Kerry McGinnis

This book sat for an age in the to-read pile, partly cause it’s adult chicklit and there was a mountain of more urgent YA to read, some of which was in genres that interest me more, but largely cause the cover is a lovely landscape photograph of an old sandstone house under a sunset sky – great as a watercolour but far too static to engage as a book cover. So, in Coronavirus isolation, lacking anything more compelling to read, I picked it up yesterday. By chapter five – characters and context established – I didn’t want to put it down.
Fleeing a negligence case at work and a husband who left her for the umpteenth Other Woman, Kate has ended up in her hometown, where for reasons that soon become clear, she is staying with the parents of her childhood friend, Megan. She soon finds work as a cook/housekeeper for an ornery retired farmer, Harry, whose sharp wit and ability to turn on the ‘old pensioner act’ remind me of any number of old bushmen I’ve known. The harsh tranquillity of her new home at Rosebud allows Kate to reflect on her abusive childhood, her loving father’s magnificent cabinetry and the best way to ‘tame’ young Maxie, a neglected child who Harry has taken under wing.
The author’s love of the wide, dry land is a palpable hymn to Aussie farmers everywhere. While the plot is nominally driven by nine-year-old Megan’s unsolved abduction, this is a character study – or perhaps more accurately, given the omniscient narrator’s habit of momentarily accessing other characters’ minds, a town story. The focus is on a tight-knit community of farming families – the ancient Stones, the ubiquitous Quicklys - with glimpses into government and policing, and the way a town can pull together after a tragedy. McGinnis doesn’t shy away at the darker aspects of mallee life – domestic violence, neglected children, working animals that are clearly not pets – but they are balanced by a slow-burn romance that reflects the beauty of this harsh unconquerable landscape.
This is a White town and McGinnis makes the only merest nod to invasion history, laid out subtly as a backdrop to the district’s farming history that Harry is writing – the vast farming properties are clearly built on slaughter and genocide. Traditional gender roles go unremarked, despite the inclusion of a gay character whose life is in any case allocated to the city where he lives, and Maxie’s Down’s Syndrome mum is almost entirely absent from the story. Usually these kinds of issues would have me crying tokenism, but here they pass as a keenly observed understanding of ‘how it was’ for Anglo Australians in a country town of a certain era (according to the novel’s timeline, the 1990s, but thrown back to the 50s and 70s). These are real people with real blindspots, portrayed by an author who has lived their experiences.
Mallee Sky is an easy read that flows very naturally once the initial backstories are over. Even the flashbacks are woven unobtrusively into her ‘here and now’, making it one of the best constructed novels I’ve read in a while. It may be an adult novel, but it’s perfectly placed in my girls-school library. Despite Kate’s age (29), it’s essentially a coming of age story that will be accessible to readers from 14 up. I group Mallee Sky with Jackie French’s Matilda Saga novels and especially recommend it to rural schools who are looking for books that reflect students’ own contexts.… (meer)

Croc Country is an engaging novel blending romance and suspense from Kerry McGinnis.

After the tragic drowning of her husband and toddler daughter, Tilly left Queensland to become the house manager for the rangers of Binboona Wildlife Sanctuary, in the Northern Territory’s Gulf country. She finds solace in her routine, but when two policeman arrive and suggest not only that her husband may still be alive but possibly near by, Tilly is stunned. While refusing to believe such a betrayal possible, when Tilly and ranger Luke discover evidence of wildlife smuggling, and visiting botanist Connor makes a confession, she is forced to face the ghosts of her past.

McGinnis develops a strong and interesting plot of intrigue in Croc Country involving smuggling, corruption and murder. I thought the intersection of various agencies was quite unique and the the action was well paced, tense, and exciting. While honestly Tilly’s husbands involvement is a bit of a stretch, it’s a minor flaw.

I liked the mix of characters, particularly non nonsense Sophie and enthusiastic ranger, and twitcher, Luke. The romance that develops between Tilly and Connor is a pleasant, low key element of the story. As they are quite a young couple, I found the old fashioned endearments between them a little awkward though.

Though Binboona Wildlife Sanctuary is fictional, McGinnis places it in the east of the Gulf, near The Lost City, the site of ancient sandstone pillars. While vivid description from the author brings the beautiful landscape to life, she also details the work of the rangers in preserving it. They are kept busy with numerous tasks including land maintenance, wildlife protection, and hosting a seasonal influx of tourists, which I liked learning more about.

I was waiting for a crocodile to make an appearance in truth, but instead we meet a canny butcherbird, an injured brolga, a trio of orphaned joey’s, a sweet sugar glider, and a rare bat, along with the odd snake which slithers by.

Croc Country is my favourite of McGinnis’s bestselling novels so far… (meer)

The Roadhouse is an engaging story of romantic suspense, the eleventh novel set in the Australian Outback region from author Kerry McGinnis.

