While I was in Mildura for the Writers Festival from July 13th to 16th, I had the pleasure to listen to a lot of different authors. Many who I had personally never heard of before. This is mainly because the genre of many of the novels are ones I normally do no read. So, with that in mind, I decided it was a good time to pick up a few books by these authors!
The first book I bought was Why are you so sad? written by Jason Porter, who was a guest speaker from America.
This novel tells the story of Raymond Champs, who believes everyone in the world is suffering from clinical depression. So he takes it upon himself to try and prove this theory by collecting data with a survey he gives to his coworkers.
From what I had heard from the opening night reading, it seems to be a comedic story dealing with the dark topic of depression. Trying to bring a widely hushed topic forward, and make it a more comfortable topic to discuss.
It turns out that this novel is actually quite difficult to get a hold of in Australia, as book stores don’t get access to it. If you can find a way, I hope you can get to reading it.
The next two books I bought were both by the same author. Mallee Sky and Secrets of the Springs written by Kerry McGinnis. An Australian author with a love for the country and mystery novels.
Mallee Sky is about Kate Gilmore who returns back home to the Mallee region after some complicated situations and dark secrets of her home region start to resurface.
Secrets of the Springs is about Orla Macrae who came back home to see her uncle on his death bed, and given a clue to unlock some secret. Which begins to lead her towards the truth about her parents death and a murder that took place.
These are both books I would normally not read, being because they are set in the country. However, the promise of dark secrets and murder drew me in. Not only that, McGinnis herself is a fantastic woman, and I was so happy to meet her and get my books signed.
The last book I bought was Las Vegas for Vegans by A.S. Patric. Another Australian author.
This novel is a collection of short stories of varying themes and lengths. I bought this after Patric and another author read a story from this novel that was written out in just dialogue. No descriptions of what someone was doing, just their words and your imagination. It was gripping and intriguing, so I bought it to learn more.
So those were the books I bought! I am very pleased with them all, and look forward to reading them. I am currently reading through Secrets of the Springs and so far it is fantastic. I’m sure that each of these novels will be a great read. Now just to find time to read them…
By Shaun Mather
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