The Housekeeper: A twisted psychological thriller by Natalie Barelli

                                        

Description

She's a liar. She's a stalker. She's in your house.

The Housekeeper: A twisted psychological thriller which is (published in October 2019), the work of an Australian author Natalie Barelli. The novel takes you on a thrilling ride with two ladies who have their own secretive pasts; in fact, everyone in the house has their own secrets.

When Claire sees Hannah Wilson at an exclusive Manhattan hair salon, It's like a knife slicing through barely healed scars. It may have been ten years since Clair last saw Hannah, but she has thought of her every day with the fire of revenge in her mind. Hannah is now Mrs. Carter, living the charmed and extravagant life that should have been Clair's. It's the life Claire used to have before Hannah came along and took it all away from her.

Back then, Claire was. a happy teenager with porcelain skin and long, wavy blond hair. Now she is an overweight, lazy drunk with hair the color of compost and skin to match. This is why when Hannah advertises for a housekeeper, Clair is confident that she won't be recognized if she applies for the post. And since she has time on her hands, revenge on her mind, and talent of acting...

Because What better way to seek retribution--ane redress--than from within the beautiful Mrs. Hannah carter's own home? 

And now, there's no way out.

About the Author

Natalie Barelli is an Australian writer who lives in the beautiful Blue Mountains outside Sydney with her extended family. She writes psychological thriller, domestic noir with a touch of dark humor. She loves to read books and when she is not absorbed in the latest gripping page-turner she likes to ride a motorcycle, knits and spends her time browsing on the internet. 

Barelli's upcoming book titled 'Unfaithful' is reaching her readers in the month of November of 2020. Her previous books include a series titled 'Emma Fern' which has two novels: Until I Met Her (2016) and After He Killed Me (2017); and four novels: Missing Molly (2018), The Loyal Wife (2018), The Accident (2019), The Housekeeper (2019).

Natalie Barelli
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  Rating: 4.3/5

  Author: Natalie Barelli

  Publisher: Furphies Press

  Publishing Date: November 1, 2019

  Edition Language: English

  Genre: Domestic Thriller, Psychological Fiction, Psychological Thriller

  ISBN-10: 0648225976

  ISBN-13: 978-0648225973

  Pages: 266

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Cry of the Kalahari by Mark-Delia Owens

Description

Cry of the Kalahari (1984) is an autobiographical book detailing two young American zoologists, Mark and Delia Owens, and their experience studying wildlife in the Kalahari desert in Botswana in the mid-1970s. They lived with a few pairs of clothes and a pair of binoculars for seven years in an uninhabited area named Deception Valley in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. With no roads, no water for thousands of square miles, and no people. The nearest civilization was eight hours away, they had only each other and the animals they studied as a company, most of which had never seen humans before. Their research focused mainly on lions, brown hyenas, jackals, and other African carnivores. Cry of the Kalahari is the personal story of the Owens' encounters with these and a myriad of other animals and depicts their own struggle to live and work in such an inhospitable and unforgiving environment.

Cry of the Kalahari was a national and international bestseller, translated into seven languages, and is the 1985 John Burroughs Medal winner.          

"A remarkable story beautifully told... Among such classics as Goodall's In the Shadow of Man and Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist."--Chicago Tribune

About the Author

Mark Owens born in 1944, is an American author biologist, zoologist, environmental activist, lecturer, and writer. He got married to her second wife Delia Dykes (Owens) in 1974. He lectured throughout the United States and Canada. He conducted research projects on animals in Africa with his then-wife Delia Owens, including in the Kalahari desert in Botswana (1974-81) and in Zambia (1985-97). He developed the North Luangwa Conservation Project (NLCP) in Zambia, Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, Stone Mountain, GA, and began Grizzly bear conservation efforts in Idaho and the United States, International Wildlife, roving editor (1997) with Delia Owens.

Delia Owens born in 1949, is an American author and zoologist. Her debut novel was Where the Crawdads Sing. In the mid-'80s, Owens co-wrote Cry of the Kalahari with her then-husband Mark, which was a best-selling, nonfictional account of traveling and researching Africa's Kalahari Desert. One of the joys of Cry of the Kalahari was Owens' description of the natural world. She has also co-written the memoirs sharing credits with Mark--The Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna at the time studying animals in Africa. 

