Corroboree

by Graham Masterton

First published in 1984, this is the story of how when Englishman Eyre Walker, newly arrived in Australia, meets the beautiful Charlotte Lindsay, romance quickly blossoms. But theirs is a relationship with fatal consequences. When a late-night tryst is interrupted by Charlotte's irate father, Walker's young Aborigine servant is brutally killed by guard dogs. A man with a conscience, Walker is anxious to atone for the boy's death by giving him a proper Aboriginal burial. And so he begins a marathon journey into the outback to search for Corroboree, the gathering of nomadic tribes for the age-old ritual. The expedition that he mounts is sponsored by Captain Sturt, a celebrated explorer who believes a huge ocean lies in the middle of Australia. But Walker finds something else in the middle of that vast continent, and the price he must pay for surviving it will scar him for life...

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh in 1946. His grandfather was Thomas Thorne Baker, the eminent scientist who invented DayGlo and was the first man to transmit news photographs by wireless. After training as a newspaper reporter, Graham went on to edit the new British men's magazine Mayfair, where he encouraged William Burroughs to develop a series of scientific and philosophical articles which eventually became Burroughs' novel The Wild Boys.

At the age of 24, Graham was appointed executive editor of both Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. At this time he started to write a bestselling series of sex 'how-to' books including How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. His latest, Wild Sex For New Lovers is published by Penguin Putnam in January, 2001. He is a regular contributor to Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Woman, Woman's Own and other mass-market self-improvement magazines.

Graham Masterton's debut as a horror author began with The Manitou in 1976, a chilling tale of a Native American medicine man reborn in the present day to exact his revenge on the white man. It became an instant bestseller and was filmed with Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Burgess Meredith, Michael Ansara, Stella Stevens and Ann Sothern.

Altogether Graham has written more than a hundred novels ranging from thrillers (The Sweetman Curve, Ikon) to disaster novels (Plague, Famine) to historical sagas (Rich and Maiden Voyage - both appeared in the New York Times bestseller list). He has published four collections of short stories, Fortnight of Fear, Flights of Fear, Faces of Fear and Feelings of Fear.

He has also written horror novels for children (House of Bones, Hair-Raiser) and has just finished the fifth volume in a very popular series for young adults, Rook, based on the adventures of an idiosyncratic remedial English teacher in a Los Angeles community college who has the facility to see ghosts.

Since then Graham has published more than 35 horror novels, including Charnel House, which was awarded a Special Edgar by Mystery Writers of America; Mirror, which was awarded a Silver Medal by West Coast Review of Books; and Family Portrait, an update of Oscar Wilde's tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was the only non-French winner of the prestigious Prix Julia Verlanger in France.

He and his wife Wiescka live in a Gothic Victorian mansion high above the River Lee in Cork, Ireland.

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had a promising start, but then I quickly changed my mind. I thought I would enjoy reading about this adventure across wild Australia, but the many gory and implausible details and the utterly annoying characters made this quite an unpleasant experience.

[Mark Sutcliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read

[Adam Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corroboree by Graham Masterton is another of his historical sagas. Like the only other one of these I have read, Solitaire, the books is a bit long and drawn out but that tends to be a characteristic of most historical fiction. Masterton's research definitely comes through frequently but it never feels forced. The plot itself is one that most readers would love. As the book description says, it is a novel about an epic journey to try to reach what lies in the middle of the Australian continent ant. I found the conclusion of the journey to be rather anticlimactic but this was the book's only let-down. As always, Masterton unflinchingly describes both sex and violence with perhaps a little too much detail at times but that is obviously his style and it doesn't get to me much anymore after reading so much of his work. Historical fiction fans should get a kick out of this one but be warned that the journey doesn't actually get under way until over a third of the book has been read. Don't get the wrong idea; the beginning of the book is action-packed and is also appropriate for setting all that is to come, but impatient readers may not feel that the effort is worth the eventual pay-off.

[Sumati Arora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was recommended this book by a very close friend, so I put whatever I was reading at that time on hold and immediately started reading this on kindle. But then that's the problem with recommendations, you don't always know that what the other person finds engrossing might actually be boring to you.

When I started the book, I was enjoying the characters and the interwoven historical details of early Australia as well. But then after the exploration and the search began, the book started feeling very long and stretched way beyond required. I did enjoy the way the characters are described, especially the ones from higher class who would not let the "blacks" get a minute of peace or respect and affection. So overall I love Graham's style of writing as far as characters and the plot is concerned but I would probably not pick any other of his history based works again.

[Sandeep Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

5* is largely influence by nostalgic reasons.

[Lorielle Cortes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very very strange book. Good in sights to early interactions with Indigenous australian