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​The Tenth Girl

3/4/2020

 
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Sara Faring: St Martin’s Press $20.72 Kindle e-book
 
TALES of ghostly hauntings are not unheard of in remote boarding schools – but when the facility in question has been abandoned for decades, the first wave of new teachers deployed to its musty classrooms is justifiably skittish.
Perched at the southernmost tip of South America, surrounded by inhospitable mountains and fields of jagged ice and accessible only by water, the ramshackle cluster of buildings is rundown and eerie.
Among those recruited to teach an elite class of 10 handpicked teenage girls is Mavi, the orphaned and destitute daughter of an anti-establishment couple ‘disappeared’ by Argentina’s ruling dictatorship. Mavi’s only ally against disengaged students and disaffected colleagues is Yesi, an aspiring author who spends every non-teaching moment adding to her manuscript.
It’s not long, however, before Mavi also attracts the attention of Domenic, the overly privileged wastrel son of the current principal.
The Vaccaro School was once one of Argentina’s most elite institutions – until its sudden closure ignited speculation that a curse had been cast upon it by the local indigenous Zapuche tribe, condemning it to fail as a business and leading to the outbreak of a fatal virus among its few remaining inhabitants.
Now, against the backdrop of the country’s crippling political turmoil, Carmela De Vaccaro has taken charge, denying outright the existence of all such paranormal phenomena and determined to reclaim her family legacy’s former prestige.
But with inexplicable happenings becoming increasingly evident around her, Mavi quickly starts to suspect there is more than a pinch of truth behind claims that the premises are populated by mysterious beings known as los Otros (the Others).
Told through the eyes of alternate narrators, The Tenth Girl is an up-close chronicle of a chain of psychologically disturbing scenarios unfolding within the confines of an isolated community cut off from the wider world.

The Shape of Water

16/3/2018

 
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Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus: Feiwel & Friends $19.99
 
IT'S relatively routine for a novel to be licensed as inspiration for the Hollywood big screen, but it’s far less common for the content of an internationally successful film to be delivered concurrently in literary form.
In their most recent collaboration, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and his Trollhunters co-author Daniel Krause have teamed up to present del Toro’s Academy Awards ‘Best Picture’, The Shape of Water, as a book.
On the morning of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2018 presentation ceremony, del Toro and Krause’s new print project was released.
As an alternative to the movie, the pair’s exquisitely balanced prose allows readers the luxury of overlaying their own visuals onto the haunting emotive storyline.
By 1962 standards, central character Elisa Esposito’s life has always been exceedingly mundane. Mute since birth and now orphaned, Elisa works the nightshift as a janitor at a US Government aerospace research centre in Baltimore.
One night, however, she glimpses something her low-level security clearance should never permit her to see – and so begins a connection that grows ever stronger as she is drawn back time and again.
The object of Elisa’s fascination is an amphibious human, captured in the Amazon Basin and transported in absolute secrecy to the centre, where studying the “creature” becomes priority number one for US scientists striving to gain a Cold War advantage.
To Elisa, though, this man is much more than a mere laboratory specimen, and through their own version of sign language the two begin to communicate.
Is there even the slightest chance that this unlikeliest couple can build a future together? Elisa’s one chance at preserving the relationship pits her against the full force of both US and Soviet operatives.
As a bonus, this book includes a scattering of illustrations by artist James Jean.​

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.

In Brazil

20/5/2016

 
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Fran Bryson: Scribe $32.99
 
WITH anticipation of this year’s Olympics now on everyone’s lips it’s hardly surprising that the games’ host, Brazil, is attracting more than its usual share of international attention.
Through a series of chapters profiling specific locations and events, Fran Bryson offers a colourful glimpse into the world’s fourth-largest nation, second only to Nigeria for its population of people of African heritage. (Approximately 100 million modern-day Brazilians are descended at least in part from slaves.)
Bryson draws comparisons between the histories, cultures and geographies of Australia and Brazil, arranging her observations – formed during repeat visits over many years – by region.
In lively, entertaining and at-times highly humorous detail she describes Easter passion plays performed by telenovela (soap opera) stars in Nova Jerusalém; the rise and then decline of the rubber industry around Xapuri in the upper Amazon Basin; the pedestrian-unfriendly but eyecatching architecture of the capital, Brasília; and the terror generated by taking public transport (“It can be curiously liberating travelling at such speeds that if something goes wrong, you know you won’t survive”). She relates tales of bushrangers’ exploits in the badlands of Piranhas, where the severed heads of 11 outlaws were arranged and photographed on the cloth-covered front steps of the local town hall, and remembers the eight young men and boys shot and killed by rogue police in the Candelária massacre of homeless people in Rio de Janeiro in 1993.
She also examines the at-times-uneasy marriage of Catholicism and African spiritualism that has produced in Brazil a unique religious landscape.
Along the way Bryson notes that Tasmania’s last Aborigines have not in fact died out but are alive and well in the small island communities of Bass Strait – an unexpected inclusion in a book about Brazil but one that in this instance feels natural.

    ' 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.​

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