Allegra is 11 years old, living in suburban Sydney in the 1970s with her dad Rick and grandmother Mathilde at number 23, and grandmother Joy at number 25. Narrated by Allegra, she has little understanding of why this situation is so, only knowing that she constantly feels herself torn into two between her loving but vastly different grandmothers, and the emotionally distant figure of her father. She is a smart wee girl, extraordinarily sensitive to those around her, in the process navigating the classroom ghastliness of 11 year old girls and keeping her grandmothers happy.  Not easy when they can't stand each other.  Her growing friendship of fellow outsider young Aborigine girl Patricia further sets her apart from the rest of her class, but not from her teacher Sister Josepha. 1970s Australia is not an easy place for women, and the growing awareness Allegra is finding of the world around her puts her and those she loves on a collision course. Could leave you with a tear in your eye. This novel is marketed as teen/YA fiction/coming of age fiction. But is equally enjoyable and meaningful for everyone else. I loved this - all about what it means to belong to a family and to be loved.

Who didn't love The Book Thief? And how many years have we waited for this writer's next great novel? Too many, but don't for a minute think this is anything like the other! This has made the latest list of top 100 best reads in NZ, which is why I include it here. For me personally it would not make that list. Firstly it is very long, very drawn out, and at times I thought it would never end, never be resolved. I had trouble making all the connections with the author's meanderings and musings at the expense of the story. I just wanted him to get on with it! The writing is amazing, if you love reading for the sake of how words are put together and pictures they make then this is for you. If you have the patience to focus on the story, and the relationships between the characters as well, then you will also enjoy this. Briefly, Clay is a teenage boy, one of the 5 Dunbar brothers, ranging in age from 18 down to 11, living alone in suburban Sydney following the death of their mother and desertion by their father. Oldest boy Matthew is the prime narrator, although the story does move back and forth telling the story of each of the parents and the family in its early days. So much love there, and heart ache and sadness. Clay is the son who is determined to somehow fix everything, the physical bridge he builds with his dad also being symbolic of the bridge being built between the boys themselves and with their father. It is outstanding.

A thriller! This is an action packed page turning read. Stella and her family live on the island of Evergreen, population approx 100.  She has lived her entire life there, until one stormy night in 1993 when she is 12, the family suddenly up and leaves. No explanation given. Fast forward to the present, Stella is now a counsellor, her older sister Bonnie is an ex-alcoholic married with children, and brother Danny disappeared some 10 years prior. Her mother has died, and her father is suffering from dementia. The news reveals that a body of a young woman has been discovered on the island of Evergreen, buried on the boundary of the property Stella's parents lived at. Iona, was a huge presence in the lives of the family the summer they hurriedly left. Stella is instantly thrown back into the past, especially when the police come calling wanting to know why Iona was wearing a bracelet that Stella had made all those years ago. Moving back and forth between the summer of 1993 and the present, Stella is determined to find out what really happened and why her brother Danny is being sought for the murder of Iona. Surprises galore are revealed, and you are kept guessing right to the very end.

Look at that cover - so beautiful. Set in Dickensian London, the East End of all places, where there is very little beauty and daily life is one horrible, grubby, desperate slog. Iris and her twin sister work long hours for a doll maker, hand sewing exquisite clothes for the dolls. Iris dreams of becoming an artist, and in her few spare hours with her meagre savings paints and draws. Noticed by a talented young artist of the Pre-Raphaelite group of artists, she sees a way for her and her sister to escape their dreary hard life. With her unusual looks and beautiful red hair she quickly becomes the artist's muse, then creative collaborator, well timed for the 1851 Great Exhibition. At the same time, she is being stalked by a sinister character called Silas Reed, a taxidermist who makes his living by sourcing and preserving dead animals - birds, cats, dogs, what ever he can find to satisfy the demand from the wealthy for real life decorative ornaments or models for artists. His obsession with Iris is horrific to behold, as are his means to obtain her for himself. This is a wonderful and compelling mixture of love story, and thriller, set against the brilliantly rendered back drop of Victorian London. I can just imagine this as a movie or mini series using all the remarkable talents and resources of the BBC and others - imagine the costuming!

Not everyone's cup of tea, but I have been wading my way through this since the beginning of the year. I love history, and this being the centenary year of the end of WWI - the Great War - it is more than appropriate to find out some of how it all came about. I remember in school learning about the origins of WWI, which focussed on the politics of the times and not much on the monarchies of the countries involved. WWI crushed and destroyed all the monarchies of Europe, not just Germany and Russia,  the king of England being the only one to really survive. These three kings were first cousins, this book focussing on the relationship between the three, how their destinies and the inevitability of war were shaped by their inability to move with the times. Yes it is long, best read in bits and never at night.  Large chunks of the minutiae of politics and machinations I skipped over, enjoying more the lives of King George V, Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II, their families, the spider's web of connections, and how it all came crashing down.

