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Since I recently reviewed These Broken Stars in all its incredible starry glory, I feel like we need a follow-up review of the sequel: This Shattered World! Because these books are EXCELLENT. And the third book (Their Fractured Light) comes out in December! SO SOON. I am anticipating it greatly by flailing and also planning […]

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Being a booklover and an avid reader, I occasionally enjoy reading and learning more about the English language. I’ve read some great books on the topic over the years and thought I’d share some of them with you below. Let’s start with two Australian books for those with a general interest in the origins and future direction of our […]

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I enjoyed writing the blog post Books with the word ‘Girl’ in the title so much, I thought I’d do one for books that have ‘boy’ in the title. At first glance, I thought this one might be easier, but let’s see how I go. The first book that comes to mind for me is […]

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In the last two months, I’ve read three books with the word girl in the title. In December I read Gone Girl, in January I read The Girl on the Train and I just finished reading The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan. I started to wonder if this was a recent trend in book titles, but […]

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I recently stumbled across the works of Australian poet C. J. Dennis (1876 – 1938) and have been enjoying his poetry and writing from The C.J. Dennis Collection – from his forgotten writings edited by Garrie Hutchinson. You may have come across his most well known work, a humorous verse novel called The Songs of […]

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There are just too many Australian classics I haven’t read and I’m sure I’m not alone on this one. I always have the intention of getting to them, but there are so many other great books and new releases clambering for attention on my TBR (to-be-read) pile, that it’s difficult to achieve. Does anyone else in the […]

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The competition to WIN a copy of Betrothed and Allegiance by Wanda Wiltshire as well as a handmade bookmark made by the author recently closed.  Fans and would be fans of the Betrothed series had some moving entries and pledges to very worthy causes. Wanda and I discussed each of the entries before declaring Ashlee […]

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There are several books by Australian authors being published in the last six months of the year that I’m really looking forward to, so I thought I’d share them with you.

The first is already out, and it’s Kate Forsyth‘s Dancing With Knives.  Set on a farm outside Narooma in NSW, Dancing With Knives is a rural murder mystery and a story about love and family secrets.

Rebecca James (author of Beautiful Malice and Sweet Damage) is gearing up for the launch of Cooper Bartholomew is Dead in early October.  Cooper Bartholomew is Dead is a psychological thriller centred around the death of Cooper Bartholomew, and his group of friends, one of which is keeping a dangerous secret.

Kate Morton (author of The Forgotten Garden and The Secret Keeper) is releasing her fifth novel in October this year and I’m so excited about it.  Untitled and simply called Book 5 for now, we don’t know what’s it’s about yet, but given she’s one of my favourite Australian authors, I’m sure it’s going to be a delicious page-turner.

Matthew Reilly is releasing a block-buster action monster-movie of a novel (his words) called The Great Zoo of China on 10 November.  China has discovered a new species of animal and is preparing to unveil their amazing find in the form of the largest zoo in human history.  The Chinese re-assure a media contingent invited to tour the zoo that it’s perfectly safe; however if Matthew Reilly is involved, you know that nothing’s ever safe.  You can click here to watch a short video of Matthew Reilly telling us about The Great Zoo of China, or pre-order it now and receive 30% off.

Candice Fox (author of Hades) featured here on the blog in January this year, and her latest book in the Bennett/Archer series Eden, is due out later this year.  Click here to read the Player Profile with Candice conducted by Jon Page.

Australian music personality Molly Meldrum has written a memoir called The Never Ever Ending Story, and is said to contain plenty of stories about some of the many rock and pop stars he interviewed throughout his career.  The Never Ever Ending Story is due to be released in November.

Another iconic member of the Australian music industry has to be John Williamson.  In the aptly named Hey, True Blue, John Williamson takes readers through his life story and his success as a singer.

So, that’s it from me, but what new Australian books are you looking forward to?