They had been awardees of many awards and honors together:

• 1981 - Rolex Awad for Enterprise for Kalahari Research Project (Mark-Delia Owens)
• 1985 - John Burroughs Award (Mark-Delia Owens)
• 1993 - University of California Outstanding Alumnus Award (both Mark and Delia Owens)
• 1994 - Ridder of the Golden Ark Netherlands (Mark-Delia Owens)

Mark and Delia Owens

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Rating: 4.6/5

Author: Mark and Delia Owens

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (1st Edition), Robert Hartnoll Limited (original)

Publishing Date: October 1, 1984

Edition Language: English

Genre: Botswanan Travel Guides, Autobiography, Biology of Wildlife, Zoology, Ecotourism Travel Guides

ISBN-10: 0395322146

ISBN-13: 978-0395322147

Pages: 341 (Hardcover)

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Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Original Cover

Description

Oryx and Crake (The MaddAddam Trilogy) is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the author of her classics The Handmaid's Tale and The Testament. The book was first published by McClelland and Stewart. It was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Atwood has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, yet goes beyond the amount of realism she associates with the novel form. It focuses on a lone character called Snowman, who finds himself in a bleak situation. The reader learns of his past, as a boy called Jimmy and of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering that occurred under the purview of Jimmy's peer, Glenn "Crake". 

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Jimmy, known as Snowman, before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey--with the help of green-eyed Children of Crake--through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. 

Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagination. With the same stunning blend of prophecy and social satire, she brought to her classic The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood gives us a keenly prescient novel about the future of humanity--and its present. Humanity here equals Snowman, and in Snowman's recollections, Atwood re-creates a time much like our own when a boy named Jimmy loved an elusive, damaged girl called Oryx and a sardonic genius called Crake. But now Snowman is alone, and as we learn why, we also learn about a world that could become ours one day.

Sequels

The Year of the Flood was released on 7 September 2009 in the United Kingdom, and 22 September 2009 in Canada and the United States. Though chronicling a different set of characters, the follow-up expands upon and clarifies the relationships of Crake with Oryx and Jimmy with his high school girlfriend Ren. Glenn makes a brief appearance. It also identifies the three characters introduced at the end of the original and finished the cliffhanger ending. 

The third book in the series, MaddAddam, was published in August 2013.

Adaptation

Darren Aronofsky's company Protozoa Pictures were developing a television adaptation of the entire trilogy, under the working title MaddAddam. In January 2018, Paramount Television and Anonymous Content announced they had won the bidding war for rights to Atwood's MaddAddam book trilogy.

About the Author

Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. She was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, 9 collections of short fiction, 8 children's books, and 2 graphic novels, as well as a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and power politics. Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales.

Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including the Booker Prize, Arthur C. Clark Award, Governor General's Award, Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, the National Book Critics, and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television, increasing her exposure. She is a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize and Writer's Trust of Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow of Massey College, Toronto. 

She is also the inventor of the LongPen device and associated technologies that facilitate remote robotic writing of documents.

Margaret Atwood

Review of other Books by Margaret Atwood:

The Handmaid's Tale

https://bookreviewsbyarti.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-handmaids-tale.html

The Testament

https://bookreviewsbyarti.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-testaments.html

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Rating: 4.3/5

Author: Margaret Atwood

Publisher: Anchor

Publishing Date: May 1, 2004 (Reprint Edition)

Edition Language: English

Genre: Religious Leader Biographies, Literary Criticism & Theory, Genetic Engineering Science Fiction

ISBN-10: 0385721676

ISBN-13: 978-0385721677

Pages: 389

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Description

Where the Crawdads Sing is a 2018 novel by an American author Delia Owens. It has topped The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 2019 and The New York Times Fiction Best Seller of 2020 for a combined 32 non-consecutive weeks. The book was selected for Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine Book Club in September 2018 and for Barnes & Nobles Best Books of 2018. By December 2019, the book has sold over 4.5 million copies, and it has sold more print copies in 2019 than any other adult title, fiction, or non-fiction. It was also No.1 for 2019 on Amazon.com's list of Most Sold Books in Fiction.

 The novel Where the Crawdads Sing is immersed in the natural world. Although this is Delia Owens' first novel, she long ago distinguished herself as a gifted writer with her co-written memoir Cry of Kalahari.

