Advantages: Great descriptions of the times, Australia Disadvantages: None
The Secret River
London 1806 - William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His sentence: to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is the book of the month at our book club and is probably not a book I would have chosen for myself but is an extremely interesting portrail into life for people in that age and of the two countries.
This story is basically in two parts, Will's London life and then his Australian life. The two are most definitely linked to each other but in terms of Will's and Sal's feelings and adventures they are worlds apart, or you could say continents apart. The story ...
Advantages: characters well written Disadvantages: slow
secrets which I wont go into detail about so as not to spoil it but it shows why they are holding back a little.
The story shows how Tess adjusts to living this different life away from London and as part of a house sitter for a man who is not often there yet she is always thinking about. It shows how she makes new friends and tries to do the best for her daughter.
What I really liked about it was the fact that the characters are very well formed, you do feel as though you know them well and would know how they react. However, the book is very slow.
It is as though Freya North is trying to really get across her characters personalities so much so that there are lots of pages just full os description about how Joe and Tess are feeling and very little dialogue or action. It makes it a very slow read.
It is meant to be quite a touching ...
When you're seven years old and taking a trip to the dentist, it's not exactly the most thrilling of experiences. It's not as if you can give a child a sweet to cheer them up either - that really would not go down well with the dentist! Now I am personally not a believer in giving children toys and gifts just to keep them happy - some things like trips to the doctor's or the dentist's just has to be done, and no reward is needed unless they have been really brave and it is not just a regular checkup. However my Mam clearly saw different when I was a child, and I was bought a magazine. But it was not just any magazine, it was an exciting, attractive, girlie fun magazine. "Sabrina's Secrets".
Around this time, we're talking 1999, I was slowly becoming obsessed with American show 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch'. I have always loved ...
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