An English family settles in a stately home in Castlemaine, Australia and conducts tours all dressed in appropriate period costume for the public. Nearby lives widowed, Nina Donovan and her young son, Tom. Nina's initial reaction towards the Templetons is negative. I thought it should have staye...
I read the audiobook version of this novel and couldn't put it down....well, press stop actually. I loved every twist in the tale, loved the character development and the storyline, and the settings all mean something to me! Of all the few places I've been in the world, I'd been to all the ones f...
This book tells the story of two families who live in Victoria, Australia. The Templetons have moved from England to open their ancestral home to tourists and they pull into their orbit a widow and her young son. The author moves between several points of view. Her portrait of the youngest Tem...
Ah, chick lit! Sometimes you have to leave your heavy reading and just enjoy yourself. I don't normally review/rate books like this, but I really did enjoy it and don't want to keep anyone else from enjoying it as well. Will she be with Adam, Rohan, some other guy? Did her mom have an affair? An...
This isn't my usual kind of book but I got it from book club and needed a change from violent death, and have sort of enjoyed a couple of her other books, although not the Alphabet Sisters which this follows on from, but it didn't seem to matter. Lola is 84 and lives with her son and his wife in ...
This was thoroughly enjoyable but no action, sex, murder, or mayhem. Its fresh, breezy dialogue made it hard to put down. Lola is a feisty, 84-year-old great grandmother who loves her life managing a motel, web surfing, working at the thrift shop, and getting rid of her family during Christma...
Ok, so I really wanted to hate this book but couldn't quite do it. I had to keep reading for some unknown reason. However, there was plenty wrong with it. For starters, it could have been about half the length and still gotten the point across. Secondly, there is a fine line between an intros...
This novel starts with Angela writing her annual Christmas email whose subject matter is always "Hello from the Gillespies". Angela lives in the Australian Outback and her Christmas letter is always a way to let her far flung family and friends know of the happy things that have happened in the ...
Another cute book by Monica McInerney - actually, her first book, but it's the 3rd I've read. This one features Maura, an Australian chef and winemaker who goes to Ireland for four weeks on a tour to promote Australian food and wine. In Ireland, there are a series of misunderstandings and incid...
My Review of Upside Down Inside Out by Monica McInerneyEva and Joseph, both off to Australia for seemingly different reasons, are destined to meet, but will the strong chemistry be enough to withstand the secrets they both hold? Monica McInerney takes us on a delightful journey with two people, b...
"What was the joke she'd overheard two schoolboys tell last week? 'Why do girls wear make up and perfume?' 'Because they're ugly and they stink.'" What a lovely book to pick up off the shelf at my holiday house. How disappointing for me that I discovered Monica McInerney only now!Anna, Bett and C...
Crossing the globe, from Australia to Manhattan to Dublin, McInerney's bewitching multigenerational saga lavishly and lovingly explores the resiliency and fragility of family bonds.
Harriet Turner knows all about journeys. She’s arranged hundreds of them for her family’s travel agency. Now Harriet is joining her adopted sister, Lara, to lead a group through the Cornish countryside. But when Lara fails to appear at the airport as planned, Harriet finds herself in uncharted te...
Sylvie has always been the odd one out in her family. Her mother is a celebrated artist, known for her bohemian lifestyle. Her father, long estranged from the family, is a respected poet and academic. Sylvie’s two beautiful sisters and her big brother are also making their mark in the design worl...
Aidan O’Hanlon turned up the collar of his coat as he walked out of the Washington Convention Center and up Seventh Street, avoiding a group of elderly Japanese tourists alighting from a bus. He’d been there a month, but the changeability of the weather from one day to the next still took him by ...