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The Lovers' Guide to Rome

28/10/2016

 
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Mark Lamprell: Allen & Unwin $29.99
 
SEPTUGENARIAN British sisters-in-law Lizzie and Constance are in Rome on a mission: to scatter Henry’s ashes into the River Tiber.
American Alec and Australian Meg are equally focused – in their case, on finding the elusive source of a specific blue tile for their unhappy marital home in the US.
Alice is taking respite from her fine-art studies in New York to draw breath before becoming engaged to Daniel.
Architecture student and would-be artist August is also making the most of the school year’s long summer break, travelling with a group of fellow Brits to examine Italy’s magnificent buildings up close.
Stephanie, on the other hand, is more or less local, having put down roots in Rome, where she works as an emergency-room doctor after practising medicine for long stints in high-pressure war zones.
Narrated by the self-proclaimed “Genius of Love”, this novel brings together an eclectic cast of characters whose trajectories invariably intersect in one way or another once fate has delivered them to Rome.
Their adventures unseat scabs from emotional wounds and create both solid new alliances and fresh divisions as relationships are tested.
While the storyline is fictitious, the setting is almost entirely real. Lamprell uses creative licence only in his renaming of a few hotels – everything else is described exactly as it exists: the frustratingly traffic-clogged streets and cobbled alleyways, the graffiti-daubed walls, the rain-scoured marble monuments, whether world-famous or little-known.
Spanning roughly 30 locations in and around the centre of Rome, this book doubles as an insider’s peek into a side of the Eternal City that few tourists are likely to stumble onto when left to explore unaided.
What will eventuate for Lizzie, Constance, Alec, Meg, Alice, August and Stephanie during their encounters in enigmatic, enchanting, ever-lasting Rome? Only the Genius of Love can foresee their futures with certainty.

Precious and Grace

21/10/2016

 
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​Alexander McCall Smith: Little, Brown $32.99
 
ASK anybody outside southern Africa to name a famous Botswanan and almost invariably they will respond with “that Precious woman – you know, the one in the book”. Much of the world knows little about day-to-day happenings in Botswana yet millions of readers are relatively familiar with the culture through a line-up of endearing characters created by British author Alexander McCall Smith.
In the latest instalment in his The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, McCall Smith has business partners Mma Precious Ramotswe and Mma Grace Makutsi turn their focus back 30 years to an era in which their city, Gaborone, was just a dusty country town. Their detective agency is engaged to help locate the childhood home and classroom friend of a visiting Canadian, born in Gaborone and cared for in her early years by a nurse known only as “Rosie”.
As Precious – a proud, independent Tswana “of traditional build” – and her less full-figured but more conservative business partner set about tracing their client’s roots, their investigative path diverges, testing their professional bond.
At the same time Precious is confounded by an occasional employee’s advocacy of a seemingly too-good-to-be-true cattle-fattening scheme that threatens both the friendships and the finances of their social group.
Throw the unplanned adoption of a stray dog and an ongoing feud with a fellow female entrepreneur into the mix and this is a heart-warming literary adventure that weaves together unexpected storylines played out against an exotic setting by a genuinely charismatic cast.
McCall Smith’s writing is generous and intimate, laying bare the types of issues that exist in contemporary Botswanan society.
As is the case with all good series, it is not necessary for readers to have met these people or places through any of the previous 16 novels; Previous and Grace stands comfortably on its own two feet.

The Lonely Hearts Travel Club Destination Chile

14/10/2016

 
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Katy Collins: Carina $23.99
 
MANCHESTER native Georgia is intelligent, successful and happily in love. Her relationships are solid; her career is booming.
This has not always been the case. Only 12 months ago Georgia was suffering from a bout of severely wounded pride, cut adrift by a two-timing fiancé and left emotionally shattered.
In an effort to escape her misery she embarked on an overseas trip – a journey that led to Thailand and a chance meeting there with Londoner Ben. Now the pair have just moved into their first shared home and Georgia looks forward to bonding with his father.
In the midst of this bliss, they have been invited to take part in a TV documentary examining the experiences of couples who work together in the travel industry. The shoot will take place during an all-expenses-paid week in Chile, visiting Santiago, the Atacama Desert and Torres del Paine National Park. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; their Lonely Hearts Travel Club – an agency specifically for single holiday-makers – will revel in the positive exposure this project will generate.
But perhaps above all else in Georgia’s buzzing-yet-contented mind sits the prospect of marriage. While unpacking Ben’s boxes during their move she discovered a magnificent diamond-and-platinum ring. This man understands Georgia so completely that it could not be more perfect if she had chosen it herself. Will he propose on camera in Chile – a spontaneous ‘happily ever after’ feel-good highpoint of the show?
Or does a less rosy future lurk beyond the horizon – one in which Ben is spending secret evenings with a former girlfriend, distancing himself from his family and pushing Georgia to take their joint business in a direction that terrifies her?
A blend of laughter and longing, Destination: Chile – the third in a series – delivers a comforting few hours’ bedtime or poolside escapism among enchantingly roguish characters.

The 15:17 to Paris

7/10/2016

 
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Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Jeffrey E Stern: Text $29.99
 
“WHEN I have a class reunion kind of thing, we just have a beer; we don’t, like, tackle terrorists or anything.” The voice is unmistakable: Barack Obama.
It’s late August 2015 and, huddled over an iPhone in northern France, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler are being congratulated by the US President.
Only hours earlier Skarlatos and Sadler were two typical young, slightly hungover American tourists making their way haphazardly through Europe with buddy Spencer Stone.
Now all three are international heroes – the result of having been in the wrong place at the right time on a train between countries. Confronted with the unthinkable, the Sacramento 20-somethings have discovered a depth of courage none of the trio had known for certain that they had.
Doing the rounds of the continent, Skarlatos is spending pay accumulated during his National Guard deployment to Afghanistan; Stone is on leave from an airforce position in the Azores where, on his third attempt to find a military role that suits, he is stationed as an emergency medical technician. Sadler, the most academic of the three, is a college student who at his friends’ urging has used a credit card to finance his share of the adventure.
Between Amsterdam and Paris the men have just interrupted an attack that could have seen hundreds of people shot, stabbed or incinerated by a Moroccan national with a festering gudge against the West. Together they have overpowered a terrorist armed with a handgun, a boxcutter blade, a semi-automatic assault rifle, nine magazines of ammunition and a bottle of fuel.
Naturally, the world wants to hear their story.
Through this book Skarlatos, Stone and Sadler tell how they first met as boys thrown together by circumstance – three socially awkward misfits bonded by a common love of weapons – who never dreamt of becoming celebrities.

    ' Books are treasure for the spirit and ​the soul. '​
    — VB 2020

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    Book reviews

    WABONGA Press produces an original book review every Friday. Books are chosen from among the latest English-language fiction and non-fiction releases in Australia and internationally.
    Each 300-word review is accompanied by a high-resolution cover image.
    All are available for licensing to print media in selected regions.​For less than the cost of one takeaway cup of coffee each week, a publication can make use of this service to access a new review every seven days, backed by a written guarantee that the same content will not be licensed for use by any direct competitor.
    Please contact Wabonga's publisher, Rosalea Ryan, to discuss how this service can be tailored to your newspaper or magazine.​

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