Jack of Diamonds by Bryce Courtenay

Bryce Courtenay is a legendary writer.  South African born and raised, Courtenay was a married man and father well established in the advertising world in Australia (he is credited with Louie the Fly and the Milky Bar Kid) when he began getting his writing published.  A quick glance through the titles he has had published, starting with The Power of One in 1989, shows me I only have a handful left to read.

Sadly, Bryce Courtenay passed away from gastric cancer in 2012 and his final book was Jack of Diamonds.  Here is the cover and blurb from the cover flap.

This book begins in the depressed slum of Toronto, Canada, in the Great Depression.  The title character, Jack Spayd, is lucky enough to catch the ear of a jazz pianist while playing a harmonica his father gave him out the back of a piano club and so begins his education thanks to a benefactor.  Jack serves a short apprenticeship playing piano in a prairie city out west before becoming a media and army entertainer in WWII Europe. 

On his return from war, Jack moves to Las Vegas after being prompted by an old war friend, who is from a mob family.  This is an exciting time, when Las Vegas rapidly developed from a small desert town into the neon flashing, 24 hour entertainment and gambling capital of the US.  Alas, another old war time friend is a constant threat to all who Jack holds dear in Las Vegas and finally an event tips the balance and Jack is left to contemplate his future without his dearest passion and the woman he loves.

This takes Jack to Africa, to a new adventure, where his talents with the cards win him friends and enemies, but his colour blind attitude to race causes him greater problems again.

At the end of the book, there is a footnote from Courtenay claiming he had material for a second book about Jack.... but he had run out of life to write it.  Instead his second book was squished into 13 page Epilogue which ties up the lose ends of the story of Jack Spayd.

What I love about Bryce Courtenay is that he is a great thinker of stories.  His novels have an epic quality.  However, they all have a degree of waffle that get on my goat.  The detail that Courtenay goes to his books can be a bit monotonous and longwinded.  It is as consistent in each of his novel as his voice is in the story telling.  I can picture Courtenay and his editor battling out how much waffle could be trimmed from each novel.  As much as the waffle irritates me, his epic story telling engulfs me in each of his novels every time.... and Jack of Diamonds is no exception.

I think this meme below sums up me as a reader and how easy it is to be enveloped into the world of story telling by Bryce Courtenay.

Pacific by Judy Nunn

Fun fact about this author: Judy Nunn is a well known Australian actress, particularly well known for her role in Home and Away as Ailsa Stewart, Alf's wife, and a screenwriter.  She has proven that not only is she a talent on the stage and screen, but Judy Nunn is also an engaging story teller.

Pacific is about a young Australian soap actress, Samantha, who goes to England to star in a pantomime in a seaside town.  She is boarded in a stately home which now offers luxury accommodation.  This is where time shifts back into the decades leading up to the second World War, focusing on the young girl who lived in the house and her working class best friend growing up into young ladies as WWII breaks out.

 

Samantha is offered a breakout film role to be filmed in Vanuatu.  The film is loosely based on a woman called Mumma Tack and her love affair with an American soldier in Vanuatu during WWII - a story which links back to the house Samantha stayed in in England while acting in the pantomime. 

 

I really enjoyed reading this book.  The switching back and forth between the modern and past times added texture and intrigue to the story.  Judy Nunn paints a vivid picture with words of the characters, places and times.

Sunset Ridge by Nicole Alexander

I purchased this book on a bit of a whim from The Warehouse.  I am a bit of a browser in the book section most times I enter The Warehouse, just like at Whitcoulls or Paper Plus or my other favourite book stores Pennys (Chartwell Square) and Wright's Bookstore in Cambridge and that fantastic bookstore in Matamata that truly only has books!

 

I think what attracted me to this book, Sunset Ridge, was the cover, soldiers silhouetted in an obvious World War I setting.  I have to confess to being a bit of a historical novel junkie, and when you throw a World War in I'm generally hooked.

 

So here is the cover and back of the book blurb:

 



I haven't read this author before, but apparently Nicole Alexander is a best selling author in Australia and had a book called The Bark Cutters shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Award in 2011, and yep, she is an Australian.  To find out more about Nicole Alexander and her books, click here.

It took a little bit for me to get into this book.  It starts out in 2000 in the Queensland outback on the road.  The introductory character, Madeleine, is rather prickly and not initially an easy character to connect with. 

Then, before you know it, you are flicked back into France, behind the Western Front, 1916.  You get introduced to a whole lot of new characters. 

Then you're in the Queensland outback in 1916 meeting more characters, Madeleine's forebears.  The novel flicks back between these settings and times throughout.  It gradually fleshes out the characters and their relationships and backstories and why they are who they are.  It also gradually puts together how an outback family and a French family have connections.

While it took me a good 200 or so pages to connect with this 472 page novel, I did eventually get invested in the characters and their story.  It also reaffirmed to me what a terrible war WWI was in terms of what mankind can do to each other, how the first industrial mechanical war could cause such havoc and have an effect long after it ended to the land and the people.  It also was interesting to see a side to the war that we don't often reflect on, how those with German ancestry in Australia (and most likely in New Zealand too), no matter how tenuous, were treated during that time.