#BibliomaniacsBookClub #July #TheDry #JaneHarper

JULY'S BIBLIOMANIA IS FOR 

THE DRY by JANE HARPER 

The Dry was published by Little, Brown in January 2017

What is it about?

After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see whether there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them, and Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets. 

To read my full review please click here: Bibliomaniac's Review of The Dry

Questions about The Dry:

How did you find the writing style of the author? Did it match the setting and plot of the story?

How successful is Harper in creating a male protagonist and writing from a male point of view?

What were your thoughts about the italicised sections which told flashbacks from the past? How did they affect your reading / enjoyment / guessing?

The sections in italics are told from an omniscient third person view – sometimes from character who are now dead. Why do you think Harper chose to do this?

Which character did you relate to the most and why?

Which character did you feel most sympathetic towards and why?

How well does Harper portray the small community of Kiewarra? What might the novel be saying about small communities? Are the observations about Kiewarra specific to it or more universal?

What different examples of mental illness and madness are explored in the novel? Did any specific moments have a particular resonance for you? Did you find any moments particularly powerful?

Do you think people's mental health can be affected by the weather?

What do you think Falk will do next?

Could you ever go back to a place you had left behind? What effect would any "ghosts" have on you? How different might Falk's experience be if he had gone to a place where he had no past connection with? 

Where could you hold your book group for The Dry?

A desert
A sand pit
A local pub 

What could you serve?

Water 
Ice to go with any drink of your choice
ice cream

What props could you use to start a conversation about The Dry?

Thermometer, weather temperature gauge, gadget or app 

A bottle of water 

An old photo album of childhood friends 

Map of Australia 

Bank statement 

Newspaper articles about drought / farming /  measures issued in times of drought

If you liked this book and want to read similar novels try:

If you want to find out more:

The author Jane Harper has a fantastic website that is full of fascinating links and lots of info!
http://janeharper.com.au

Watch Jane Harper talk about her novel and the fact that the film rights have been sold to Reece Wetherspoon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CLQwOs3qos

Read a great article in The Guardian about her book and Australian fiction
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/19/horror-in-the-outback-jane-harper-charlotte-wood-and-the-landscape-of-fear

The Dry has been chosen by Waterstones books for the last 2 months!
https://www.waterstones.com/campaign/books-of-the-month

The Dry was chosen by Simon Mayo's Radio 2 Book Club - read more here and then listen to the recording of the broadcast!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/53jCwgKzsdY9Bd3l0Klb146/the-dry-by-jane-harper

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kts8n

For more recommendations, reviews and bookish chat, you can follow me on Twitter @KatherineSunde3 or via my website bibliomaniacuk.co.uk

#GuestPost #JuliaRoberts #AliceinTheatreland #BlogTour

 SYNOPSIS: 

It’s summer 1976; London is languishing in the sultry heat. Beautiful and talented nineteen-year-old, Alice Abbott, arrives in the city with high hopes of one day seeing her name up in lights but first she must impress Richard, the producer of a new West End show, Theatreland.

Alice is befriended at the audition by the more experienced Gina, who, although burdened by her own dark secrets, is determined to protect the newcomer from the sleaze behind the glamour. She also attracts attention from the male lead in the show, Peter, a former pop star struggling to escape his playboy reputation.

Alice’s star seems to be rising as fast as the temperature until she naively accepts an impromptu dinner invitation from Richard. What happened that night? And how far will Richard go to protect his guilty secret?

Alice in Theatreland is published on 27th June 2017. 

Today I am thrilled to welcome Julia Roberts to my blog with a guest post! Thanks ever so much for popping along Julia and for letting me part of your blog tour for your latest book! 

Thanks very much Katherine for inviting me on to your blog!

Alice in Theatreland is my fourth full-length novel and the first one that has a suspense/thriller edge to it. I really enjoyed developing new characters after my Liberty Sands trilogy. The book centres around the title character, nineteen-year-old provincial  dancer, Alice, and her introduction to the sometimes cut-throat world of West End theatre shows, but there are three other key players who I thought I would introduce you to.

Richard is the theatre impresario for whom Alice is auditioning. He is a really unpleasant human-being as we discover immediately when we first meet him in chapter two – however, that is merely the tip of the iceberg. The plot really centres around his behaviour towards Alice and how far he will ultimately go to protect his sordid secret. His only saving grace is his adoration of his spoilt daughter, Miriam.

Peter is the star of the Theatreland show. He is a former pop-star who Alice had a crush on when she was a younger teenager and she is besotted with him when he starts to show an interest in her. However, Peter is struggling to escape his playboy reputation and after being photographed leaving a London nightspot with another girl, Alice feels she can no longer trust him.

The fourth key player is Gina. I know we shouldn’t have favourites among our children or our pets but I must confess I grew fonder and fonder of her character as the story developed. Coming from a very rough upbringing with an absent father and a drug-addict mother, Gina has made some poor life choices, including going to work as a hostess at a London night-club when her dancing jobs were few and far between. She is afraid of her boss there, Franco, who openly threatens the girls at the Ostrich Club if they don’t toe the line.

Gina befriends Alice at the audition for Theatreland, sticking up for her when the other girls are being bitchy about her and taking her in when she has nowhere to live, but her actions later in the book place Alice in serious danger. 