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• Paperback: 118 pages
• Publisher: Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc (January 6, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1616334509
• ISBN-13: 978-1616334505
• 
  

Learn more about Margot Finke's writing career and critique services at http://www.margotfinke.com. 

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Best wishes,
Donna M. McDine
Award-winning Children's Author

Connect with Donna McDine on Google+


A Sandy Grave ~ January 2014 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc.

Powder Monkey ~ May 2013 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc.

Hockey Agony ~ January 2013 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc.

The Golden Pathway ~ August 2010 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc.
~ Literary Classics Silver Award and Seal of Approval, Readers Favorite 2012 International Book Awards Honorable Mention and Dan Poynter's Global e-Book Awards Finalist

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Marine captain Shane Schofield, call-sign Scarecrow, is called back into action when a terrorist organisation known as the Army of Thieves takes over Dragon Island, a long forgotten Cold War weapons base in the Arctic, with the intent of using one of the weapons there to wipe out the entire Northern Hemisphere.

The literary equivalent of Hollywood blockbuster action movies, Matthew Reilly’s adventure thrillers may be hated by the Australian literary establishment for being far too commercial, but they are certainly loved by just about everyone else. One of Australia’s best-selling writers, Reilly does not write books with deep themes or messages or anything likely to ever be set for study in Year 12 English. What he does write, however, are huge scale, hyper-kinetic, over-the-top adventure stories that may not get you to think too hard, but will keep you turning the pages from beginning to end.

Although he has written some stand-alone novels (including my personal favourite, Contest, featuring an intergalactic death match in the New York State Library), the majority of his books are either about Jack West Jr., Reilly’s answer to Indiana Jones, or super-marine Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield, who has a habit of being in the wrong place at the right time. Recently, Reilly has been focussing primarily on the Jack West adventures, but after a gap of eight years, Reilly has finally decided to make a welcome return to the Scarecrow universe with Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (aka Scarecrow Returns).

After all the horrible stuff Scarecrow has been through in the previous three novels and one novella (Hell Island, written as part of an Australian government-sponsored initiative), the USMC are convinced that Scarecrow is well and truly broken and have sent him to the Arctic with a group of scientists to test new equipment in extreme climates, in order to keep him busy and out of the way. However, as luck would have it, this places Scarecrow and his team in the closest proximity to the Dragon Island weapons base when the Army of Thieves decide to strike. The weapon the Army of Thieves are threatening to use is an atmospheric gas weapon, literally designed to set the sky on fire, and Scarecrow’s team of four marines, three civilians and a very cute robot called Bertie (think Wall-E with guns) have just 4 ½ hours to get in and stop them.

Not as grand in scale as Reilly’s previous effort (the two-part story made up of The Six Sacred Stones and The Five Greatest Warriors, which saw Jack West Jr. racing around the world to avert the apocalypse), Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves is still up to the same high standard as the previous Scarecrow books and has the added bonus of a great new character, the scenery-chewing, larger than life French soldier Baba, who is effectively the male equivalent of Scarecrow’s loyal second in command, Mother. The Arctic setting does feel reminiscent of the Antarctic setting of Reilly’s earlier Ice Station (I guess there’s a limit to the number of places Reilly’s novels can be set) and there is one very unpleasant, 1984-inspired torture scene that I could have done without, but on the whole, this is still a better book than the majority of novels I read each year  - and the majority of movies I watch, too, for that matter.

Purportedly aimed at adults (I’m still not convinced), Matthew Reilly’s novels read like the sorts of movies that have teenagers cheering in the cinemas and are among those rare few books that genuinely appeal to readers of all ages. If you’re new to Reilly’s works, Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves is not a bad place to start (although you may prefer to start with Ice Station, the novel in which Scarecrow first appeared) and if you’re a returning reader, you definitely won’t be disappointed.

Verdict: Another hit from best-selling author Matthew Reilly, a writer who makes me proud to be an Australian.

