threatens to rend them apart again, there are bits of larger stories that influence theirs and add depth. 

A very interesting read. 

The Turning

Finished February 23

The Turning by Tim Winton

I always find Australian author Tim Winton's books intriguing. This one is a collection of short stories, loosely linked to each other, all pertaining to moments in people's lives where things changed in some way for them. Most of these stories are told in the first person, and the narrators range in age, and sometimes reappear in a later story. 

Some of these characters we see as children, just as they are coming into adolescence and finding their way, having an encounter that makes a difference in their lives. Sometimes they make a decision to leave somewhere or to return somewhere and that too influences their life in a way they hadn't anticipated. 

Some of these turnings are awakenings, others are a return to a past that was never fully dealt with. All of them take place in Western Australia and give a sense of the land there, the ocean and the landscape. They take place in small communities or rural areas. 

Winton takes you inside the characters' heads, seeing what they are thinking and feeling so that you feel what is happening to them, how it affects them. 

These events are sometimes small, sometimes big, sometimes peripheral to the their lives in many ways except for the effect they have. 

A great read. 

The Daughters of Mars

Finished March 21 

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

This novel takes place just before and during World War I, following two sisters from small town Australia through the war. Both Naomi and Sally are nurses, Naomi in Sydney and Sally in Macleary, where they grew up. As the story begins their mother is in the last stages of cervical cancer, being looked after at home by Sally after her regular work at the local hospital, with occasional visits and respite for Sally from Naomi. Sally is the younger sister, and she resents Naomi for some things, like escaping their small town, but also feels tied to her by other experiences.

Both girls apply to go overseas when there is a call for nurses, and both are chosen. Naomi has pressured Sally to stay home to look after their father, but Sally fights to find her own life. They are in the same batch of nurses to ship out, and it takes them some war experiences to find friendship as well as sisterhood. They are often in the same group of nurses, and form friendships with these other women, from a variety of backgrounds. They are also in contact with officers in the Australian army, army doctors, and orderlies and various friendships, and romances develop between the nurses and these men during the years of the war. 

The women go through a variety of harrowing and draining experiences, with all of their skills called upon. They serve in receiving wounded men in the harbour of Gallipoli, on the island of Lemnos, and in France. They grow into their adult selves and find internal strength through these experiences as well as the determination and support for each other that they didn't have before the war. This novel was nominated for numerous awards and won several, and was a book that I could barely put down despite it being a doorstopper. Both Naomi and Sally are deeply drawn and you get a real sense for their characters. There are also several supporting characters who come to life through their interactions and reactions to the situations they are faced with. Well worth the read. 

The Lost Love Song

Finished February 13

The Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke

This book has a lot going on, with a couple of main characters, and several minor characters that move the plot along. Most of the book takes place in Australia, but there are important elements in England, Canada, and the United States. The book opens in Melbourne with the beginning of a relationship. Diana, a young but already famous concert pianist initiates a relationship with a tech nerd Arie. The plot quickly jumps ahead several years, where these two have a spark that has lasted and they've bought a home together and Arie has a successful web design company with his best friend Richard. Diana is about to leave on another worldwide tour, and Aria tries to pin Diana down on setting a date to marry. They've been engaged for years, but something always seems to keep them from making that final commitment. Diana expresses herself through music and she starts a new song to try to find her own answer to this question. After a performance in Singapore, she sits down in her hotel and continues her exploration. The next morning she gets on a flight to France, one that never arrives.

Arie is heartbroken, as is Diana's mother. And so many other people that lose someone in this tragedy. But someone else in the hotel heard that song Diana was working on, and the song has its own storyline now, moving around the world from one musician to another. It brings other relationships to new levels, and is a positive influence everywhere it spreads. 

Meanwhile in England, Australian Evie is on a multiyear trip away, trying different things, exploring different places, and mostly working to pay for rent and food. She also writes poems, but has never tried to publish them until she is inspired by a contest. She takes her poetry notebooks along with her, and they are beginning to be a major part of her luggage. When she finally makes the decision to return home to Australia, she makes her first task to reclaim her car, stuffed with all her worldly possessions and reevaluate what is important among them before choosing her next adventure. She's tired of the life she's been living overseas and longs for a more meaningful life with someone by her side that truly cares for her. 

This is a romance, but it is also a bigger novel than that. It is definitely a feel good book despite its early tragedy. I was easily caught up in the characters' lives, caring about what happened to each of them. 