All the way through the book, Gina’s fate was sealed but when it came to writing it I found myself struggling with what I had planned. 

Did I manage to write my original ending?... I couldn’t possibly say without spoiling the story.

Well now we are all seriously intrigued! Thanks Julia for giving us a taste of the characters we will meet in your novel! Good luck with its publication!

Don't forget to check out the other stops on the Blog Tour! 

JULIA ROBERTS 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julia Roberts’ passion for writing began when, at the age of ten, after winning second prize in a short story-writing competition, she announced that she wanted to write a book. After a small gap of forty-seven years, and a career in the entertainment industry, Julia finally fulfilled her dream in 2013 when her first book, a memoir entitled One Hundred Lengths of the Pool, was published by Preface Publishing. Two weeks later she had the idea for her first novel, Life’s a Beach and Then…, book one in the Liberty Sands Trilogy, which was released in May 2015.

Julia still works full-time as a Presenter for the TV channel QVC, where she has recently celebrated her twenty-third anniversary. 

She now lives in Ascot with her partner of thirty-nine years and occasionally one or other of her adult children and their respective cats.

You can find out more about Julia and her upcoming books on her Facebook page

www.facebook.com/JuliaRobertsTV and her website www.juliarobertsauthor.com

You can also follow her on Twitter @JuliaRobertsTV

Other Books By Julia Roberts

Life’s a Beach and Then… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book one)

If He Really Loved Me… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book two)

It’s Never Too Late to Say… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book three)

Time for a Short Story

The Shadow of Her Smile (free short story on www.juliarobertsauthor.com)

One Hundred Lengths of the Pool 

www.juliarobertsauthor.com

Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alice-Theatreland-Julia-Roberts-ebook/dp/B071XZ3HMC

short link

https://t.co/Lr2wbfhrnw

#LastSeen #LucyClarke #Review

Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea – and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever.

Sarah’s son survived, but on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows – and she’s right to.

Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.

Hhhmm, maybe not the best book to read before I set off on holiday to the seaside with my young family  - but then hey, isn't that why secretly we love this type of story?! I have admired the cover of this book ever since it first made its appearance on social media - it's very eye-catching and full of impact.

This book also comes with some impressive endorsements from other writers such as Clare MacKintosh and Claire Douglas; I mean, they know their stuff, and so it's no surprise when I tell you - they are not wrong!

The novel alternates between the two voices of Sarah and Isla which is always a great way of creating tension and structuring a good story. The sub heading of 'day one' followed by a time for Sarah's sections also adds to the tension as we count up the hours that Jacob, her son, has been missing and the fear that something more untoward has happened mounts. It's like the reverse of a ticking bomb but works just as well. I took to Sarah straight away. Her honesty, her concerns and her sense of helplessness over her parenting skills and relationship with her now teenage son was very relatable and immediately makes the reader feel sympathetic towards her.

"On the odd occasion that Jacob does confide in me, I feel like a desert walker who has come across a freshwater lake, thirsting for closeness."

There is a lot about motherhood in this novel but this is also a novel about friendship and what happens to that friendship when life changing events come between you. In chapter one we see the tension within Sarah's family and then it ends by revealing a further tension between herself and an old friend, so the stage is set on both fronts.The next chapter shifts to Isla, Sarah's best friend, and goes back to 1991, generating  more suspense and creating a sense of something more threatening.

"It was a girl's wish, that's all. Beach huts next door, long summers spent on a sandbank. But neither of us could know that our lightly cast dream would come true - or what it would cost us both."

Isla's chapters begin and end with italics which often capture a thought, comment or observation which sounds like a whispered threat or throws in another hint or clue to the reader that we shouldn't rush to trust either of these characters. Isla's chapters sow more seeds of intrigue and reveal more twists about the past and about the relationship between the girls.

What I liked about this storyline is that although it starts with one harrowing event and there is one deep traumatic event from the women's past, it also starts with one little secret. I always enjoy a book that shows just how much things can spiral out of control or culminate from one little thing.

"We flit around the subject, never quite brushing the edges of it, like moths scared of getting too close to a flame." 

It starts with something that happens between the girls one summer when they are still young; it starts with a boy, it starts with something that they both pretend isn't something. What Clarke does then is explore how this something that seemingly isn't a issue, is actually an issue. The novel then becomes about secrets, resentment, jealousy and love.

This is a compelling read. Jacob is missing and as the hours tick by the sense of danger and fear about what might have happened to him gradually rise towards a nail biting conclusion. At the same time, the truth behind the girl's friendship - or the hidden emotions that are bubbling away - also copy this increasing rise in tension as things come to a head. The twists and turns about Sarah and Isla are as compelling as the search for Jacob and Clarke captures the dynamics between the girls really effectively. Just when we think we have something worked out, Clarke drops another detail, another revelation, another complication. The last section of the book is real edge of your seat stuff as the plot rattles along towards its dramatic finale.

I recommend this book and it would be a great summer holiday read.

Last Seen is published by Harper Collins on 29th June 2017.

For more recommendations, reviews and bookish chat, you can follow me on Twitter @KatherineSunde3 or via my website bibliomaniacuk.co.uk