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In order to pay for a photography course she desperately wants to attend, Sage takes a part-time job at a supposedly haunted theatre working for The Great Armand, a once great stage magician who has now been reduced to performing school holiday magic shows for kids. Sage soon finds herself enjoying her new job and becoming good friends with magician’s assistant Bianca and stagehand Herb. However, when Sage accidentally breaks a wand on stage, bringing down a curse on the group, and shortly afterwards Armand goes missing, Sage must uncover the secrets of the old theatre before she too is made to disappear – permanently.

Australian author Lili Wilkinson has really nailed the YA geek girl novel. Starting back in 2008 with The (Not Quite) Perfect Boyfriend (about spelling-bee champion Midge who invents an imaginary boyfriend in order to impress her best friend while at the same time falling in love with a nerdy fantasy geek), Wilkinson has subsequently perfected the genre with Pink (former goth Ava decides to reinvent herself by transferring to the Billy Hughes School of Academic Excellence); A Pocketful of Eyes (while working a summer job at the taxidermy department of a museum, mystery fan Bee investigates the death of her supervisor); Love Shy (aspiring journalist Penny gets more than she bargained for when she sets out to discover the identity of a love-shy classmate) and now The Zigzag Effect.

Wilkinson’s books follow a simple formula: they’re light-hearted; the heroine is always smart, with an unusual hobby or interest; there is an equally geeky boy who falls instantly in love with our heroine in between spouting quirky facts; and much kissing is used to fill in the dead places in the plot. Normally, I would avoid books this girlie like the plague, except for the fact that YA books with smart, geeky female protagonists are hard to come by, and they’re actually pretty good.

As with A Pocketful of Eyes, in The Zigzag Effect Wilkinson adds to her formula by also giving her heroine a mystery to solve. The mystery in The Zigzag Effect is, admittedly, not as front and centre as in A Pocketful of Eyes – a missing magician is easier to overlook than a dead supervisor - but this simply gives Wilkinson the opportunity to explore the other equally fascinating aspects of her story, including the ghost of the theatre in which Sage works and the world of professional magic. As someone who spent her childhood dreaming of growing up to be a magician, I actually found the descriptions of magic tricks and life in the magic community to be the best part of this book (Wilkinson has certainly done her research in this respect) and I particularly appreciated Wilkinson’s decision to draw attention to the importance of magician’s assistants (who are cut up and tied up on a nightly basis) and how poorly they can be treated – something which is rarely mentioned in other books about magicians and which I had never given any thought to.

I’m not sure how much longer Wilkinson will be able to continue with her geek girl novels – after all, there are only so many unusual hobbies and jobs that teenage girls can have. However, as long as she keeps writing them, I will keep reading them, and if and when she moves onto something else, I will probably read that, too. The Zigzag Effect and A Pocketful of Eyes are like Nancy Drew novels for girls of the 21st Century, and although I’ve never subscribed to the notion that YA authors have an obligation to write characters who serve as role-models for their readers, in The Zigzag Effect, as with all of her other books, Wilkinson does an excellent job of achieving this.

Verdict: Although far girlier than my taste would normally dictate, this is, nevertheless, still the sort of  book I wish had been around when I was a teenager.

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Friday night as I wandered through the autograph party at SCBWI-LA, an Australian woman offered to tell my fortune with runestones. The accent gave her away. And I’m a sucker for an accent. Especially when it involves my fortune.

Turns out she knew a thing or two about runestones, because the woman was Anna Ciddor, and Anna doesn’t write a word without plenty of research.

So tell me, what are runestones and how were they used?
Runes were the letters of the Viking alphabet. Vikings didn't have paper and pencils so runes had to be carved into stone, or bone, or wood. In Viking times, people believed that runes had magic powers. There was a love rune, a rune to make you strong, a rune to protect you, and so on. If a rune was carved the wrong way, it could make something bad happen. Runestones could also be used for fortune-telling. On my Viking Magic website, www.viking-magic.com, you can find out more about runestones, and even have your fortune told with runes.

