Review: ‘Finding Home’ by Lauren K. McKellar

In the interests of starting as I mean to go on with reviewing works by Australian women writers (and other writers more broadly) on my blog, I decided to do a review of one of my favourite YA reads from 2013. Unlike almost everything I read, Finding Home is contemporary rather than speculative fiction. But, despite being outside my usual reading habits, it blew me away. (For the sake of full disclosure, I think the author, Lauren McKellar is very talented and cute as a button. I’m pleased to be able to call her my friend. But this hasn’t affected my review of this book. Trust me!)

When Amy’s mum dies, the last thing she expects is to be kicked off her dad’s music tour all the way to her Aunt Lou in a depressing hole of a seaside town. But it’s okay — Amy learned how to cope with the best, and soon finds a hard-drinking, party-loving crowd to help ease the pain.

The only solace is her music class, but even there she can’t seem to keep it together, sabotaging her grade and her one chance at a meaningful relationship. It takes a hard truth from her only friend before Amy realises that she has to come to terms with her past, before she destroys her future.

I devoured Finding Home in a day. While not everyone has a pop star father — who I imagine looks like an Australian Rod Stewart — Amy’s experiences with teenage parties and high school life are so authentic that most teenagers, and adults who remember what it was like to be teenagers, will be able to identify.

Amy makes some bad choices, but as a reader you’re taken on that journey with her. Even though you can see the trainwreck coming, you can still understand why she did what she did in each case. She sometimes acts like a brat but, although I wanted to shake her at times, I never felt her actions were unrealistic.

Most importantly, after she hits rock bottom she comes out the other side, a better person who has learned from her experience and does the right thing.

Finding Home tackles a couple of big teenage issues: problem drinking and unprotected sex. Amy’s mother is an alcoholic, and after her death it’s unsurprising that Amy struggles with the same issue. Like so many teenage — and, let’s be honest, adult — girls, she makes a bad decision while drunk. McKellar takes us through the experience and it’s aftereffects in a very realistic fashion, something I’ve never seen in a book before. And she manages to look at both issues without being preachy, something that’s vital in a YA read. Teeangers can smell a moral lesson like my dog can smell a pocketful of treats, but greet it with much less enthusiasm!

I give Finding Home five stars. I’m really looking forward to other books by this author.

Review – ‘Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh’ by Katie Hamstead

When I was asked to participate in a review tour for one of my favourite 2013 releases, new adult historical romance Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh by Katie Hamstead, I was thrilled. I don’t often review books on this blog (I’m not sure why, exactly) but I really did love this book. And I’m not just saying that because Katie’s an Aussie and I like to support Australian writers.

When Naomi’s sisters are snatched up to be taken to be wives of the erratic Pharaoh, Akhenaten, she knows they won’t survive the palace, so she offers herself in their place. The fearsome Commander Horemheb sees her courage, and knows she is exactly what he is looking for…

The Great Queen Nefertiti despises Naomi instantly, and strips her of her Hebrew lineage, including her name, which is changed to Kiya. Kiya allies herself with Horemheb, who pushes her to greatness and encourages her to make the Pharaoh fall in love with her. When Akhenaten declares Kiya will be the mother of his heir, Nefertiti, furious with jealousy, schemes to destroy Kiya.

Kiya must play the deadly game carefully. She is in a silent battle of wills, and a struggle for who will one day inherit the crown. If she does bear an heir, she knows she will need to fight to protect him, as well as herself, from Nefertiti — who is out for blood.

I’ve always been interested in Egyptology but was never a student of it (if that makes sense) — and I usually find historical fiction dusty and dull. But Kiya is the sort of character-driven story that keeps you turning the pages until there aren’t any more, and then you wonder when the sequel is coming out. It has enough historical detail in there to set the scene but not so much that you’re bogged down in it and lose sight of the story.

There’s romance, intrigue, betrayal, more romance … It takes a powerful and clever person to rise in the vicious Egyptian court, and Kiya has to swim with the crocodiles or be eaten by them. And yet she manages to do it while maintaining her innate good nature. The pharaoh Akhenaten is crazy and dangerous at times, but he actually genuinely seems to try and care about his (insane number of) wives. I just wish he’d been a bit stronger, to kick Nefertiti to the curb — as they say in Ancient Egyptian parlance. 😉

One of the plot twists at the event left me teary, and I almost never cry when I’m reading. (Gasp, get bug-eyed — sure. But cry? Almost never.)

This was a five-star read for me.

Find Kiya on the Web: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Curiosity Quills

Born and raised in Australia, Katie’s early years of day dreaming in the “bush”, and having her father tell her wild bedtime stories, inspired her passion for writing. After graduating High School, she became a foreign exchange student where she met a young man who several years later she married. Now she lives in Arizona with her husband, daughter and their dog.

She has a diploma in travel and tourism which helps inspire her writing. She is currently at school studying English and Creative Writing.

Katie loves to out sing her friends and family, play sports and be a good wife and mother. She now works as a Clerk with a lien company in Arizona to help support her family and her schooling. She loves to write, and takes the few spare moments in her day to work on her novels.

You can find Katie on Goodreads, Facebook or Twitter.