The Broken Shore
By Peter Temple

Joe Cashin, a city homicide cop recovering from an injury and broken by his last case, returns to the quiet coastal area of South Australia where he grew up to run its one-man police station while his wounds heal and the nightmares fade. He lives a quiet life with his two dogs in the tumbledown wreck his family home has become. It's a peaceful existence - ideal for the rehabilitating man. There he investigates the beating death of elderly millionaire Charles Bourgoyne. After three aboriginal teens try to sell Bourgoyne's missing watch, the cops ambush the boys, killing two. When the department closes the case, Joe, a melancholy, combative cynic sympathetic to underdogs, decides to find the truth on his own. His unauthorized inquiry, which takes him both back in time and sideways into a netherworld of child pornography and sexual abuse, leads to a shocking conclusion.

The relentless story of a town with a hidden past versus a man who is trying to forget his, "The Broken Shore" delivers powerful, lean writing. Temple chooses his words carefully and sparingly. Incisively drawn characters combine with stunning descriptions of the wild, lush, menacing Australian landscape to make this an unforgettable read.

Watch the First Tuesday Book Club's review of this novel.

Lottie
By Reg Egan

When Ethel Griggs dies suddenly in the Victorian country town of Omeo in January 1928, rumours about her husband's blatant affair with 20- year-old Lottie are rife. Police order Ethel's body to be exhumed and Ethel is found to have died from arsenic poisoning. Her husband, Rev. Ron Griggs, is charged with the murder.

This was a BRA book club choice. I wouldn't normally pick up this kind of book but I did enjoy it. It's a fictionalised version of a true story. What a cold fish Ron Griggs is - a horrid little man with grandious ideas of his importance in the world. I felt great pity for Ethel and cheered her journey of self-discovery and mourned her return to Ron and her death. A good, reasonably quick read.

Belly Dancing for Beginners
by Liz Byrski

Gayle and Sonya are a study in contrasts one reserved and cautious, the other confident and outspoken. But their very different lives will be turned upside down when they impulsively join a belly dancing class. Marissa, their teacher, is sixty, sexy, and very much her own person, and as Gayle and Sonya learn about the origins and meaning of the dance, much more than their muscle tone begins to change. Gayle, crippled by the secrets at the heart of her marriage, is forced to face who and what she has become; the seriously single Sonya begins to explore her isolation from her family; and even Marissa, accustomed to seeing other women changed by the dance, must finally confront a horrifying event from her own past. And then there are the men in their lives: Oliver, deeply confused about why his politically correct attitude to women never quite seems to work; Brian, blissfully unaware that he's sailing towards the rocks; and Frank, who's battling his own demons.

'Belly Dancing for Beginners' is a warm-hearted, moving, and often funny story of what can happen when women and men are brave enough to reveal who they really are. I loved this book even though it is about middle aged women "discovering" themselves, much like her other book that I have read, "Gang of Four". She tells a story so well though, and makes it seem so realistic and plausible, that it is a genuinely good read. The twist in the last few pages gives more depth to the story and keeps you thinking.

Gang of Four
by Liz Byrski

They have been close friends for almost two decades, supporting each other through personal and professional crises - parents dying, children leaving home, house moves, job changes, political activism, diets and really bad haircuts. Now the gang of four', Isabel, Sally, Robin and Grace, are all fifty-something, successful and restless. It is Isabel who makes the first move, taking a year away from her family to follow in her mother's footsteps across Europe. Soon Sally is on her way to San Francisco, to come face to face with a guilty secret. Robin, in the wake of a clandestine relationship, heads for isolation in the country. And Grace? Well, Grace would never go away for an entire year, but, lonely in the others' absence, she thinks she might take a short holiday in England. Once there, she bumps into someone she hardly knows - herself.

This was a book chosen by a member of my reading group. It is a truly wonderful story and I really identified with that need to escape from my life for a time, and the women's stories ran so true. A beautiful ending, although it is not a 'happily ever after' story. I could truly identify with some of these characters and was truly touched by their friendship and the discovery of themselves. It happened to be selected by a wonderful person, who told us on the night that we discussed this that she and her family were doing a tree change and leaving us. Good luck, Alita.

The Italian Romance
by Joanne Carroll

Lillian has had to make the hardest decision a woman can make. In war-torn Australia in 1947, she is forced to choose between her baby daughter and the love of her life, an Italian prisoner-of-war. She flees to Italy to make a new life in an act of love that haunts her for fifty years.

Set between rural New South Wales and Italy, The Italian Romance examines the choices we make and their unexpected consequences. In this moving novel about families and the different faces of love, Joanne Carroll reminds us what it is to be human.

