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Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernieres

Secker and Warburg
Reviewed by Nick Churchouse (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Birds Without Wings is a fantastic name for this book, and its aptness struck me only a few minutes before writing this, one week after finishing reading it.

There is a lot of walking, some birdlike characters and, yes, a lot of floundering in the vain pursuit of flight from a war-torn land and an archaic culture in the mire of revolution after revolution.

Full review here 

Blag, Tony Saint

Serpent's Tail
Reviewed by James O'Sullivan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Blag is set in the cultural melting pot of London. But things aren't melting together too well. Plenty of people want in, but plenty more want them back out again.

Full review here

Blue Smoke, Deborah Challinor

HarperCollins
Reviewed by Jan Treliving-Brown (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

First there was Tamar, then White Feathers. The Deborah Challinor trilogy is now complete with a cheerless finale, Blue Smoke. Tamar remains my pick of the three, followed by White Feathers.

Full review here

Body Double, Tess Gerritsen

Bantam
Reviewed by Sheila Forbes (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Forensic pathologists are flavour of the month in crime writing. This one spares us the minute and gruesome details we find in some novels and on TV.

Pathologist Maura Isles arrives back from a Paris conference to find a woman has been shot in a car parked outside her home. As if that is not shock enough, the woman, Anna Jessop, turns out to be Maura's double, and tests prove them in fact to have been twins. A puzzling detail is that Anna appears from records to have existed for only the previous two years. While Maura is aware of having been adopted as a baby, she has no knowledge of a twin sister.

Full review here

Book Book, Fiona Farrell

Vintage
Reviewed by Jess Cooksley-Gruys

For many women born in the 40s, 50s or 60s, reading Book Book will be a trip down memory lane.

Farrell experienced her childhood during the 1950s in Oamaru, and has beautifully mastered the mix of memoir and fiction in this novel, which she writes about through some of the books she has read and grown up with.

Full review here

Bridge Across my Sorrows and the sequel Mama Tina, Christina Noble

These are the autobiographies of Irish woman, Christina Noble. It is an emotional journey, beginning with the hardship and trials of growing up as a street kid in Dublin.

Full review here

Bringing Down The House, Ben Mezrich

Arrow Books
Reviewed by Hal Williams (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Ben Mezrich appears to be a bit of a phenomenon in publishing terms. He graduated from Harvard in 1991, and in the interim has written six novels and two non-fiction books.

Full review here

Butler's Ringlet, Laurence Fearnley

Penguin
Reviewed by Jan Treliving-Brown (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Is Butler's Ringlet merely "a Southern man's search for love" - fine if you enjoy the Speights ads and can identify with an intensely lonely existence in rural Southland? Honestly, it's much, much more.

Full review here