‘Wings Over Valletta’ by Tracy Cook
In my four visits to Malta, my husband’s homeland, I have not yet made it to the Lascaris War Rooms. After reading this historical novel set during the appalling bombardment of the Maltese islands during WWII, I will make sure to visit this site of global significance next time.
Why global significance? Because tiny Malta is located in a spot in the Mediterranean Sea of such strategic importance that whoever controlled it, had a huge advantage during wartime. As a result, the people of Malta endured raids by both Italian and German planes, the islands becoming the most bombed places in the whole war.
Under British control, the authorities set up a command centre deep beneath the capital Valletta, utilising tunnels dug centuries earlier by the order of Knights who then ruled the islands. This is where novelist Tracy Cook set much of the action in her story. She chose to tell of the heroic efforts of the ‘plotters’, Maltese and English women who took on the vital work of plotting air battles and missions.
We have probably all seen footage of plotters in Britain, who showed the movements of enemy and Allied planes by pushing markers around huge maps, allowing those responsible for battle strategy to get a visual representation of what was happening. This was well before the age of digital screens and instant information transmission as we have today. In Malta, the women who did this work were not employed by the RAF. Rather, they were civilian women recruited from towns and villages across the islands.
The Ops Room, Ladscaris War Rooms. Source: ‘Historia Magazine’ https://historiamag.com/women-siege-malta/ They worked long hours in difficult physical conditions under immense pressure. At the end of a wearying shift, they faced even more stressful conditions when back above ground: the destruction of their homes, local services, constant air raid sirens requiring a fast exit to the nearest shelter. They worried about their families, friends, neighbours…Sworn to secrecy about their work, they were unable to share their worries with anyone outside.
Wings Over Valletta portrays all this through the eyes of the protagonist Kitty Campbell, whose father is a senior figure in the British Navy in Malta. Kitty is at home in Malta, with local friends and a job, until the war interrupts her normal life. It is then she signs up for work as a plotter and descends into the War Room tunnels for her first shift.
The enormous challenges faced by the Maltese people are skillfully portrayed: loss and heartache; hunger as the seige bit hard; anxiety over a possible German invasion. The internal political divisions are also shown: Malta had been a British colony for over 150 years and even in wartime, there were people agitating for independence, which was eventually achieved in 1964. Yet the country as a whole was awarded the George Cross for their bravery in 1942: the only nation to have ever been so collectively honoured.
Kitty nurses her own private loss and heartache: a child she unwillingly gave up for adoption years before, and her determination to find this little girl. She also faces betrayal from people she trusts and the hurt of knowing she’d been lied to. Like all the women plotters in the War Rooms, she has to find a way to navigate her own problems while staying focused and strong in her mission to help the war effort.
When she meets a British flying officer, romance blossoms, which adds to the story but doesn’t detract from the themes of danger, worry and commitment to duty .
This book is an emotional testament and tribute to the courage and tenacity of the people of Malta. It’s also chock full of references to Maltese lifestyle, food, culture and language, resulting in a wonderful portrayal of a tiny country which played a very big role on the world stage.
If you’d like to find out more about this amazing chapter of WWII history, you can read more about the Lascaris War Rooms here.
Wings Over Valletta was published by Allison & Busby Publishers in 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for a review copy.Connections: ‘Three Reasons for Revenge’ by Dervla McTiernan
Fans of Irish-Australian crime writer Dervla McTiernan will welcome the arrival of her latest book, Three Reasons for Revenge. Her previous book (2025) continued the Cormac Reilly series, and she has also written stand-alone stories such as What Happened to Nina? (2024).
This is another stand-alone, pleasingly set in Australia, and featuring as protagonist Detective Sergeant Judith Lee, who could well become the centre figure of another series. She is an experienced and able police officer, but the case that opens up when she takes the complaint of young Alexis Turner, is unlike any other she has dealt with.
Alexis has alleged sexual improprietry on the part of a university clinic counsellor, a man who has been on Judith’s radar since a similar complaint years earlier. But no sooner has Judith opened the inquiry, than Alexis disappears. And then the case turns into a murder investigation.
