Robin Bower's Blog

When I was in primary school, I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. I was in awe of my teachers even the evil ones, and there were a few. I was in awe of their knowledge; they knew the answers to everything! Perspective is a great thing. I viewed teachers …

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In these weird times of limited wanderlust, I find myself drawn to the travel and vacation section of the newspaper. I came across an article persuading readers to take up adventure travel which I would do in a heartbeat. Being an adventurous traveller, I love these sorts of articles. Whitewater rafting in Tasmania was on …

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This one flew across my radar from a conference I attended. I’m not an overly talkative person but I also seem to cross the boundary between extrovert and introvert. I do get a bit annoyed that sometimes the loudest person in the room is the most heard although they often don’t have much to say. It’s …

The post Book Review: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain appeared first on Robin Bower.

5 out of 5 stars I have read a couple of other Jodi Picoult books and decided she wasn’t really for me. She seemed a bit preachy, somehow. However, The Storyteller was brilliant. I loved it from the start, the writing was excellent, I felt for the characters and the story was so sensitively written. …

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4 out of 5 stars If you love mystery, suspense, odd children, large old houses, flashbacks and elderly women of an evil disposition, you will love this story. Told with empathy, sensitivity and with a huge talent for suspense, McTiernan packs a punch with her first novel. The Cormac Reilly character is well drawn and …

The post Book review: The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan appeared first on Robin Bower.

3 out of 5 stars There were so many sad stories and characters in this book that I can’t really say I loved it. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in that small town if there’s so much depression, suicide and murder of women going on! While the writing is good and you could call …

The post Book review: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins appeared first on Robin Bower.

3 out of 5 stars A sad, dissatisfied wife and mother writes letters to her husband which are buried between the pages of the books in his library. In her last missive, she asks him to burn the letters (including the books one suspects) so that her two daughters cannot know the truth of their …

The post Book review: Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller appeared first on Robin Bower.

Swimming Lessons
Claire Fuller
A sad, dissatisfied wife and mother writes letters to her husband which are buried between the pages of the books in his library. In her last missive, she asks him to burn the letters (including the books one suspects) so that her two daughters cannot know the truth of their parents' lives. The book is built on a present and past narrative written at times by the daughter and then her mother who has gone missing, believed dead by all except her daughter. The mother's inner narrative, as yet possibly unread by her husband, reveals him to be other than a famous writer/auteur and more a philandering dilettante who has stolen his wife's idea to create a bestseller. While I found the younger daughter Flora exasperatingly unobservant and annoying, the writing is detailed and intricately describes this family in turmoil revealing an unsettling denouement.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars As the title suggests, this book tightens your throat with its raw poignancy of an innocent girl born into a family who cannot and does not care for her. Her innocence is so beautifully shown that it is truly believable and she has no vocabulary for the ways of …

The post Book review: The Choke by Sofie Laguna appeared first on Robin Bower.

I published my first novel on Amazon Kindle in 2014. This was the culmination of about five years’ work at some financial cost. Most aspiring authors want to know how to get published, make money so they can live in the south of France or a tropical paradise and write books while sipping on margaritas. …

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