The Thing about Charlie..(Part 1 of - An intro to the main protagonists)

She is 17 years old, on the cusp of that period in your life where you want so desperately to be independent..and not quite sure how to be. She is sometimes painfully shy and lacks the confidence and bravado that is often seen in later adolescence. She has lived without a mother's care and love for most of her 17 years. She is street smart as she has lived all her life in the city.  Is close to her dad Mitch who she feels has had a rough deal in his relationship with Victoria, and who has overcompensated and overprotected her, because of it. She gives off vulnerability and most people she meets, like her new friend Ruby want to protect her. She has anxiety and through the book learns to deal with it inadvertently while on the run with Tyler who she falls for, hard, and develops a fierce loyalty to, at the expense of her own safety. Through exposure to some of her fears, she learns how to be resilient, she learns how to be brave. But there is one thing she needs to face more than anything else and begin to deal with. But that one thing is the terror of her dreams; the anxious thoughts before she blacks out; the air that refuses to fill her lungs so she cannot breathe. Charlie...

As the year comes to an end..

I thought I'd share some of the Books I've read and loved this year..
They are of course all 5* reads in my opinion..

 Fiona Woods 'Cloudwish'
Cath Crowley's 'Words in Deep Blue' 
Krystal Sutherland 'Our Chemical Hearts'

These three are three of the best contemporary YA reads around. The writers have nailed their protagonists feels so well that your chest aches with the intensity of it, particularly for Sutherlands Henry as he faces unrequited love.
 
Mary Anne Yarde's ' The Du Lac Chronicles' Excellent Historical Fiction and I totally fell in love with Merton, one of the books main protagonists, you will have to read the book to find out why.. I have no doubt that he will have the same effect on you as he did on me...
Marion Kurmennow's 'Unrelenting' Based on a true story about the authors grandparents and the harsh treatment of German Jews in the second World war, Unrelenting is a sad frightening read that was hard to put down.

All of the above was for me a totally satisfying read and I hope they will be for you as well..they are all available on Amazons books.com at a ridiculously low price.. happy reading everyone.

The Green Room: And for some unknown reason..

The Green Room: And for some unknown reason..: my biog app has decided that it will no longer allow me to write a post and closes down at any attempt to write more than a few words..and I...

And for some unknown reason..

my biog app has decided that it will no longer allow me to write a post and closes down at any attempt to write more than a few words..and I have tried to fix the problem to no avail.. this has happened before and a quick update of software and I'm up and running but this time no such luck, as far as I can see there is no update required.. so I'm back to laptop posts which are fine but a little inconvenient and a tad frustrating when I seem to get a light bulb moment mostly when I'm out and about without the big guy.. but hey things could be worse, my phone could die and believe me without access to twitter, Instagram, FB, my Kindle app, Pinterest, watt pad, my notes, colorfly solitaire + other games too numerous (read embarrassing) to mention here..well I'm not sure if life would be worth living (drama queen sighs) ^^^^^^^...
(Mmmm Note to self: might be the cause of NOT getting enough writing done)
The end...

39,000 WORDS and counting..

How hard is it to get to 50,000 words? Sooo dam hard sometimes it takes all you've got and then some..have you ever wondered why you can't get more than 300 words on the page each time you write.. this happens to me constantly, I think I have a good run on words and I get to the end of a block and find I'm around the 300 mark again, and again..
I surprised myself while away recently traveling to Newcastle by car to see my new grandson and somehow manged to get over 3000 down, partly, thanks to my husband and son who took it in turns to drive and partly because I made myself cosy in the back seat with pillows and coffee and snacks and just wrote, and wrote some more. And then the brilliant thing is that making a choice to travel home by train instead of flying means I did the same again astonishingly getting past the 6000 word count in less than one week.. so now i just need to plan another trip away.. where I'm strapped in my seat with plenty of snacks and coffee and you never know I might get the dam book finished sometime this year..or not..

Early mornings late nights and...

Writing in between farm work, in bed, over meals, in front of the TV, on the way up the coast, in cafes, as a matter of fact anywhere possible to get to 50,000 + words..its tiring, exacting, frustrating and exhilarating and unbelievably astonishing when you reach your goal..and what's that I say..just a few more 51 & counting..

When you hope for a review..then you get this!!

Strong Characters in an intriguing Storyline

By Judith Rook - September 1, 2016 Breathless" brings into vivid existence the life of an Australian adolescent in the final year of school. The educational setting, and the relationships which build and grow there are authentic and convincing, as is the home life of the protagonist, Charlie, a girl at the boundary between independent living and emotional dependency on the father she loves.
Where is her mother? The question is one of the many interesting twists in this very well-crafted young adult novel and exists as a dark line which runs throughout the narrative, carrying with it a sense of unresolved mystery and fear.
MM Carter has a remarkable gift for character creation; even those who make only minor appearances are rounded and strong, and the main characters spring almost instantaneously into complete and persuasive reality. The year bully is cleverly used as a mirror for Charlie’s own growth and his comeuppance is a little different from similar cases of uncertain egos.
And what a reality there is in this book. The reader is taken at a very fast pace repeatedly from small crisis to large climax. The storyline is full of incident and tension, there is excellent developmental conflict between the youthful characters and a large-scale external structural conflict. Just the stuff to engage a young adult reader, and a more mature adult reader too.
It is a shame that the final proof-read did not pick up a number of grammatical errors, which happen often enough to call for a mention. But apart from that, in "Breathless", MM Carter demonstrates accomplished writing skills and presents a book which is well worth taking into a personal library for more than one read.