She must work against the clock to connect three seemingly disparate individuals to the case and to each other. The only thing they appear to have in common is that they have been recipients of a beautifully wrapped parcel with an ambiguous object inside, along with a cryptic note.
This author excels at weaving intricate tales in which the obvious answers are the wrong ones and the unexpected is sure to happen. This one is no different. There are several twists and surprises, before the mystery is solved.
I enjoyed the characters, finely drawn and believable, and the pace keeps the pages turning quickly. Along the way, the novel explores themes of grief, childhood trauma, and psychological distress.
As often the case for me, I wasn’t completely convinced by the reveal towards the end; however that did not stop me finding this one a great holiday read. I hope to meet Detective Sergeant Judith Lee again, too.
Three Reasons for Murder was published in April 2026 by HarperCollins.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advance review copy.
Immersive, engrossing fiction: ‘A Far-Flung Life’ by M.L. Stedman
Do you love a book you can fall into, immersing yourself into the place, time and people of the novel to the extent that you think about it in between reading and can’t wait to pick it up again?
I was delighted to find A Far-Flung Life just such a book.
Set in a remote sheep station in Western Australia, the story begins in the 1950s and concerns the MacBride family who have lived and farmed here for generations. Theirs is an ordinary story for the time and place – until it isn’t.
When a freak road accident kills two members of the family and seriously injures another, the whole family’s trajectory is changed forever. In the aftermath of the accident, Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness. (From publisher’s website)
As with ML Stedman’s best-selling 2018 debut The Light Between Oceans, this novel examines what happens to ordinary people who are faced with extraordinary circumstances, and how fate, and the choices they make, both play a vital role in determining their futures.
The story’s events are narrated from the viewpoints of various major and some minor characters, showing how their thoughts, goals and fears affect their behaviour and the lives of those they are in relationship with. Every character felt real to me, their motivations driven by their own perspective on the worlds they inhabit.
Those worlds are beautifully depicted, especially the MacBride station, ‘Meredith Downs’, the vast landscapes surrounding it, and the small local town that services the farming communities. How do families and individuals cope with the isolation of these remote areas? What kinds of social lives do they conduct, and what inner lives do they lead? How are children educated, what do the day-to-day lives of sheep farmers look like? This novel answers these and many other questions in an immersive and engaging way.
There are some dark themes, to do with death, suicide, and family relationships; some readers might find some of the content challenging.
But, if you are able to try to understand why people make the choices they do in life, this novel will appeal. It deals sensitively with the results of trauma, both physical and moral/emotional. It’s a family saga, a coming-of-age story, a love story; a novel that poses several major moral quandaries and asks should we lay blame here or show compassion?
On any old outback property, you can see them, the skeletons of dreams. Houses long abandoned, windmills rusting, fence posts splintered, tank stands collapsed: every one of them was once a hopeful beginning…
Our lives come and go like these gold-rush towns. We arrive, we grow, we thrive, then we’re gone. Then the forgetting happens, and once-solid foundations are barely traces in the earth, from unguessable lives… In the end, we’re all looking for a place to ride out the storm of life. Among all these husks of houses and fossils of trees, we are like hermit crabs, borrowing a shelter for a time, and moving on.
A Far-Flung Life, loc 65 of 414 on ebook.I was engrossed in this big story right from it’s opening pages and although satisfied by the novel’s conclusion, I was sad to leave the MacBride family. Highly recommended.
A Far-Flung Life is published in March by Penguin Random House Australia.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a review copy.The beautiful & the broken: ‘The Chateau on Sunset’ by Natasha Lester
Epic Love. Tragic Loss. Beautiful Friendship. The entrancing story of an orphan who grows up surrounded by the beautiful and the broken in the world’s most infamous hotel.
