This week marks my twenty-first post for the year of my Bok Bingo challenge, which has been chugging along well. So well in fact, I’m whipping through my second card quite rapidly, with a few squares to be decided and written up. For this post, all three books are by Australian women, scoring a hattrick for the post and overall Australian women writers challenge. In fact, many of the books for this year could have ticked off the book by an Australian woman over sixty times. At this stage, I have read and reviewed sixty-four books by Australian women, with more to come.
Rows Across:
Row #2 –
A book with a yellow cover:
A book by an author you’ve never read before: If Kisses Cured Cancer by T.S. Hawken
A non-fiction book:
A collection of short stories: Fairy Tales for Feisty Girls by Susannah McFarlane – AWW2018
A book with themes of culture: Relic of the Blue Dragon (Children of the Dragon #1) by Rebecca Lim – AWW2018
Row #3: –
A book written by an Australian woman: Disappearing Act by Jacqueline Harvey (Kensy and Max #2) – AWW2018, The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton – AWW2018
A book written by an Australian man: Captain Cook’s Apprentice by Anthony Hill
A prize-winning book:
A book that scares you: What the Woods Keep by Katya de Becerra – AWW2018
A book with a mystery: The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes (Mitford Murders #1
Row #4
A forgotten classic:
A book with a one-word title:
A book with non-human characters: A Home for Molly by Holly Webb, Beast World by George Ivanoff
A funny book: Archibald, the Naughtiest Elf in the World Goes to the Zoo by Skye Davidson, Illustrated by Ágnes Rokiczky – AWW2018
A book with a number in the title:
Rows Down:
Row #4 –BINGO
A book more than 500 pages: The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton – AWW2018
A collection of short stories: Fairy Tales for Feisty Girls by Susannah McFarlane – AWW2018
A book that scares you: What the Woods Keep by Katya de Becerra – AWW2018
A funny book: Archibald, the Naughtiest Elf in the World Goes to the Zoo by Skye Davidson, Illustrated by Ágnes Rokiczky -AWW2018
A book written by someone under thirty: The Yellow House by Emily O’Grady – AWW2018
First off, is a picture book, and this fills in the square for a funny book. Archibald, The Naughtiest Elf in the World Goes to the Zoo by Skye Davidson, published by Elephant Tree Publishing, slots into this category nicely. When Archibald decides to go to the local zoo, he is quickly spotted by the zoo keeper selling tickets and is told to behave himself – poor Archibald tries to be good, but he always seems to be getting into trouble – whatever he tries. At the zoo, all he wants is for the animals to be able to play with each other. What happens next is charming, hilarious and so magical, children will delight in reading this with someone or on their own as they learn to read independently. A story well worth trying to get your hands on.
Second up is a book that scares me. This one is a debut novel by Katya de Becerra – What the Woods Keep, and for those who embrace the macabre, it is perfect. Filled with hints of science fiction, mythology and dark fantasy, it compels you to read on, lulling you into a false sense of safety until you hit Promise, and quite literally, all hell breaks loose. The woods are a terrifying place, where big bad things happen. People go missing or die. They are swallowed up whole by the environment and never heard from again. It is a chilling, intriguing book that will keep you awake at night, wondering what to expect next. Though you’ll want to set it aside to recover from what has just happened, you will also want to continue reading to see how it plays out for Hayden and to finally feel your heart start beating at a normal rate again. Horrifying and intriguing, this is a great book for those in search of a spooky tale.
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Finally, we get to what has to be one of my favourite books of the year, because it combines feisty girls and fairy tales, and my little nerd heart couldn’t have been happier, having studied fairy tales at university, and developing a love for them in their raw, unabridged forms, with the lopping off of limbs, dancing in red hot shoes and thorny punishments, to the various retellings that have sanitised them or taken them to the absolute extremes, to the fairy tale retellings that are coming out in abundance these days in various genres, in particular the fairy tale infused historical fiction written by Kate Forsyth. So for the short story square, Susannah McFarlane’s book, Fairytales for Feisty Girls captures this spot. Susannah has taken well known tales – Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel and Thumbelina – fairy tale girls who have previously been acted upon, and passive in the original oral tales and Brothers Grimm versions – and allows them to act for themselves. Rapunzel is an inventor, using the things Mother Gothel brings her to create things to help around the house, much to Gothel’s horror. Red Riding Hood and her grandmother outwit a wolf, Thumbelina finds her way home and Cinderella makes her own fortunes with the glass slipper. Each girl does something using the key aspects and symbols of the original tales to save herself, showing girls of all ages that they can be who they want, do what they want and that they don’t need to wait for the prince or woodsman (who, funnily enough in this story, has lost his axe), to save them.
Wrapping book bingo 21, and moving onto book bingo 22 in a couple weeks.
Fairy-tales and fairy-tale retellings have been a passion of mine for many years. From the oral traditions to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, to Disney and all the authors such as Kate Forsyth wo have used fairy tales in their stories, the tradition of the fairy-tale is alive and well. Each retelling reveals something new, a new layer to the story, a new way to see history through the scaffolding of a fairy-tale, or a new way to explore diversity and identity. Each story is empowering and funny, set in a time of magic and wonder, and invention, in a place that is both far away but that could be anywhere.
Title: The Beast’s Heart
At the start of the story, the Beast, whom we know to be a prince or at least, a noble from the original and previous retellings, is lonely, and losing track of time. He mentions a Fairy and the curse, and the invisible servants – who see to his every need. When Isabeau’s father, Monsieur de la Noue stumbles across his wintry castle, where seasons don’t occur as they do outside the gates, the Beast and his invisible servants extend hospitality towards him – until he plucks a rise from the rose garden for Isabeau – and a deal is struck: Isabeau must come and stay with the Beast for a year in exchange for her father not being killed. Isabeau agrees, and whilst she is at the castle, the Beast watches her family thrive with gifts he sends them magically, and their fortunes change. As the year goes by, the Beast and Isabeau become friends – but the Beast – as in other reincarnations – begins to fall in love, seeking for her to save him from the curse.
Title: The Belles
The next square I managed to fill was the last square in the fourth row a book with a number in the title. This also filled in a book published in 2018 for my other challenge and ticked off another book in the Australian Women Writer’s challenge – I have many books that will fill some categories in book bingo and the other challenge, but I am aiming for a different one for each category if I can.
I have managed to check off three other squares as well. For square twenty-two, a book based on a true story, I read 
Title: The Tides Between
