22. Exiles by Jane Harper

#3 Aaron Falk/Australia

listened on Libby
356 pgs.

2022
Adult mystery
Finished 3/25/23
Goodreads rating: 4.05
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Australia

My comments:      Grew on me more and more as the story progressed.  At first it just seemed to jump all over the place (it actually did this throughout the story), but once I got used to it, it was easier to follow along a little more easily.  A complicated story that kept you wondering all the time - which I like.  Definitely a good mystery.  Happily every after...no more Aaron Falk to come.  Ever. 

131. The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

listened on Libby, borrowed from the library
narrated by Caroline Lee 
Unabridged audio (10:17)
2020
370 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 9/29/20
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 3284 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: 1840s Britain, on ship from Britain to Tasmania, and Tasmania

First line/s: "By the time the rains came, Mathinna had been hiding in the bush for nearly two days."

What I posted on Goodreads:  4.5 A wonderful, though bleak, historical fiction about three women in the 1840s British penal colony which is now Tasmania in Australia. 

(I felt that the nondisclosure of ending for one of the major characters was a bit disconcerting, thus the erasure of half a point from a full-fledged five.)

Goodreads synopsis:  The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives in nineteenth-century Australia.
          Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
          During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel -- a skilled midwife and herbalist – is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
          Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
          In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom.           Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

96. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

listened to audio - borrowed from Bosler
narrated by Caroline Lee
Unabridged audio (16:18)
2018 Flatiron Books
453 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Thriller
Finished 6/15/20
Goodreads rating:  3.50 - 325,076  ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: contemporary - outside Sydney, Australia

What I posted on GoodReads:  4.5  Excellent character development, a little long, great ending.

First line/s: " 'I'm fine,' said the woman.  'There's nothing wrong with me.'"

My comments: A wonderful, slow-burn character study of eleven individuals that are thrown together during one crazy, impactful week.  You get a little bit of a lot of things - drug abuse and dependency, teenage suicide, battling self-esteem issues, and even becoming a multi millionaire overnight, with all the issues that might accompany that.  I very much enjoyed the character development and growing relationships.  It got a little slow at about the 3/4 mark, but the best part for me was the way Moriarty decided to end the book.  The last 5% just tickled me!

Goodreads synopsis:  Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever?
          These nine perfect strangers are about to find out...
          Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.
          Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer—or should she run while she still can?
          It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.
          Combining all of the hallmarks that have made Liane Moriarty's writing a go-to for anyone looking for wickedly smart, page-turning fiction that will make you laugh and gasp, Nine Perfect Strangers once again shows why she is a master of her craft.

TV Series: Secret City

Premiered: Australia in 2016, US in 2018
Season 1:  Six part miniseries, set in Canberra, Australia (watched October, 2018)
Season 2:  (Called "Under the Eagle") 2019
Number of Episodes: 6 each season
Length of Episode:
IMBd:  7.4
RT Audience Score:   100 / 72
cag: Season One = 4.5  /  Season Two = 2
Netflix

Season One/My Comments:  The protagonist, played by the headliner from FRINGE (Anna Torv) is an investigative journalist for the top newspaper in Canberra. In the first two episodes we discover that she is separated from her much-loved husband, who is transitioning into a woman, but he gets murdered.  She then spends her time uncovering the twisting, turning Chinese/American/Australian top government spies vs. good guys.  Excellent show.
Season Two/My Comments:  Less enjoyable, more difficult to follow.  It's all politics, Australian politics, and takes quite a few episodes to even fathom who is baseline good guy or bad guy.  Perhaps I should have rewatched season one before watching this.  It does straighten up in the mind a little by the end, but it wasn't really that interesting, unfortunately.  Just ok.

Storyline from IMBd: Beneath the placid facade of Canberra, amidst rising tension between China and America, senior political journalist Harriet Dunkley uncovers a secret city of interlocked conspiracies, putting innocent lives in danger including her own.

107. Force of Nature by Jane Harper

#2 Aaron Falk/ Australia
listened on Audible, which I own
narrated  by Stephen Shanahan
Unabridged audio (9:03)
2018 Flatiron Books
326 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 10/31/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.83 - 54,666 ratings
My rating:  3.5
Setting: Wilderness, Australia

First line/s:  "Later, the four remaining women could only agree on two things.  One:  No one saw the bushland swallow up Alice Russell.  And two:  Alice had a mean streak so mean it could cut you."