Australian author Natasha Lester writes lush, epic novels, mostly in historical settings. I’ve enjoyed several of these, especially the ones featuring stories from WWII. Her novels are always focused on women from the past who face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but who nevertheless triumph. The Paris Photographer is a good example of this, about the photographer Lee Miller whose wartime work in Europe was famous, for a while, but who faded into self-imposed obscurity after the war ended.
The Chateau on Sunset seems, at first glance, to be a different beast altogether. The first part of the book is set firmly in the USA in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and is about a teenage girl who is sent to live with her reclusive aunt when her parents are killed in an accident.
This takes her from her home in New York to Los Angeles – or more precisely, Hollywood. Her aunt is a ‘washed up’ star of the silver screen, and her new home is the Chateau Marmont, a famous (notorious?) hotel where the rich, famous and wanna-be stars gravitate around movie moguls and film icons.
Aria is young and naive and grieving terribly for her parents. She is helped to adjust to this very new environment by two aspiring actresses, Calliope and Flitter (their ‘stage names’, I was relieved to find out). The three become firm friends, sisters of a kind, despite the age difference between Aria and the other two.
But the world of Hollywood starlets and burned-out stars is not a safe place for a youngster and Aria has to quickly learn the rules of survival. She becomes a reluctant party to a secret that haunts her and makes her potential prey to at least one of the Hollywood sharks that swim in the murky waters of the hotel.
She realises that she must leave the hotel to find her own way in the world and live life on her own terms. How she eventually does so is the crux of this story.
The author references Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, a favourite childhood book, for the inspiration for this novel. In a way, it is a re-imagining of this classic story, but one in which Jane, not Rochester, is the character with agency and control over her destiny, despite her shaky start. There is a passionate romance with accompanying doubts and troubles, but by the end of the novel Aria is steering her own ship towards a future she has chosen.
The darker elements of this book concern the behaviours of characters we might think of as ‘Harvey Weinsteins.’ The author channels her rage at the predatory behaviour of that man and others like him, and the destructive Hollywood studio system, into a gripping novel that has us cheering for those who defy the unfairness of the place and time.
You get the future you give in to, or the one you fight for.
It’s time for me to be the star of my own goddamn life.
The Chateau on Sunset ebook loc 86%Hollywood’s famous Chateau Marmont is brought to life in the characteristic style of this author, with attention to the details, large and small, that made up this iconic building and those who lived there, in the mid-twentieth century.
The Chateau on Sunset is published by Hachette Australia in March 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advanced review copy.
No happy endings: ‘Mercy’ by Emma Woodhouse.
A Newton takes their own life, or that of another.
So says the curse of the Newtons.If you have read some of my other blog posts, you may have realised that I am a bit of a sucker for historical fiction that is inspired by, based on, or closely follows real-life people, places and events. Mercy is one such story, narrating in fictional form the true-crime saga of a working-class English woman who, in the 1840s, was charged with murder.
Her case became the talk of folk in inns and on streets across the land. Did she commit the terrible crime she was accused of? Did she deserve to hang? Or was she a victim of the brutal environment in which she was raised and the inequality between rich and poor?
The notoriety of her name grew as not one, but two juries were unable to deliver a verdict. This was unheard of. It was up to a third and final jury to pass judgement on a woman accused of a most heinous crime imaginable. Would she be found guilty? And what would become of her young daughter, raised in the same harsh milieu as Mercy herself?
The other reason I was drawn to this story? The protagonist’s family name, which I share. While not believing for a moment that my name holds within it a curse as Mercy’s seems to have done (and honestly, given how events played out in her family you can understand how that idea came about), a novel centred around a cursed family name is always a little intruiging…
The author has used historical documents from the archives and old British newspaper reports to skillfully weave a story told from three main points of view: Mercy herself; her daughter Maria; and the local justice of the peace who prosecutes the initial murder case against Mercy. This gives rich detail of the events as they were reported at the time, while also painting a vivid backdrop of the grim environment in which they occurred.
And it is grim. There is little or nothing held back. The story opens with an earlier murder, this one perpetrated by another Newton, Mercy’s cousin John, who beats his pregnant wife to death one stormy evening. It sets the scene and as readers we know that despite an occasional glimmer of hope on the horizon, the future for Mercy and her family is, in reality, nothing but bleak.