This book was a BRA selection. Beautifully written, three stories take us on a journey through the life of Lillian. From her sadness and courage as a young woman, to her melancholy existance as a widow in Italy meeting her daughter for the first time since she was a baby. Can you love two men? Can we be happy if we give up our children for love? Difficult questions are explored in this novel with thoughtfulness. A lovely story with an ending full of hope.

The Wing of the Night
by Brenda Walker

In 1915 a troopship of Light Horsemen sails from Fremantle for the Great War. Two women farewell their men: Elizabeth, with her background of careless wealth, and Bonnie, who is marked by the anxieties of poverty. Neither can predict how the effects of the most brutal fighting at Gallipoli will devastate their lives in the long aftermath of the war.

The Wing of Night is a novel about the strength and failure of faith and memory, about returned soldiers who become exiles in their own country, about how people may become the very opposite of what they imagined themselves to be. Brenda Walker writes with a terrible grandeur of the grime and drudge of the battlefield, and of how neither men nor women can be consoled for the wreckage caused by a foreign war.

I found this to be a beautifully written, evocative novel. Although I read it as I'd set myself a challenge to read all the Miles Franklin short-list, I was particularly drawn to this novel as my grandfather fought at Gallipoli. The twists in relationships and the damage that war can inflict on those left behind and those who return is well told. Not the ending that I expected, but true to the story. Not everything ends up happyily ever after. I'd recommend this to others.

Secret Mothers Business
by Joanne Fedler

Based on true conversations with real women, Secret Mothers' Business is a shocking, funny and often heartbreaking look at women, friendships and motherhood. One evening in late June a group of women friends get together at Louise's house. Natalie brings the red wine, Tamara some gluten-free delight as well as her fully charged mobile (her husband still can't seem to get two children to bed without calling her at least 6 times). Fiona will haul out her aromatherapy kit and they can count on Lou to bring along at least a kilo of chocolate. It is a regular reunion for eight very different women, with very different lives, secrets and fantasies. The only unifying factor? They are all mothers. Be warned, you will recognise yourself and your friends within these pages. These are conversations we've all had: about our weight, our fantasies - sexual and otherwise, those school lunchboxes, mother's guilt, our partners, the endless struggle to balance work, housework, family and sanity, and the seemingly impossible task of deciding what to feed the family every single night of the goddamn week. This is a book about the tenuous nature of mothering, the beauty and complexity of friendships, and the way in which women support - and judge - one another. It is a revealing look at where women go as mothers, and at just how far it is possible to go without quite going insane.

A womderful book - I don't feel nearly so bad a mother now. I related a lot to experiences a number of the women had and it made me feel that I was a normal, imperfect person and that that's okay. It's a great book to read in bits. Each chapter is reasonably short and almost self-contained, so a great book to have by the bed to read a chapter or two each night. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would love to do a similar thing with friends - no children, great food and wine and wonderful friends sleeping over somewhere other than our homes.

The Garden Book
by Brian Castro

After the exoticism of Shanghai Dancing, Castro returns to Australia in his new novel. Set in the Dandenongs between the Depression and World War II, the book revolves around Swan Hay, the daughter of a Chinese schoolteacher, and her relationships with brutal bushman Darcy Damon, and an American aviator and adventurer. A work of literary detection, it is tribute to the beauty and cruelty of the Australian bush, and Australia's identity crisis during the period of the White Australia Policy.

It took a while to get into this book. The first section about Darcy started to drag and the language was full of prose. Very beautiful but it took a long while to get any where. But I picked the novel up again yesterday and became mesmerised, reading about Swan, until the book was finished. I enjoyed it in the end but I wouldn't re-read the book. I felt real compassion for Swan and the mess that was her life and enjoyed the research of the rare books librarian to discover Swan's story (who it turns out, is his mother). If you enjoy beautiful writing or interesting poetry, you'd probably enjoy this.

The Secret River
by Kate Grenville

After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh.

Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill encounters men who have tried to do just that: Blackwood, who is attempting to reconcile himself with the place and its people, and Smasher Williams, whose fear of this alien world turns into brutal depravity towards it. As Thornhill and his family stake their claim on a patch of ground by the river, the battle lines between old and new inhabitants are drawn.

I ejoyed this book. I had heard both good and bad about it. After it was short-listed for the Booker Prize, I decided to read it and make up my own mind. It is a simple, yet engaging, novel about a man who falls in live with an alien land and the ramifications of his decisions on his family. Well worth reading, especially if you are interested in novels of our early history or just a good read.

Watch the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club review this novel.