My comments:  In this second of the Aaron Falk series, we find him hunting information on a missing woman in the tangled mysterious almost unknown forests of Australia, a woman who was separated from her group at a corporate retreat.  The story flip-flops back-and-forth between the rescue attempt and a detailed account of what happened to the five women, until both stories join together at the end of the book  Interesting, but a little overly long.  The setting was its own character, I always like that in a story.

Goodreads synopsis:  Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along a muddy track.
          Only four come out on the other side.
          The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and encourage teamwork and resilience. At least, that's what the corporate retreat website advertises.
          Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker, Alice Russell. Because Alice knew secrets, about the company she worked for and the people she worked with.
          The four returning women tell Falk a tale of fear, violence and fractured trust during their days in the remote Australian bushland. And as Falk delves into the disappearance of Alice, he begins to suspect some dangers ran far deeper than anyone knew.

95. The Dry by Jane Harper

#1 Aaron Falk
listened on Audible
2016 MacMillan Australia
352 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 11/9/2018
Goodreads rating: 4.04 - 88,986 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Australian boonies

First line/s:  "It wasn't as though the farm hadn't seen death before, and the blowflies didn't discriminate."

My comments:  It was fun being transported to Australia - and I must admit it took a bit of time to get used to the reader's Aussie accent.  Excellent story, mostly dark and sad.  This is Aaron Falk's story - the story of his childhood, his friendships, his past.  That he also becomes the chief investigator, the mystery-solver is a nice plus.  I look forward to reading the next in the series because we've gotten to know Aaron Falk so well, where does his life go from here?

Goodreads synopsis:  A small town hides big secrets in this atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.    
          In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.          
          Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier. 
          But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke's death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds in bleed into new ones.

69. The One by John Marrs

read on my iPhone
2018 Hanover Square Press (2016/2017 in England?)
416 pgs.
Adult CRF/Mystery/tiny hint of Fantasy...
Finished 7/24/18
Goodreads rating:  4.13 - 10,98 ratings
My rating: 5 Stars!
Setting: Contemporary England (with a bit in Australia)

First line/s:  "Mandy stared at the photograph on the computer screen and held her breath."

My comments:  Oh my goodness, what a clever, addicting book! Not the greatest cover, though, right?  I couldn’t put it down. Never a dull moment!! There were so many things I loved about this book: all sorts of twists and turns, following five different people that were easy-to-remember in an uncomplicated way, being left on the edge-of-your-seat short chapter after short chapter, and a premise that made you think, wonder, and rationalize throughout. A real winner. (Told in FIVE distinct, unique voices that were all wonderful.)

Goodreads synopsis:  How far would you go to find The One?
          A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner—the one you’re genetically made for.
          That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.
          Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…
          A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.

TV Show - Glitch

Just finished watching Seasons 1 and 2
Premiered:  7/9/2015 Netflix - Season 1 (but I think that was in Australia, in America it was 2016) Current season 2 began 9-14-17
Number of Episodes:12 (6 each season)
Length of Episode: 60 minutes
IMBd:  7.6
RT Audience Score: 90
cag: 6 (Loved, loved, loved it)

Characters:  James Hayes, chief of Police (Patrick Brammall)
                       Dr. Elishia McKellar (the doctor who helps Chief Hayes try to figure everything out)
                       Kate Willis (dead wife)
                       Sarah Hayes (current wife)
                       John Doe (Rodger Corser) a highwayman?
                       Charlie Thompson (Sean P. Keenan) WWI hero
                       Kirstie Darrow (18-year old from the 1980s)
                       Maria Massola  (pious wife, mother, and schoolteacher)
                       Paddy (Patrick) Fitzgerald (the town's first mayor)
                       Beau (the boy who witnesses the dead digging themselves out of their graves)       

My comments:  I was immediately sucked into this series, and the 12 episodes were over much too quickly!  The cast, all unknown to me since this is an Australian production, were mesmerizing, as was the story, the characters, and the setting (the fictional town of Yoorana).  I love it when you're constantly wondering what will happen next, right along with the characters. The lead - a young cop - discovers his dead wife is one of the people who have come alive.  Also "risen" are:  an 18-year-old girl who died in the 80s, a young WWI era war hero, an Italian-speaking refugee (?) from the early 20th century, the first mayor of the town, who died in 1864, a 39-year-old mother who died in 1969, and a mysterious (and might I say extremely hunky) 40 year-old who we learn about more slowly than the rest.  SO GOOD!!!  How did this happen?  Why?  How are these people connected?  Will they ever be able to leave the boundaries that appear to kill them if crossed?