For me this bleakness became a little too much and I found the novel hard going because of it, while still admiring the detail and story-telling skill involved. As a tale that paints a realistic picture of how things were for working-class folk in Victorian times, it’s to be commended. Just not an easy read. And don’t expect a happy ending in the usual sense, because for these people they were few and far between.
Mercy is published by Cranthorpe Millner Publishers in July 2025.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a review copy.
A jolly Christmas…murder! ‘Everyone this Christmas has a secret’ by Benjamin Stevenson
I so thoroughly enjoyed Benjamin Stevenson’s first two mystery novels featuring Ernest Cunningham that I leapt at the chance to review this one, in time for Christmas.
In keeping with the catchy naming pattern of the first two books: Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect, readers are advised straight up that everyone in this new story should likewise be regarded as a suspect.
Ernest is an amateur detective who writes ‘how to write detective’ books – which is sort of funny in itself when you think about it. Stevenson is a comedian as well as an author, so the comedy is a big part of these novels along with the mystery. Ernest’s schtick is that he writes rules for what he calls ‘fair play mysteries’: like those written in what is sometimes called the golden age of crime fiction.
I loved two things about this one, on top of the main character – Ern is endearing and doesn’t take himself too seriously, though he is very serious about solving the crimes that he inevitably stumbles upon in the novels.
Firstly, the Christmas theme. The motif of a Christmas advent calendar is used so cleverly throughout, each chapter giving a clue as a new window on the calendar opens. It’s done so well, blending the narrative of the crime and the various characters’ motives and movements, with the Christmas setting.
Secondly, the novel is set in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, just up the road from where I live. The second crime novel set in the Blue Mountains I have read this year! While I would not want people to think that my little part of the world is more prone to murder than any other, it is a beautiful and evocative setting for a novel and I am pleased to see it getting its share of the limelight.
If you haven’t yet met Ernest and his family, I would heartily recommend beginning with the first two of Stevenson’s books and then reading this one. The audio versions are also excellent. They are light-hearted reads, while keeping you thinking as the complexities of the twisty plots are revealed. And give plenty of chuckles along the way.
Everyone this Christmas has a Secret is published by Penguin Books Australia in October 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for a review copy.
The fight for the vote: ‘An Undeniable Voice’ by Tania Blanchard
I have always felt a certain pride that Australia was one of the first countries (after New Zealand) to allow (white) women to vote. And puzzled by the slowness of Britain to do the same. Was it because of centuries of entrenched attitudes in Old Europe – attitudes towards women and men, and their relative roles in social, economic and political spheres? After all, many of those attitudes were transplanted to the Antipodes, along with convicts, rabbits and a cornucopia of noxious weeds. So why did Britain lag so far behind us before bestowing on half its population the basic democratic right to vote for their representation in government?
An Undeniable Voice traces the long-drawn-out fight for women’s suffrage in Britain. It’s a follow-on from an earlier novel by Tania Blanchard, A Woman of Courage, which I have not read – and I found that it reads perfectly well as a stand-alone.
It is 1907, and we meet Hannah Rainforth, an active member of her small northern colliery community in England. She and her husband run the pub she inherited from her parents, which she has turned into a kind of community hub, a meeting place for people to come together for various groups and projects, and support when times are hard.
But when her husband dies suddenly, Hannah is left with three children to support, and comes face to face with the inequalities experienced by women in all spheres of life: in marital laws, property, finance and employment. She knows that nothing will change unless all citizens are entitled to vote for those who make the laws that affect them.
Hannah has to make some hard decisions when she loses the right to continue as publican: moving to London, she returns to her teaching career but must leave her two sons to do so. Working to regain her old life and reunite her family, she also throws herself into the suffrage movement.
