Kathryn's Inbox

Reader be warned. If You Could Go Anywhere is a novel that will break your heart ... before gently piecing it back together with themes of unconditional love and redemption. Twenty-seven year old Angie has always longed to travel and see the world outside of her home town of Coober Pedy, where she was raised by her grandparents, but there isn't much chance of that. Her grandfather died suddenly and she has been left to care for her beloved grandmother, Nan, who has dementia. When Nan passes away, Angie makes a surprising discovery about the identity of her father and with the help of her friends and neighbours, she finds herself travelling to Italy where she mets Guilo for the first time, and forms a strong friendship with his stepson, reckless adventurer Alessandro. When Angie learns a sad family story, she soon begins to realise why there is a darkness that surrounds Alessandro. But can she convince him that life is worth living ... before it is too late? This was a such a tear-...

The Minute I Saw You is a beautiful and emotional story about two very different people, with very different but equally tragic pasts. Hannah is an optical dispenser, currently living in a small town in the UK. She likes to travel a lot and knows that she'll only be in her current job and her current home for a short while. For that reason, she's not too disturbed when she finds herself attracted to Sonny, a gorgeous photographer who lives a very cosmopolitan lifestyle in Europe. She knows there isn't a long term relationship in it. Then Sonny surprises her by--genuinely--wanting to be friends. As their friendship develops it becomes clear that both Hannah and Sonny have tragic life stories that they need to confront head on. But what happens when the walls that both have put up around themselves comes tumbling down. There is no denying it. This book was one heck of an emotional rollercoaster. Author Paige Toon is a master at allowing her readers to feel a range of emotion...

What a delight is Pictures of Lily. As the novel opens, Lily is sixteen years old and completely opposed to her mother's grand plan of moving to Australia so that they can live with her mother's new boyfriend, a man named Michael that she's met on the internet. Which is kind of a problem as right now, the pair are driving along the Princes Highway in the direction of Michael's home in the Adelaide Hills. Over the next few weeks and months, Lily has a number of life-altering adventures working at a local conservation park. She soon finds herself falling for Ben, a who works at the park. The only problem with this arrangement is that Ben is twelve years older than her. He's also engaged to another woman who lives in the UK. And although he finds himself falling for Lily, he knows that the situation is wrong. He leaves for the UK and he and Lily do not stay in touch. Ten years later they meet again in Sydney. Only this time around, Ben's divorced, and Lily is an a...

Someone I Used to Know, the latest novel by Paige Toon is a beautiful and heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting story of family, the importance of unconditional love and second chances. Leah hasn't had it easy. Following on from the sudden passing of her father--a warm and lovely man--she finds herself returning to her childhood home in Yorkshire with her small daughter, Emilie. Theo, Emilie's father and Leah's husband, isn't with them due to a tragic event that is alluded to in the first few pages. At her father's funeral, she finds herself face-to-face with George, one of the many troubled foster children that her parents took in, and the crush that Leah has never ever been able to properly forget. Soon, his presence begins to stir up all kinds of feelings, ones that Leah thought she had forgotten ... Although a love triangle is central to the novel, this one is so much more than that. It's also a book about the importance of family, and second chances. The ...

Although I have been aware of author Paige Toon for some time, and had been intending to read some of her books 'at some stage' I was not aware of her connection to my home city, Adelaide, until recently. And when I discovered (thanks to some promotional material,) that her most recent book was set almost entirely in Adelaide, I knew that I just had to ask her publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. Luckily, Simon and Schuster Australia were kind enough to provide me with a copy, and I'm pleased to report that I rather enjoyed this fun and sometimes sad tale of a woman who is forced to return home to Australia after her father suffers a stroke.  Amber's life in London is not going so well--she has just lost her job, and her marriage is going through a rough patch. Returning to Australia to her ailing father--and his partner who she has never gotten along with--is tough, but some surprising comfort comes in the form of being reacquainted with ...