Aussie Authors Reading Challenge 2021

 I'm going to tackle this challenge again for 2021

This challenge is hosted at: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/reading-challenges/aussie-author-challenge-2021-australian-writers-book-reviews

I'm going for the Wallaroo level again this year. 

WALLAROO
Read and review 6 books written by Australian authors, of which at least 2 of those authors are female, at least 2 of those authors are male, and at least 2 of those authors are new to you; Fiction or non-fiction, at least 2 different genre.

Wrap-Up for Aussie Author Challenge

 The Aussie Author Challenge was hosted here

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I went for the Wallaroo level, of 6 books, at least 2 female and 2 male and 2 authors new to me.

I did not achieve it, falling short of a second male author. 
1. The Elephant by Peter Carnavas. Finished February 15 (male author, new to me)
2. March by Geraldine Brooks. Finished February 17 (female author)
3.The Skeleton Coast by Mardi McConnochie. Finished June 12 (female author)
4. Music for Tigers by Michelle Kadarusman. Finished July 2 (female author)
5. A Quiet Girl by Peter Carnavas. Finished September 4 (male author)
6. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood. Finished November 15 (female author, new to me)

7. Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks. Finished December 10 (female author)

Foreign Correspondence

Finished December 10

Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over by Geraldine Brooks

I just love anything I've read by Geraldine Brooks, fiction or nonfiction. This book goes back to her childhood and looks at her years growing up in Australia, her relationship with her parents and some of their history, and her early pen pals. 

Her first pen pal was just across town, a girl from a slightly higher social bracket than her own, but eager to connect, compare and share some commonalities. Her next addition to her pen pal list was a girl in the United States, the country her father grew up in, and they kept up a correspondence for many years. She then added two pen pals in Israel, the first was an Arab Christian and the second a Jew, both boys, and Geraldine imagined lives for them based on her knowledge and adolescent dreams. Through one of her school teachers, she also got a pen pal in France. She'd been hoping for Paris, but ended up with a girl her age in Languedoc. 

We then see how her life grew and changed as she became a journalist, travelled widely and lived in and reported from many different places. She met an American man, who was Jewish, converted and married him. Having already read her collection of essays from her posting in the Middle East, Nine Parts of Desire, I was aware of some of this. We also see how she settles down in the United States.

We see how her life changed in many ways, and her family members as well.

She decided at some point to follow up with her various pen pals to see where they now were, and what their lives were like. She already knew about Joanie, her American correspondent and her sad end, but she connected with Joanie's family, particularly her mother, and they became quite close. Her two pen pals in the Middle East were vastly different than her imaginings. The Jewish man, named Cohen, had not enjoyed his time in the military, and was happily married and living a quiet life. Her Arab pal, Mishal, lived with his family in Jerusalem and moved between communities in his skilled tradesman work. He was definitely more welcoming and friendly and took the time to show her around the area, and kept in contact following the reconnection. I really liked him and his attitude. 

Her pen pal in France also lived a different life than Geraldine imagined, staying in the town she grew up, although marrying a man who came from elsewhere. She lived a busy life, but a wasn't curious about the world beyond. 

Her reconnection with her Australian pen pal was interesting as Nell has also moved to the States and created a life for herself. She done her own travelling, as many Australians do, and was enjoying her life and thinking about her next personal reinvention. 

I really enjoyed this book, and it made me think about a pen pal I had as a tween, a girl who lived in Norway. I wonder what she's up to now. 

The Songlines

Finished January 26
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, illustrations by Simon Pemberton

I've had this one on my shelf for a while, but Australia being in the news lately made my pick it up. It was a relatively easy read, with most of the book being a fictionalized version of the author's short time in the Australian outback among aboriginal people and those working with them. In particular it features a man whose parents emigrated from Russia, and who is working with aboriginal people to identify sacred places so the railway they are building can avoid causing more damage than it naturally will just by existing.
The idea of songlines as a birthright and a responsibility is made very clear, and I liked the way that the people were shown to be intelligent and with real character, not stereotypes. There was recognition of the struggles they are facing, and the harms done to them.
As the book progresses, when Bruce spends some time alone in a small outback town, stranded by the rain, he delves into his journals and notebooks and pulls out a bunch of quotes, anecdotes, and other passages that look at man's relationship to the world, to animals, to nature, to the idea of moving around as a way of life. This was also interesting, but these sections took more time to separate ideas and make connections.
My edition also had a very useful introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare that gave me background and context for the book, that made my reading more meaningful.