The narrative gives a comprehensive and compelling account of the activities of those working for women’s suffrage: from polite petitions to smashing windows, from peaceful marches and deputations to imprionment and hunger strikes. The brutal treatment of women on the streets and in prisons at the hands of police, government spies and prison guards is hard to read at times. What were these men so afraid of? Obviously the thought of losing their tight grip on the reins of power drove their violent and at times, bizarre responses.
Some readers may be surprised at the historical facts highlighted in this novel: that even for men, ‘suffrage’ was not then universal. There were property qualifications that attended the right to vote. In other words, men had to own a certain value of property before could register to vote. How much harder was it for women, then, when there were barriers for women owning property or taking out a loan in their own right?
The struggle for women’s suffrage took much, much longer than it should have in Britain. It was not until the ravages of WWI so thoroughly shook the nation that it was impossible for things to return to the old ways, that true progress began to happen.
In those long years, Hannah and her compatriots risked and suffered a great deal.
We all owe these women, and the men who supported them, a great deal.
An Undeniable Voice is published by HarperCollins in October 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a review copy.
A failed experiement? ‘Republic’ by Alice Hunt
I grew up on tales from Australian and British history and like many history enthusiasts, was especially captivated by the medieaval and Tudor periods in Britain. The Civil War era of the seventeenth century was not of particualr interest – until I listened to the episodes of David Crowther’s excellent History of England podcast series recounting the events leading up to the Civil Wars and the Republican experiment. I realised that the events of this period are actually fascinating, due to the complexities of the political landscape and the radicalism of the debates.
So when I had the opportunity to review Alice Hunt’s new book about this time, I was all in.
Subtitled ‘Britain’s Revolutionary Decade 1649-1660, each chapter takes one year and examines in detail the events, characters, competing ideas of that twelve months. It begins with the execution of King Charles I, so no spoiler there. This event, in itself, was quite extraordinary: the sanctioned killing of an annointed king after a legal process found him guilty of betraying the sacred oaths taken at his coronation, and responsible for the bloody wars that divided the kingdom between ‘Royalists’ and ‘Parliamentarians’.
Then came the events that followed, all quite extraordinary in themselves: the sale of the royal family’s property and goods (a sort of vast garage sale that went on for years); the shocking violence in Ireland under Cromwell’s direction; the attempts at reconciliation between the opposing factions within the nation and within parliament; the various iterations of parliament itself; the moment when parliament offered Cromwell the chance to become king himself…just to name a few.
The author concludes that:
The civil wars did not set out to kill the king and bring down monarchy but, by their end, a republic settlement was not only entertained but also, by some, desired.
Republic p30
There are stories of some of the interesting personalities of the time, some known to me (like Christopher Wren or John Milton) and others not so much (Katherine Jones, Robert Boyle).
Amongst the explosive political and legal events were others that, while not made up of ‘grand gestures’ nevertheless had important and long-standing effects. The readmission of Jewish people to Britain was one such. The beginnings of the Quaker movement another. The rising interest in natural sciences, philosphy, language, clocks, telescopes, horticulture, laying the foundation for modern science as we think of it today. It was during this decde that ideas of representative democracy, closer to the sense we think of it today than the ancient Greek version, were widely written and talked about.
This detailed but accessible book, paints vivid images of the turmoil and chaos of this period, of how the idea of a republic was being worked out on the run.
Understanding this goes some way to modifying the astonishment I might otherwise feel, knowing that at the end of this ‘revolutionary decade’, another Stuart (Charles II) was invited back to take up the British throne once more.
On finishing this book, I did wonder if the current monarch, another Charles, will read it and if so, what he might make of the goings-on of this decade from the past? Are there lessons from these years that speak to the current threats and opportunities for the British monarchy today? Or for those who hope that their country will once again, become a republic?
Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade is published in 2024 by Faber & Faber.
My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a review copy.
Taut: ’17 Years Later’ by J.P. Pomare
J.P.Pomare – Kiwi-born Australian author – writes taut, twisty crime thrillers. 17 Years Later is definitely that, imbued with a sense of darkness and with questions about the mystery at its heart: who really killed the Primrose family seventeen years ago?
