Wabonga Press
  • WELCOME
  • OUR SERVICES
  • OUR PROJECTS
  • OUR CONTENT
  • CONTACT US

The Red Coast

23/2/2018

 
Picture
Di Morrissey: Macmillan Australia $34.99
 
IN THE midst of preparations for Broome’s inaugural literary festival, the sudden appearance in town of a neighbour from her high school years in Sydney catches bookshop owner Jacqui Bouchard by surprise. What could Cameron North – a big-city east-coast lawyer – possibly be doing in the Kimberley?
At the same time, Jacqui is counting down to the scheduled arrival of her teenage son Jean-Luc from France, where he lives year-round with her former husband. Jean-Luc’s summers in Broome are an annual highlight for Jacqui, whose own parents are on the opposite side of the continent.
When her path crosses briefly with a visiting cameraman from Perth, Damien Sanderson, Jacqui’s personal life takes an interesting turn. Damien is the first man to have caught Jacqui’s attention since the dissolution of her marriage. Yet, being based in Perth he is not exactly the ideal partner for a businesswoman tethered firmly to the north-west corner of the country’s biggest state.
Distracting lonely Jacqui from her budding relationship with her fly-in fly-out date, Broome learns that a billionaire miner has plans for the region that quickly divide the isolated community into distinct ‘for’ and ‘against’ camps. While Indigenous leaders debate the financial and cultural merit of the proposal to mine a vast inland area and set up a bulk mineral port that has the potential to overshadow the famous Cable Beach, members of Broome’s multicultural population see either opportunity or loss, depending on their individual circumstances.
With disharmony and bitter divisions building, the looming festival is the one point of unity holding the fractured town together.
In The Red Coast Di Morrissey revisits a part of Australia first explored in two earlier novels, Tears of the Moon and Kimberley Sun, reawakening the story of Lily Barton and her highly successful pearl farm and rekindling interest in the extended Barton family.

The Cull

16/2/2018

 
Picture
Tony Park: Macmillan Australia $29.99
 
RHINOCEROS are dying, being shot under cover of night and having their horns lopped off to feed an illegal trade thousands of kilometres away.
Sonja Kurtz is frustrated. Not only has her work to establish an all-woman anti-poaching patrol ended disastrously in an ambush with the loss of two squadmembers’ lives but now it appears her boyfriend, ex-CIA agent Hudson Brand, has taken advantage of her absence from their home to indulge in a blatant affair.
Scouting for fresh work, Sonja is approached by high-profile British entrepreneur and animal lover Julianne Clyde-Smith, whose business interests are flourishing among the easternmost game reserves of southern Africa.
With seemingly limitless finances at her disposal, Julianne is determined to both rid the region of its illegal wildlife slaughter and expand her resort empire by acquiring any properties that fail to fortify their own operations against lawlessness.
Her plan has Sonja at its heart: a carefully chosen militia of experienced international mercenaries and local operatives will search out and neutralise the cross-border hunters before they have a chance to strike.
The exact composition of the line-up is at Sonja’s discretion: in addition to young former maid Tema Matsebula, a member of her now-disbanded Leopards squad, and tracker Ezekial Lekganyane, Sonja recruits Angolan career soldier Mario Machado, a proven killer with a murky past and an ever-ready trigger finger. The group is directed by Julianne’s head of security, fellow Brit James Paterson.
When events take an unanticipated turn Sonja finds herself on the run, fleeing from one out-of-the-way park to another in a bid to stay one step ahead of both the so-called “authorities” in countries where corruption among officials is well entrenched – South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania – and hired assassins.
The Cull reunites two key characters who first met in An Empty Coast, set in Sonja’s native Namibia.

Clear to the Horizon

9/2/2018

 
Picture
Dave Warner: Fremantle Press $29.99
 
FOR more than a year the attention of Perth law enforcers and residents alike has been focused on a single strip of bitumen running north–south through the heart of suburban Claremont: Bay View Terrace. From the vicinity of a nightclub there, Autostrada, three women have gone missing on separate occasions – vanished without a trace after reportedly beginning the late-night journey home alone.
As an ex-homicide detective turned private investigator from the north side of the city, former footballer Richard ‘Snowy’ Lane is called on by a mutual acquaintance to assist one of the families in its distress. The official search for their daughter and sister, Caitlin, appears to have stalled; might Lane perhaps discover something useful – no matter how seemingly minor – that the police have missed?
Inserting himself ever deeper into the case, Lane becomes a man obsessed with giving the O’Gradys the closure they crave. The chances of Caitlin being found alive are dimming yet still they cling onto the hope that eventually whatever remains of her might be returned to them.
Fast-forward 20 years and another Perth family is similarly anguished: a young mining heiress has not been heard from since she and her boyfriend refuelled their four-wheel-drive in Port Hedland before supposedly heading further north towards Broome.
When Lane is engaged by the Feisters to look into Ingrid’s whereabouts, a tenuous, almost-inexplicable link with the Claremont case begins to take shape.
Could it possibly be that the real killer of the Autostrada trio is resuming his murderous rampage after two decades of apparent hibernation? Lane has always suspected that the police were too hasty in their wrapping up of the disappearances.
Now back on the trail in the majestic Kimberley, Lane seizes the opportunity to search for the final piece of the Autostrada puzzle and in so doing soothe the O’Gradys’ pain.

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

    ​​

    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.​

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Adventure
    Africa
    Antarctica
    Arctic
    Asia
    Atlantic
    Australia
    Author – Australian
    Biography
    British Isles
    Caribbean
    Christmas
    Crime
    Easter
    Entertainment
    Europe
    Fiction
    Finance
    Food
    History
    Humour
    Journalism
    Maritime
    Middle East
    Nature
    New Year
    Non-fiction
    North America
    Pacific
    Pandemic
    Relationships
    Romance
    Scandinavia
    South America
    Sport
    Sub-continent
    Suspense
    Travel
    War

    Archive

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

Picture