Storyline from RT:  A drama series where six individuals suddenly appear in a cemetery in the middle of the night with no recollection of who they are or where they come from. Trying to identify these people, and the truth behind how they are connected, will turn the life of the police officer put in charge of the investigation upside-down.

17. Lyrebird Hill

read by Eloise Oxer, gorgeously!
listened to on Audible
2015 Simon & Schuster Australia
416 pgs.
14 hrs. 11 minutes
Adult CRF / Historical (flipping back and forth)
Finished 3-19-17
Goodreads rating: 4.0 (584 ratings)
My rating: 4.5
Setting: 1898 and 2013 New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia

First line/s: (Prologue, August, 1898) "It is midnight.  I am hunched on the cold floor of the library, scratching these words."

My comments:  4.5 I couldn't wait to get back to this each time I had to leave it.  The story, though a little drawn out in places, was for the most part believable and excellently told.  It flipped back and forth between 1898 and 2013.  Eloise Oxer, the reader, was fantastic.  Her lilting voice and Australian accent put me right there in the bush, at Lyrebird Hill, or in Tasmania, immediately.  Unfolding are two different stories, of great-granddaughter and great-grandmother, more than a century apart.  In a way, perhaps because of the setting and alternating chapters back and forth, it reminded me of one of my favorite books, also set in Australia, The Forgotten Garden.  Delicious storytelling.

Goodreads synopsis:  When all that you know comes crashing down, do you run? Or face the truth?
          Ruby Cardel has the semblance of a normal life – a loving boyfriend, a fulfilling career – but in one terrible moment, her life unravels. The discovery that the death of her sister, Jamie, was not an accident makes her question all she’s known about herself and her past.
          Traveling back home to Lyrebird Hill, Ruby begins to remember the year that has been forever blocked in her memory . . . Snatches of her childhood with beautiful Jamie, and Ruby’s only friendship with the boy from the next property, a troubled foster kid.
          Then Ruby uncovers a cache of ancient letters from a long-lost relative, Brenna Magavin, written from her cell in a Tasmanian gaol where she is imprisoned for murder. As she reads, Ruby discovers that her family line is littered with tragedy and violence.
          Slowly, the gaps in Ruby’s memory come to her. And as she pieces together the shards of truth, what she finally discovers will shock her to the core – about what happened to Jamie that fateful day, and how she died.
          A thrilling tale about family secrets and trusting yourself...

MOVIE - Lion

PG-13 (2:00)

Limited release 11/25/16

Viewed Thursday, 1/12/16 at Midtown Cinema, Harrisburg
IMBd: 7/8/10

RT Critic: 87   Audience:  93
Critic's Consensus:  Lion's undeniably uplifting story and talented cast make it a moving journey that transcends the typical cliches of its genre.

Cag:  5 Loved it

Directed by Garth Davis

Adapted from the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly (the protagonist of the movie)

Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman

My comments: This was a wonderful, moving movie.  The first half, about the life of 5-year old Saroo, his mum, brother, and sister, eventually shows how he came to get lost over a thousand miles away from home, in Calcutta, India.  The second half shows Saroo as a 25 year-old adult, his life after adoption in Australia, and the journey he takes to find his family.  Afraid that the parents who adopted him would be hurt, he does not share his intense feelings with them as they get stronger and stronger.  Inner turmoil messes up his relationship with a lovely girl until he decides to face everything and discover where he came from.  Both actors who portrayed Saroo were magnificent, the young Sunny Pawar is TERRIFIC, as is the super Dev Patel.  The settings of India and Tasmania were also gorgeous and brilliant. A tear jerker for sure.
     NOTE:  I recently watched an interview of Dev Patel explaining how he prepared for this role.  What an eloquent, intelligent, gentle young man!

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Five-year-old Saroo gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of Kilometers across India, away from home and family. Saroo must learn to survive alone in Kolkata, before ultimately being adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, armed with only a handful of memories, his unwavering determination, and a revolutionary technology known as Google Earth, he sets out to find his lost family and finally return to his first home.

63. Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood

read on my Kindle
2010 Australia, 2015 USA
304 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 11/9/16 (read in one day)
Goodreads rating: 3.77 - 2898 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting: Contemporary suburban Sydney, Australia

First line/s:  "There's this girl I know.
I know her by heart.  I know her in every way but one: actuality.\
Her name is Estelle.  I yearn for her."

