General News

 

 

 

Noosa International Food & Wine Festival

Celebrating 10 years this year, the Noosa Food & Wine Festival already has a program packed with fantastic events, chefs and foodies.

Mary Ryan's Noosa will have a great range of titles available throughout the festival and you can visit the official website for more information here. Festival dates: 16 - 19 May 2013

Mary Ryan's Noosa is now on Facebook!

'Like' us on Facebook for regular updates, book reviews, event news, and special offers for Facebook fans.

 

The Independent Reader Program at Mary Ryan’s Noosa

At Mary Ryan’s Noosa we like to offer our program members some great bargains. Here's how it works:

1.  Pay a $25 joining fee (this is for 2 years of membership)
2. Immediately receive 10% off all full priced purchases
3. After you have spent $250, receive 25% off all full priced purchases for 2 years (you do need to keep being a member of the program though...)

To join:

call us on (07) 5455 4848
email noosa@maryryans.com.au
pop in to the store — 18 Hastings St, Noosa, or
message us on our Facebook page

Remember, if you're not local, we provide free shipping Australia-wide on purchases over $50.

And if you can't find the book you're after, just ask us — we'll find it for you!

 Mary Ryan's is not just about books! We specialise in unique cards for all occasions and also stock a small but eclectic range of music.              

Staff Book Suggestions

 

'The Other Typist' by Suzanne Rindell

New York during Prohibition, 1924-5.

Demure, colourless Rose works as a typist in the police precinct. An orphan brought up by nuns she has a rigid view on life until glamorous Odalie is hired and proceeds to turn everyone’s life upside down.

This is a very atmospheric, creepy thriller which engages the reader: you aren’t sure what might happen, but it is unlikely to work out well for Rose who is an unreliable narrator!

The setting is interesting (the speakeasies, the Jazz Age lifestyle) and the relationship between the two women fascinating. A fine debut from this author.

 

'The Enagagement' by Chloe Hooper

Acclaimed author of non fiction title ‘The Tall Man’, Chloe Hooper now presents a provocative psychological thriller in ‘The Engagement’.

 

Liese, a young, bored English woman on a working holiday in Australia, shows rental properties to prospective clients.

Alexander, wealthy fifth generation Australian cattle property owner, is looking for a pied-a-terre.

Gradually their meetings become sexual trysts in the bedrooms of the respective rental homes. Alexander pays Liese handsomely, and she takes his money to clear her considerable financial debt. It appears a game for both, and part of the game is the little stories that Liese tells, which inevitably lead her further and further out of control and into vulnerable territory.

As the feeling of menace builds the reader is led to ask – who is telling the truth, and IS this a game? -.

A satisfying read.
 

'Merivel' Rose Tremain

Merivel has become older and a little wiser since his hedonistic days in Tremain’s ‘Restoration’, although there is no need for the reader to have read this first novel of Rose Tremain.

Merivel , a doctor and surgeon, friend of King Charles, is comfortable in his Norfolk manor, has the love of his daughter and attention of his servants, but feels unsatisfied in his life accomplishments.

To lift his melancholy he seeks diversion at the court of Versailles, inspecting an introduction to King Louis, but instead being introduced to the charming and voraciously intellectual Louise de Flamanville who also meets his considerable sexual appetites. Adventures follow, with trips to Switzerland and the adoption of a caged bear in Paris, who wreaks havoc among his sheep farmers back in Norfolk.

Merivel is a wonderful character, now a little less vain, but humane and kind in person and the reader feels some empathy as he concerns himself whether he has been deserved of the love he has received throughout his life.

Rose Tremain description of the 17th Century period, the squalor, the extravagance, the debauchery, the horrors of medical treatments, the food, the clothes and landscape are enlightening and colourful.

A thoroughly enjoyable read.
 

'Bring up the Bodies' Hilary Mantel

For all those who loved Wolf Hall and eagerly awaited the next instalment of Thomas Cromwell’s machinations at the court of Henry VIII – here it is.

Now it is Anne Boleyn who is under attack: Henry has tired of her and is sure that innocent, pale Jane Seymour can give him the necessary son and heir he craves.

So it is up to Thomas to make Anne ‘disappear’ legally – and what better way than to declare the marriage a sham and have her and her paramours beheaded. Set against the backdrop of the growing Reformation church and continual unrest in Europe, Hilary Mantel once again brings humanity to the complex characters of the Tudor court, and in particular to Master Cromwell.

Highly recommended!

 

‘Trust Your Eyes’ by Linwood Barclay

Thomas travels the world via his computer screen and Whirl360.com, a program that allows him to walk any street in the world viewing everything that was captured on any given day by Whirl’s cameras – including...a murder.

No one takes Thomas, a schizophrenic, seriously, but his brother Ray agrees to investigate and lands them in a deadly conspiracy, involving political and business interests, the FBI, the police, and a glamorous professional assassin.

This page turner has merited the highest endorsement from the master Stephen King: “riveting…scary...tender and funny…the best Linwood Barclay yet.” It certainly is a roller-coaster of a thriller.
 

 

'Tigers in Red Weather' by Liza Klaussmann
 

Martha’s Vineyard in the 50s and 60s is the setting for this debut novel – the events are told by five different narrators who each cast a different slant of the story’s steamy happenings.

Daisy is the innocent teenager, Nick her brittle mother, Hughes her distant father, Helena her drunken aunt, and Ed her psychopath of a cousin.

After Daisy and Ed discover the body of a brutally murdered woman, all their lives begin to unravel.

The author handles the suspense skilfully, and her characters with affection and insight. There is a real sense of time and place which makes the story linger in your mind — highly recommended.

 

 

‘The Guilty One’ by Lisa Ballantyne

Sue Green in The Weekend Australian Review section stated that ‘The Guilty One is a wonderful book, rich and rewarding’ – a fabulous endorsement for a first novel.

Daniel Hunter is appointed solicitor for 11-year-old Sebastian, accused of murdering his friend. Daniel is concerned but believes in Sebastian’s innocence, not least because he is reminded of his own troubled childhood – in and out of care until he is ‘redeemed’ by the wonderful Minnie, a brash, tormented, but insightful woman.

The story switches between the two narratives, upholding tension in both sections – ultimately who is the guilty one? Daniel, Sebastian, Minnie or all of us.

An absorbing read.
 

 

 

 

Location - Noosa

Wellington - "Colours of Noosa". Available from Mary Ryan's Noosa.

• Bay Village Hastings Street.
• Next to the Sheraton.
• Across the road from Main Beach.
• 12 minute ferry ride from Tewantin.
• 20 minutes from Maroochydore Airport and 40 minutes form Maroochydore.
• 1.2 hours from Brisbane.
   

 

Mary Ryan's - Noosa
18 Hastings St, Noosa Heads QLD AUSTRALIA 4567 ph: +617 5455 4848 fax: +617 5455 4410 email: noosa@maryryan.com.au	Opening Hours: 7 days 9:00am - 5:30pm