Book Review: “The Kitchen Daughter” by Jael McHenry

I stayed up until 2am so that I could read this novel in one session. This is the story of a family with Asperger’s syndrome and what it means to be normal. Food and cooking are Ginny’slife support and recipes give shape to the book as well as conjuring up the ghosts of the writers. A very satisfying book about loss as well as finding the truth.
RUTH HAIG

After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning (“do no let her…”) before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.

Kyogle Spinners and Weavers

Casino Library hosted the Kyogle Spinners and Weavers Tuesday last week, with the day being a great success. Nearly everyone that visited the library went and and had a look, with some even trying their hand at spinning!

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Kyogle Spinners and Weavers

The Kyogle Spinners and Weavers group will be holding a demonstration at Casino Library on the 23rd October from 10am-5pm. There will be items for sale and all are welcome to come and have a chat.

Roald Dahl’s Birthday!

Celebrate Roald Dahl’s 96th birthday (if he was still alive) by reliving your favourite childhood memories with some of his wondeful tales all available at your library. Or choose to introduce someone close to you to the wonder Roald Dahl

• Fantastic Mr Fox
• Matilda
• The Twits
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Fan of fifty Shades … ?

Why not try these other novels similar to the Fifty Shades series all available today at your library!

• Bared to you by Sylvia Day (Book one in the Crossfire series)

Bared to You by Sylvia Day is the first in the Crossfire trilogy featuring Gideon and Eva, two wounded souls who come together in an explosion of lust and passion as intoxicating as it is devastating – the perfect read for fans of bestselling erotic romance Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.

Our journey began in fire . . .

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness – beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily . . .

Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other’s most private wounds . . . and desires.

The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn’t tear us apart…

• Beautiful disaster by Jamie McGuire

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate percentage of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance between her and the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

• Haven of obedience by Marina Anderson

Twenty-something Londoner Natalie Bowen is envied by many, but her personal life is a disaster. Men can’t cope with her career success and Natalie thinks she’ll never find real happiness. When she hears about an exclusive weekend retreat called the Haven, a place that specializes in introducing visitors to pleasures they could never have imagined, she is shocked at the idea—yet unable to resist finding out more. Natalie decides it’s time to put her fears behind her. Once at the Haven, she meets the enigmatic and disciplined Simon, a man who is used to getting what he wants. Natalie may very well have met her match.

• The secret lives of Emma: beginnings by Natasha Walker

Thirty-something Emma Benson is a free spirit. For her a good life means a life of sensuality. So it’s a surprise to everyone when she marries David, a successful businessman, and settles down in the suburbs. One year on, and she’s trying so hard to be loyal to her man. Not easy to do when you’re passionate and uninhibited.

But then, while sunbathing in her garden, her neighbour’s eighteen-year-old son appears. And Emma has found her new project. She will be his perfect teacher

• In too deep by Portia Da Costa

Librarian Gwendolyne Price starts finding indecent proposals and sexy stories in her suggestion box. Shocked that they seem to be tailored specifically to her own deepest sexual fantasies, she begins a tantalizing relationship with a man she’s never met. Soon enough, erotic letters and toe-curlingly sensual emails don’t suffice; she has to meet her mysterious correspondent in the flesh.

• Corralled by Lorelei James (Blacktop Cowboys)

First in a new series about some hard-riding rodeo cowboys…and the women who can rein them in.

Sports therapist Lainie Capshaw has been rehabilitating injured cowboys long enough to know that a charming western drawl combined with a fine physical form doesn’t mean you fall for the man.

So no one is more surprised than Lainie when she finds herself involved with not one, but two different men: Hank Lawson, a bullfighter, and Kyle Gilchrist, a bull rider. Lainie feels guilty about her two-timing, but it doesn’t keep her from doubling her fun-that is until Hank catches her with Kyle.

She’s shocked that Hank isn’t mad. But she’s more shocked to learn Hank and Kyle are hometown buddies. But when the men offer to share her-in every way-she knows that she’s going to have to choose the one man who can give her the ride of her life…

• Colters’ woman by Maya Banks (Colters’ legacy)

Adam, Ethan and Ryan aren’t looking for women. They’re looking for a woman. One woman to share their lives and their beds. They don’t want a casual romp in the hay, they want the woman who will complete them and they’re losing hope of finding her. That is until Adam finds Holly lying in the snow just yards from their cabin. He knows she’s different the minute he holds her in his arms. But before Adam gets his hopes up, he knows he has to gauge his brothers reactions. Soon its evident that she’s the one. There are a few problems, however, like convincing her she belongs with them and keeping her safe from the man who wants her dead.

RICH LAND, WASTELAND book launch – Sharyn Munro

Sharyn Munro will be doing a talk and signing on Wednesday the 19th September at Casino Library 5.30-7.30pm
If you would like to attend or would like more information please call Casino Library on 6662 6160

For nearly a year Sharyn Munro travelled through rural Australia to communities in coal-mining areas.  She found a war zone.

Towns and districts “at the coalface” are dying, homeowners and farmers forced out by mining and the coal seam gas (CSG) industry or else under threat, incidences of asthma, cancers and heart attacks show alarming spikes in communities close to coal mines and coal power stations, and yet….our Australian government seems powerless (or unwilling) to act.

Rivers, aquifers and bores are drying up or becoming polluted, fertile agricultural land is becoming unusable but the big, mostly foreign-owned, mining companies push on with their coal rush and the government assists and protects them.  Now our Northern Rivers is under threat….