Set in a small town on New Zealand’s North Island, the narrative is told from several different perspectives and voices.
There is Bill Kareama, the Primrose’s live-in private chef, delighted to be offered this amazing chance to kick-start his career and make good money while cooking for the wealthy family. When the shocking murders of Simon Primrose, his wife Gwen, daughter Elle and son Chester are discovered, Bill is the prime suspect – in large part due to the fact that the murder weapon is one of his chef’s knives. We hear Bill’s own account of the events leading up to his arrest, the trial and his imprisonment.
Into the town of Cambridge arrives Sloane Abbott, a successful journalist with a popular true-crime podcast. She is determined to investigate the crime because she has heard stories about how the original investigation failed to seriously consider any other suspects and overlooked evidence. Did Bill and the Primrose family receive justice? If not, seventeen years is a long time for the wrong man to be imprisoned. And troublingly, is it possible that here a killer still at large?
We hear from Fleur, the French au pair, who shares a cottage on the Primrose estate with Bill. What is her role in the family and why does she stay with them, given that the children no longer really need a nanny?
TK was Bill’s psychologist who devoted years of his life to finding the truth about what happened. He is dragged unwillingly back into the mystery by Sloane’s dogged persistence.
All of these characters are well drawn, as is the setting of a regional New Zealand town where many of the locals just want to forget the whole thing. There are plenty of twists and an action-packed ending; the story unravelling between the various players, keeping me guessing to the end.
I was engrossed by 17 Years Later and gobbled it up quickly. A very satisfying read.
17 Years Later is published by Hachette Australia in July 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for a copy to read and review.
Casual crime? ‘Liars’ by James O’Loghlin
As an ABC Radio listener for many years, I was quite familiar with presenter James O’Loghlin’s voice and his wry humour. This is the first book of his I’ve read, and I will be returning for more. Liars is a great read.
Set on the NSW Central Coast, where several of my family members and friends live, the story plays out in what is somewhat familiar territory for me (though it was slightly unsettling to read about the local drug dealer in Woy Woy – perhaps based on similar real-life characters?)
One of the central characters is Barbara, a middle aged handywoman who is recovering from the shock of her husband walking out after many years of marriage. She finds herself drawn to two recent deaths – startling in a small quiet coastal town – which the Homicide team feel have been solved, but Barb is not so sure.
Also not sure is Sebastian, the local cop. Detectives have pointed to his old school friend, Joe, a recovering drug addict, as the perpetrator of one of the deaths. Then Joe himself is found dead and it’s ruled a suicide, the result of guilt. Seb just can’t see Joe, for all his faults, as a murderer.
Barb and Seb team up and begin their own, off the books, unauthorised investigation. Joe and Seb were part of a tight-knit group in high school and the years immediately following. One of those six friends was killed seven years ago, and although that (unsolved) murder was judged likely to have been one of several committed by a serial killer, it begins to look like Sally’s death, too, is somehow connected to these more recent ones. But how?
Each of the five remaining friends has something to hide, and as Barb and Seb dig deeper, there are more complications waiting to confound them. Liars is a very appropriate title for this story.
The first section of the novel is told almost completely through text messages, emails and other documents by and between the five friends. Later, we hear snippets of recordings of interviews done by Joe, canvassing people’s memories of the time leading up to Sally’s death. It’s a clever technique to illustrate the differences in what people remember, and the way recollections are often flawed, or even deliberately obfuscated.
The aspect of the story that I found most alarming was the almost casual way in which some killings were carried out. There are paid ‘hits’ of course, but also murders committed not because of a deep desire to kill, but simply as a means to an end, a way to solve a problem. The murderer does not see themself as a ‘psycho’, as someone who loves killing. They kill because they can’t see an alternative solution.
The novel is well paced, the characters and setting realistic, and the plot kept me guessing until the end. I enjoyed Liars very much; and I’m happy to add James O’Loghlin to my list of good Aussie crime writers.
Liars is published by Echo Publishing Australia in July 2024.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advanced review copy.
