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Đang hiển thị bài đăng từ Tháng 7, 2016

'After I Do' by Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the BLURB: When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes. Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for? This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do ...
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The Secret

The Secret

'Women’s Bodies in Speculative Fiction' - Stella Prize Schools Blog

I have a new piece up on the Stella Prize Schools Blog:  Women’s Bodies in Speculative Fiction For my fourth Stella Schools Blog guest post, I spoke with Australian YA authors  Michael Pryor ,  Melina Marchetta , and  Ambelin Kwaymullina  about the representation of women characters in fantasy YA, and how they approach the issue in their own work. Also includes a list of recommended YA spec-fic reads which promote body diversity! 
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On women and violence in fiction - Guest post by Ambelin Kwaymullina

On women and violence in fiction I love a love story. I love first kisses and lingering gazes. I love misunderstandings and shared laughter and a pulse quickening in passion. Or perhaps panic, as our hero holds onto our heroine’s arm just a little too tightly or loses his temper a little too often … wait. This is starting to sound like a different sort of story.   But it must be a love story, because I’ve certainly read this kind of thing in some romance books or as part of a romantic subplot in books of other genres. I’ve found these tales in novels for adults, and I’ve encountered them too in books published in the Young Adult field. These stories generally end well, with a satisfying ‘happily ever after’. But what if our couple walked off the page and into the real world? Where might the heroine be, one year after that final chapter? The book contains the clues we need to work it out. The controlling behavior of the hero (although he only acts that way to keep his beloved safe, ...
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'The Angels' Share' The Bourbon Kings #2 by J. R. Ward

Received from the Publisher  From the BLURB: Behind the glamorous facade of Kentucky's most famous family lurks a secret - one that threatens its very foundation . . . In Charlemont, Kentucky, the Bradford family is the crème de la crème of high society - just like their exclusive brand of bourbon. And their complicated lives and vast estate are run by a discrete staff who inevitably become embroiled in their affairs. This is especially true now, when the apparent suicide of the family patriarch is starting to look more and more like murder. No one is above suspicion - especially the eldest Bradford son, Edward. The bad blood between him and his father is known far and wide, and he is aware that he could be named a suspect. As the investigation into the death intensifies, he keeps himself busy at the bottom of a bottle - as well as with his former horse trainer's daughter. Meanwhile, the family's financial future lies in the perfectly manicured hands of a business rival, a ...
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MWF and ROMA 2016

Hello Darling Readers! Have you noticed - I'm slowly getting back into the swing of reviewing things? Yay for me! I have missed updating the blog :)  Just thought I'd interrupt the (now!) regularly scheduled reviewing to share some good news and events that are coming up ...  I am very lucky to have FIVE session at this year's Melbourne Writers Festival - I get to chair events for the enviably talented duo of Vikki Wakefield and Claire Zorn , plus two authors you might have heard of - Rainbow Rowell and David Levithan ? I get to ask Clementine Ford and Amy Gray their opinions on opinion writing - I think they'll have a few. Myself and Myke Bartlett will talk all about reviewing , and then I'll be teaming up with Sonia Nair for a fun and intense workshop on exactly how to write digital content and get your work published. Phew!  All details of my MWF session can be found here:  http://mwf.com.au/writer/danielle-binks/ And in other news ... I'm a finalist in the ...
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'The Smell of Other People's Houses' by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock and 'Juniors' by Kaui Hart Hemmings

I’m very slowly easing back into my reviewer-groove; but life has been pretty hectic lately , and while I am certainly reading more than ever it’s just hard to sit down and collate my thoughts into halfway decent reviews. But I am trying. With that in mind, I wanted to try a slightly different tact in discussing these two books that I’ve read and loved. The first was Kaui Hart Hemmings first foray in YA fiction with ‘Juniors’, which I loved so much that it made it onto my 2015 Favourites list ! The second was a book I received an advance reader copy of via NetGalley, ‘The Smell of Other People's Houses ’ debut YA novel by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about these two books, and how much I wanted to write reviews for both of them. But then I realized one of the reasons both these books imprinted on me so much was for their unique placement within the American YA realm, and in particular their distinctive settings. So I decided to write a combo-review, praisin...
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'When Michael Met Mina' by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Received from the Publisher From the BLURB: A boy. A girl. Two families. One great divide. When Michael meets Mina, they are at a rally for refugees - standing on opposite sides. Mina fled Afghanistan with her mother via a refugee camp, a leaky boat and a detention centre. Michael's parents have founded a new political party called Aussie Values. They want to stop the boats. Mina wants to stop the hate. When Mina wins a scholarship to Michael's private school, their lives crash together blindingly. A novel for anyone who wants to fight for love, and against injustice. ‘When Michael Met Mina’ is the new contemporary Australian young adult novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Michael is a teenager growing up in Sydney’s North Shore. He gets good grades, has great mates, and parents whom he describes as ‘good people’ – but for most of his life they’ve been ‘angry about almost everything.’ Michael’s Dad is so angry and riled up, in fact, that he’s founded an organisation called ‘Aussie Val...
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Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

'After I Do' by Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the BLURB: When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes. Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for? This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do ...
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'The Bride Test' by Helen Hoang

From the BLURB: Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions - like grief. And love. He thinks he's defective.  Khai's family, however, understand that his autism means he processes emotions differently. As he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.  As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can't turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working...but only on herself. She's hopelessly smitten with a man who's convinced he can never return her affection.  With Esme's time in the United States dwindling,...
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'The Dreamers' by Karen Thompson Walker

Receive from the Publisher  From the BLURB:  One night in an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster.  Those affected by the illness, doctors discover, are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?  Written in luminous prose, The Dreamers is a breathtaking and b...
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