Stand out read, the best of my recent reading, so so good.  Such a dreadful cover does nothing for what a great book this is. Long listed for the 2018 Man Booker prize, this is modern day reworking of the Greek myth of Antigone, which I read a summary of on-line before starting this. Just so I knew what I was dealing with! Unlike many other Booker nominees/prize winners, this is not a literary monster, too clever for its own good. Isma, her younger twin siblings Aneeka and Parvaiz are London born of Pakistani descent. Both parents are dead, the shadow of their father who disappeared on his way to Guantanamo Bay always over them. Isma is smart, having won a scholarship to a US university where she meets a young man Eammon, mixed English/Pakistan. Eammon's father is the Home Secretary in the government, barely treading the tenuous path between his Pakistani roots and his Englishness. The disappearance of Parvaiz to the ISIS cause in Syria and Eammon's return to London with a parcel for Aneeka throws these two together, Aneeka seeing a way to bring her brother home. Forces greater than the lovers gradually build, the reader, with the story of Antigone in mind, knowing that this will not be a happy ending. Outstanding story, the tragedy of modern day politics no different from what it was in the days of Ancient Greece.

NZ novelist Carl Shuker is a former editor of the British Medical Journal. He knows his medical procedures and the opening pages of this novel graphically illustrate the drama, the tension and intimacy of an operating theatre. This is the story of highly respected, hard working, well and truly smashed the glass ceiling surgeon Elizabeth Taylor aka Loco Liz. During an operation on a young woman, a mistake is made, which may or may not have lead to her death some hours later in ICU. In the world however we live in, where blame must always be apportioned, Liz finds herself the target of the cause of the patient's death. At times she is intensely unlikeable, which also raises the question of would we have liked her the same or more if she was a top male surgeon? I doubt you can be 100% nicely-nice to get where Liz has got in her profession, having sacrificed a future of relationships and children along the way, again unlike many of her male co-surgeons. Incredibly competent and confident, she finds herself beginning to unravel as the shock that she may be held accountable for the death begins to hit her. In the world of the operating theatre where there is so much mechanisation and reliance on technology,  the scalpel is still held by a human being, and whether this is the cause of death or not, the human error is the natural scapegoat. Threaded through the novel is the real life disaster of the 1986 Challenger explosion, which in the end was due to the tiniest of human errors. I felt this thread was probably not necessary, it didn't really add to Liz's story, and I found it took away from urgency and immediacy of what was going on in Liz's life. A great read, important too in this society of ours where we are constantly looking for others/anyone to be made accountable for things that go wrong.

Also on the list of NZ's top 100 reads, this is the first novel in a series about seven sisters, although there are actually only 6 novels. Now young women, they were all adopted by an extremely wealthy philanthropic man, and brought up on an island on Lake Geneva. In this novel, the sisters , now adult and living around the world, are together again on the island, their father having recently died. He has left each woman a letter with the latitude/longitude coordinates of the place in the world they were born in, so they can explore for themselves where they came from. First up is eldest daughter Maia, who finds out she was born in Rio de Janeiro. Off she goes in search of who she is. We immediately jump into 1920s Rio de Janeiro high society, her great grandmother Izabella being a stroppy teenage girl, rejecting her father's arranged marriage plans to cement his place in Rio's social circles. Moving between Paris and Rio, the story of where Maia comes from is told. Wonderfully romantic, lots of history, beautiful people falling in love, it really is quite gorgeous to read, certainly setting the scene for the next novel in the series. The Moon Sister, number 5 in the series, was published in time for Xmas 2018, which is when I first heard of these books. The last one, The Sun Sister, is due for publication 31/10 and it will fly off the shelves, just in time for Xmas and summer holidays.

The queen of novels with ethical issues at their core, this is classic Jodi Picoult, taking on the abortion debate, possibly the most fraught of them all. And boy, does she cover some ground in this story. She must have brainstormed every single argument, medical fact, scenario where an abortion may be considered, laws,  religion, every everything in putting together a story around this issue. Centred on a clinic in the middle of the US, a tiny weathered island in a huge storm, where women and staff run the gauntlet of protesters, militants, crazies. Even her descriptions of these scenes, before people make the entry point, are raw and passionate. In the clinic on this particular day, a man has taken staff, patients, and supporters hostage, his rage and despair overwhelming him following his own daughter having an abortion. Told from varying viewpoints of those mixed up in the hostage taking - a doctor, a patient, a anti-abortion militant  pretending to be a patient, a nurse, a young girl wanting contraception, her aunt accompanying her, the local police hostage negotiator, a young girl arrested for having an abortion, a woman who became pregnant after being raped - all these many and various scenarios are thrust in front of the reader. To her credit, the author is very good at raising both pro and anti arguments/dilemmas, giving the reader a very comprehensive education in the politics, the social, economic and emotional impacts of pro and anti. It is overwhelming, to the point where the plot gets lost at times, especially seeing it tells the day of the hostage taking in reverse - starting late in the afternoon, working hour by hour back to early in the day. I am and always be pro-choice, but this novel does raise some very good points and with Jodi Picoult's ability to always throw in twists and surprises. The only right answer of course is choice. What you do with that choice must always be respected and encouraged, whether it is to continue with the pregnancy or not.