Aussie Author Challenge 2020 Sign-up Page

I'm committing to a challenge to read some Australian Authors. It is called the Aussie Author Challenge, and is hosted here.

I'm going for the Wallaroo level of the challenge which is to read 6 books by Australian writers. At least two of the authors have to be female and at least two of them male. Also two of them have to be authors that I haven't read anything by before.

Should be fun to find.

Paris at the End of the World

Finished June 4
Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918 by John Baxter

This book has a split focus. Part of it is following the experiences of John's grandfather as he left his family in Australia and signed up to be a soldier in Europe. The other is the one in the title, Paris herself during this historic time. The book moves back and forth between these two things.
On the personal side, John was looking to both discover what his grandfather's motives and experiences were, and find out where he was during his time in Europe.
On the bigger picture side, John used a variety of historical items and situations to bring this time in Paris to life. He looks at a variety of historical figures including Jean Cocteau, Misia Sert, Douglas Haig, Rupert Brooke, and Joseph-Simon Gallieni. He uses contemporaneous news and entertainment magazines, postcards, ephemera, and other resources to bring the city of Paris and its people to life.
There are lots of little tidbits of information the author shows here that humanizes the people he writes about and makes the book very interesting.

Whisper

Finished June 9
Whisper by Lynette Noni

This teen novel is the first in a series. A woman, known as Jane Doe or Subject Six Eight Four, is being held in a secret facility underground. She has been told only that it is a government facility and that she needs to cooperate with the people working with her.
Her day is routine. Her locked cell is bare, she has no footware, and a basic dress to wear. She meets every day with a therapist, a physical trainer, and a doctor who performs tests on her. She says nothing to anyone. She sits silently with the therapist, does everything the personal trainer asks her to do, and endures the painful experiments in silent stoicism. She has been here for two and a half years, and is still not sure of anything except that they want her to speak, something she is determined not to do. Then one day, her routine is interrupted. After all her normal daily activities have ended, she is taken from her cell to an area of the complex she hasn't been before and she meets with the man in charge. He tells her that they are tired of waiting for something they don't believe will ever happen, and she will work with someone new for the next month, and if nothing comes of it, he implies that she will die.
The woman is surprised to find that her new interaction is with a young man close to her own age, a man who treats her kindly, who offers her comforts, who introduces her to other young people. Her silent stoicism is no longer the effective defense it has been.
When an unexpected situation impels her to speak, she finds that this opens new doors, new opportunities for her. But as things continue, she finds that these people know more about her than she has shared, and may not have been telling her the truth.
A great start to a new and interesting series.

The Burial

Finished February 18
The Burial by Courtney Collins

This historical fiction novel takes place in rural Australia in 1921. Jessie is a woman who has had an eventful life, even though she is still in her twenties, but we come into her story at a major turning point. The narrator is Jessie's baby, a child that is not alive as it narrates the story.
We gradually learn of Jessie's life as the story is told, her own birth, her childhood, the way she left her family and the life she left it for. As her story begins, we know she is desperate, we know she is a horsewoman, skilled in dealing with horses. And we come to understand what has driven her to this night, in the dark and rain, at the side of the river as she digs a hole in the dirt.
As she flees her life up to now, she is followed. First by one man, and then by two, and then by more. The first man she has known recently and he doesn't understand why she has left the way she did, at least not at first. The second man she knew long ago, and thought lost to her. The rest are just men, looking for a dream.
I enjoyed Jessie as a character, but also the way the story unfolded, and the prelude which is echoed in the final pages of the story. I liked the people she met, others who lived in difficult circumstances, some who chose to stay and some who chose to find their own way.
I also found it interesting that it was inspired by a real life woman bushranger, Jessie Hickman.
This is an amazing debut novel, one that stays with you.
For readers who loved The Outlander by Gil Adamson

Wrap-Up Post for the Aussie Author Challenge 2016

Aussie Author Challenge 2016

Here is the hosting page for this challenge. Here is my sign-up page.

This challenge ran for the 2016 calendar year. I did not complete it successfully

There are three challenge levels, and I went for the lowest one, Wallaby, which required me to read 3 books by Australian authors of which at least one is male, at least one is female, and at least one is new to me. I only read two, both female authors.

1. Liar by Justine Larbalestier. Finished June 28. (female and new to me)
2. Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown. Finished December 24 (female and new to me)