The first book of your Viking Magic series is called Runestone. Do the stones play an important role in following stories?
Vikings believed in witches and little folk and all sorts of magic powers, and I make use of lots of these beliefs in the different books. As the name implies, runestones play an important part in book 1 of the Viking Magic trilogy but other forms of Viking magic and adventure are more important in the other stories. For example, Vikings believed that some people had the power to conjure live animals out of bits of twigs and leaves, and this is a main part of Wolfspell.

I know you visited Ireland when you were working on Night of the Fifth Moon. Did you take a trip to Norway for the Viking Magic Series?
No, I found enough information from books and on the internet to enable me to write the Viking Magic series, but after they were finished I did have the chance to visit Norway and it was very exciting to see real Viking ships and the Norwegian forests and fjords that I had written about in the stories.

Besides traveling, what is your favorite type of research?
I am constantly astounded by and grateful for the information that is available on the internet. Although you do have to be careful what sites you use, I love to look on official museum and library sites where I can access original ancient documents or see objects from museum collections. I am an absolute research fanatic. It is like being a detective, hunting and hunting for tiny scraps of clues.

How many years did you teach math? At what point did you give up your day job to write and illustrate exclusively?
As a child I loved writing and drawing as well as playing schools with my two younger sisters, but I never thought of doing something creative as a career. I always planned to be a teacher. I taught math for just over two years, and then stopped when my first child, Daniel, was born. Elissa followed just 14 months later and while I was staying at home looking after two small children and reading them picture story books, I was inspired to have a go at using my creative talents and getting a book published. I gave myself 6 months to give this experiment a chance, and luckily just as the 6 months was about to be up I landed my first publishing contract. I have been a full-time writer and illustrator ever since.


Okay, can I just say that I’m jealous?! Six months is incredibly fast! And you’ve published an astounding number of books since you started writing in 1989. How is that even possible?
With my first publishing contract, the publisher asked me to have the book written and illustrated in 3 months. I had no idea at the time what an unusually tight schedule this was, so I worked like an absolute maniac, while being a full-time mum as well. My children posed for all the artwork. Somehow, I managed it, and I think that taught me to work fast! My first 50 books were non-fiction books, many of them quite short, so this helped. Since I changed to writing novels a few years ago, I have become one of the world's slowest writers. For example, Runestone took 2 years to write.

I know when we talked in L.A. you said you were trying to find an American publisher. I didn’t realize what a challenge that would be. Have you made any progress? Do you have an agent?
Yes, there is some interest in my latest novel. I am very excited but I can't say more at this stage, though of course I am hoping this will lead to an American publication.

Well good luck! Although it sounds like you’ve already got plenty of that on your side :D
What are you working on now?
I have just finished a YA novel set in France during the First World War and that is the one I am offering to publishers at the moment. However, although it is 'finished', I am sure it will need lots of editing work so I don't want to start on anything new till it actually goes off to print. When I am writing a novel, I prefer to stay immersed and emotionally involved in that one project. In the meantime, I am doing all those cleaning and tidying chores around the house that I put off for two years while I wrote the novel...

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Since 1989 Anna Ciddor has written and illustrated more than 55 books. Her books are beloved among Australian children and have been shortlisted for numerous national awards including Children’s Choice Book Awards and WA Young Readers’ Book Awards. Runestone and Night of the Fifth Moon were both chosen as Notable Books by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. A few of her titles are available in the U.S. through Amazon.

If you’d like to be entered to win an autographed copy of Runestone, book one in the Viking Magic series, tell me in the comments. As always, followers get an extra entry. A name will be selected Monday, November 9, using the Random Name Generator. Entries must be received by midnight (PST) on November 8 to qualify.

You can learn more about Anna by visiting her website: http://www.annaciddor.com

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