When Charlie Carver learns of her cousin’s suicide, she decides to leave behind her life in Melbourne, making her way to the remote roadhouse, east of Alice Springs, that she calls home. Little seems to have changed during her five year absence, except her mother appears to be struggling, and within days of Charlie’s return, Molly has a heart attack is is airlifted to Adelaide for life saving surgery.
Charlie willingly steps up to run the roadhouse with the assistance of long time handyman, Bob, and a new cook, Polish backpacker Ute, and is also tasked with taking care of the details related to her cousin’s death. Though she disliked Annabelle, whose beauty barely masked her selfishness, and is beginning to suspect that the suicide could have been faked, Charlie is as shocked and puzzled as everyone else when the body of a murdered woman is found at a nearby abandoned mine site, and is identified as Annabelle.
When Charlie’s family home is ransacked shortly afterwards, she believes the incident is somehow connected to a visit Annabelle made shortly before her death, and danger could be closer to home than anyone expects.

I really enjoyed the mystery element of The Roadhouse, which firstly focuses on the possible motives for Annabelle’s suicide. Charlie is suspicious of the verdict from the outset, believing that even if Annabelle killed herself, she would never choose that particular manner in which to die. After the discovery of Annabelle’s body proves her right, Charlie speculates as to the meaning of a recent visit Annabelle made to the Roadhouse with a strange man in tow, and after the break in at her home, rashly follows a hunch and finds herself in a fight for her life in a tense and thrilling confrontation.

Unfortunately I did feel that the relationship between Charlie and Mike, a stockman she meets from a nearby station, was underdeveloped. The seeds of attraction were sown, but the couple spent very little time together, even less time alone together, and their relationship was unusually chaste for two twenty somethings in this day and age, all of which made Charlie’s ‘proposal’ awkwardly presumptuous, rather than romantic, in my opinion.

The Roadhouse is also a story about family. Molly was not a demonstrative mother, and Charlie’s feckless late father favoured Annabelle, who came to live with Charlie’s family as a young girl after the death of her own parents. Charlie felt overshadowed by her beautiful cousin whose spiteful behaviour towards her often went unnoticed. Charlie hopes to forge a closer relationship with her mother on her return home, and
over the course of the novel comes to understand more about her family’s dynamics.

Ute, with her unique grasp of English, was probably my favourite character in The Roadhouse, I enjoyed the humour she brought to the story and her practical approach to every facet of her life. I also liked the curmudgeonly Bob, whose gruff exterior fails to hide his soft spot for Charlie and Molly.

With a dramatic suspense plot, and likeable characters, in an uniquely Australian setting, I enjoyed The Roadhouse.… (meer)

Kerry McGinnis always writes a story that is both interesting and unique. His novels combine family tension with suspense in a rural setting that is not your average country town. She’s done it again in The Heartwood Hotel, a story set in a town with less than ten inhabitants. Don’t think though for a minute that this story is going to be dull – there is enough action and intrigue for a much larger town!

I think this book is set in the early 1990s (it was a little difficult to tell, as there is a reference to the wet season of 1990-91), so there isn’t any internet, mobile phones or social media in this story. In fact, a minor subplot involves the installation of a Telecom pay phone! Once I got this straight in my head, I was fine with this book as I knew we couldn’t locate any lost people with their phone signal or use GPS. The time period makes the setting even quainter – there are paper letters involved and people can truly just disappear. For Lyn and Adam Portman, living in Tewinga is somewhat of a blessing and a curse. Running the only store, petrol pump and pub in town with Lyn’s father is a seven day a week, 365 day a year job. But it helps calm Adam, who is a Vietnam veteran and lets Lyn keep an eye on her aging father. It’s a happy, simple life until it’s not. There are some nasty types on a nearby station who take pot-shots at Lyn and Adam’s worker, Max. The local policeman is too lazy to care. Then things really kick off with a helicopter crash and Max failing to return from a weekend expedition. Lyn is sure something bad has happened, but the police aren’t keen to take things seriously. Meanwhile, a chance finding of a photograph and a conversation between Lyn and her brother start a chain of events that will reveal the secrets in Lyn’s family. Will she make it through the drama unscathed?

As you might have guessed, there is a lot happening in The Heartwood Hotel. On reflection, I have a lot of appreciation for Kerry McGinnis’s plotting skills. Everything in the story happens for a reason and ties in just so to the other events (even if you can’t quite see it at the time). While Lyn is a very clever and compassionate character, she’s not quite perfect which prevented her from being annoying. Max, the worker, is a sweetheart, who you can’t help but worry for. Both his youth and shy courtship of a governess on a local station is lovely to read. Likewise, Max’s father is sturdy and wise. Kirsty and son Benjy, who run the campground, are quite intriguing characters. Kirsty quite clearly has a history of troubled times, but she’s a gruff, stoic character who will bring a smile or two to your face as she slowly becomes part of the community. Perhaps my favourite ‘character’ of all was the tiny town of Terwinga. A blink and you’ll miss it place with just a few buildings at the end of a deserted railhead town, it got under my skin. I can still picture the buildings, the way sunlight and the heat got into them and see the dust moving down the street. It’s an authentic representation of the beauty of the Australian Outback and the history these now quiet towns hold.

Overall, The Heartwood Hotel is a captivating read combining suspense with family drama. I look forward to reading more and more by Kerry McGinnis to capture the Australian Outback when I can’t get there myself.

Thank you to Penguin Australia for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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