My comments:  Loved this book!  A believable 15-year old male protagonist with wit, humor, hormones, flaws, and gumption....I was entranced! Tickled with every character, an extremely believable plot, and a setting in Australia, I didn't want this to end.  I laughed aloud...actually guffawed...in four different places.  I've known so many young men like this, and I'm really glad to see a ya novel written from the male perspective!

Goodreads synopsis:
In this charming story of one guy's efforts to get it together when his life is falling apart, award-winning author Fiona Wood introduces an irresistible voice and a delightfully awkward character who is impossible to forget.
1. Kiss Estelle.
2. Get a job.
3. Cheer my mother up.
4. Try not to be a complete nerd/loser.
5. Talk to my father when he calls.
6. Figure out how to be good.
          Nerd-boy Dan Cereill is not quite coping with a reversal of family fortune, moving, new-school hell, a mother with a failing wedding cake business, a just-out gay dad, and an impossible crush on Estelle, the girl next door. His life is a mess, but for now he's narrowed it down to six impossible things…
          In this charming story of one guy’s efforts to get it together when his life is falling apart, award-winning author Fiona Wood introduces an irresistible voice and a delightfully awkward character who is impossible to forget.

MOVIE - The Dressmaker

R (1:58)

Limited release 9/22/16

Viewed 10/27/16 at the Loft (tripped on the top step and my soda drenched my pizza slice.  I really do not like the upstairs theater!)

RT Critic: 54   Audience:  69
Critic's Consensus:  The Dressmaker boasts a strong central performance by Kate Winslet and a captivating array of narrative weirdness -- all of which may or may not be a comfortable fit with viewers.

Cag: Hated it and loved it: AVERAGE = 3

Directed by  Jocelyn Moorhouse

Amazon Studios & Broad Green Pictures

Based on the book by

Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, Judy Davis

My comments:  The first half of this film was wonderful...but I HATED what they did to (spoiler!) Liam Hemsworth.  I know that it drew the plot along....thank goodness it didn't happen at the end of the film....but it sure set my spirits L-O-W!!!  The ending made up for it, but I was never able to pop up above the surface again.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  The Dressmaker tells the story of the beautiful and talented Tilly Dunnage (Academy Award winner Kate Winslet). After years working as a dressmaker in exclusive Parisian fashion houses, Tilly returns home to a town in the Australian outback to reconcile with her eccentric mother Molly (Academy Award nominee Judy Davis). She also falls in love with the pure-hearted Teddy (Liam Hemsworth), and armed with her sewing machine and haute couture style, Tilly transforms the women of the town, exacting sweet revenge on those who did her wrong.

2. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

2013, Simon & Schuster

295 pgs.

Adult CRF 

Finished 1/8/2014

GoodreadsRating: 4.09

My Rating: 5 Awesome/a Favorite!

Acquired:  TPPL

Setting: Collegiate Melbourne, Australia and NYC

1^st sentence/s:  "I may have found a solution to the Wife Porblem.  As with so many scientific breakthroughs, the answer was obvious in retrospect.  But had it not been for a series of unscheduled events, it is unlikely I would have discovered it."

My comments: :This book was absolutely hilarious - I didn't want it to end.  Clever, insightful, and absolutely wonderful.  It was a way-too-fast read...one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a long time!

Goodreads Review: Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.

Movie - 33 Postcards

NR (1:37)

Limited release TODAY, May 17, 2013

Viewed: Friday, May 17, 2013 at Crossroads
(Happy Birthday, Josh!)

RT Critic: 21 Audience: 38

Cag:  3 liked it

Directed by Pauline Chan

Gravitas Ventures

Actors:  Australian & Chinese

Fandango synopsis:  When a Chinese orphan meets her longtime Australian sponsor while on a choir festival trip, she discovers that the life he'd portrayed in his postcards to her over the years is not as perfect as he'd indicated, leading the two on a shared search for belonging and acceptance.

My comments:  It was sweet...and different...and interesting.  It was totally unbelievable in places.  Australian accents and the Chinese language.  Breaking...smashing stereotypes.  Sticking closely to stereotypes.  Not knowing what to expect.  Knowing exactly what to expect.  Disjointed thoughts swirling, fluttering in my brain even a couple hours after seeing this movie.  Glad I saw it, despite its goodness and badness.  A perfect Friday-yay-it's-the-weekend kind of flick!  Good popcorn, too.