From the Ashes
Deborah Challinor
HarperCollins, $37.00,
ISBN 9781460754122
What You Wish For
Catherine Robertson
Black Swan, $38.00,
ISBN 9780143772811
Discovering that From the Ashes is a sequel to Fire, Challinor’s 2006 novel, makes sense of this novel’s title. Fire was set in Auckland, although based on the Ballantyne’s department store fire of 1947 in Christchurch. From the Ashes is the second book in a series called “The Restless Years” that will take readers up to the Vietnam War.
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The Sharp end of the stick, Catherine Robertson
Novelist and reviewer Catherine Robertson takes the pulse of local book reviewing
“Tame, dull, lazy, cowardly and predictable” is how Iain Sharp described New Zealand’s book reviewers in an opinion piece for website The Spinoff (March 23). He called for us to be less “gutless”, more “mean-spirited”, and to stop “talking tactfully through our rear ends”. He singled out round-up reviews and certain blogs as especially pointless, and called for an end to the bland and saccharine “Age of the Timid”.
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