In the novel Where the Crawdads Sing, the story follows two timelines that slowly intertwine. The first timeline describes the life and adventures of a young girl named Kya as she grows up isolated in the marsh of North Carolina from 1952-1969. The second timeline follows a murder investigation of Chase Andrews, a local celebrity of Barkley Cove, a fictional coastal town of North Carolina.

The Marsh Girl, she lives alone in nature--but the draw of other people, and specifically love, brings her into contact with the greater world. In late 1969, when a handsome man-Chase Andrew-is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. She is sensitive and intelligent. She has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Later, the time comes when she longs to be touched and loved. Kya opens herself to a new life when two young men from town come across to her wild-beauty. She lives her dream until the unthinkable happens.

The novel 'Where the Crawdads Sing' is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking story of a young girl who thought the outside world is beautiful, and a mysterious tale of murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secret that nature keeps. 

This novel has a Mystery at its core, but it can be read on a variety of levels. There is great nature writing; there is a coming-of-age, and there is literature. Crawdads is a story lovingly told-- one that takes its time in developing its characters and setting, and in developing the story. You'll want to relax and take your time as well, and when you're done you will want to talk about it with another reader. -- Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Adaptation

Fox 2000 owns the film rights to this book. Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company will produce it with Witherspoon as the producer. Lucy Alibar is adapting the book to a film script.

About the Author

Delia Owens born in 1949, is an American author and zoologist. Her debut novel was Where the Crawdads Sing. In the mid-'80s, Owens co-wrote Cry of the Kalahari with her then-husband Mark, which was a best-selling, nonfictional account of traveling and researching Africa's Kalahari Desert. One of the joys of Cry of the Kalahari was Owens' description of the natural world. She has also co-written the memoirs sharing credits with Mark--The Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna at the time studying animals in Africa. 

She has been an awardee of many awards and honors:

• 1981 - Rolex Awad for Enterprise for Kalahari Research Project (with former husband, Mark Owens)
• 1985 - John Burroughs Award (with Mark Owens)
• 1993 - University of California Outstanding Alumnus Award
• 1994 - Ridder of the Golden Ark Netherlands

                                                                         Delia Owen 

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Rating: 4.8/5

Author: Delia Owens

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Publishing Date: 14 August 2018

Edition Language: American English

Genre: Literary Fiction, Animal Fiction, Coming of Age Fiction

ISBN-10: 0735219095

ISBN-13: 978-0735219090

Pages: 384

Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee

Description

Waiting for Barbarian is a novel by the South African Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, who won Booker Prize twice. This modern classic was first published in 1980, it was chosen by Penguin for its series Great Books of 20th Century and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Geoffery Faber Memorial Prize. Coetzee took the title from the poem "Waiting for the Barbarians" by the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy, it was deeply influenced by Italian writer Dino Buzzati's novel The Tartar Steppe.

The story lingers around the time of war and it is narrated in the first person by an unnamed magistrate. For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state. 

Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a startling allegory of the war between oppressors and oppressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency.

"Coetzee, with laconic brilliance, articulates one of the basic problems of our time--how to understand the mentality behind brutality and injustice."--Anthony Burgess, New York

Adaptation

• American composer Philip Glass has also written an opera of the same name based on the book which premiered in September 2005 at Theater Erfurt, Germany.
• Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall, Bridge of Spies), Ciro Guerra, and producer Michael Fitzgerald are teaming up to bring J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians to the big screen.

About the Author

John Maxwell Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940. Being a native of South Africa, he has done his basic education in Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in literature. In 1972 he returned to South Africa and joined the faculty of the University of Cape Town. 

Coetzee is the author of twenty-three books, which have been translated into many languages. He had been an awardee of the Nobel prize for literature in 2003. He was the first author to be awarded the Booker Prize twice-first for Life and Times of Michael K and then for Disgrace. His other works of fiction include--Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians which won South Africa's highest literary honor, and the Central News Agency Literary Award. He has also published a memoir called Boyhood: Scenes From a Provincial Life, and several essay collections. He has won many other literary prizes including the Lannan Award for fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and Irish Times International Fiction Prize.

Currently, he lives in Adelaide, Australia.

J. M. Coetzee

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Rating: 4.4/5

Author: John Michael Coetzee

Publisher: Penguin Books

Publishing Date: April 29, 1982 (Revised edition)

Edition Language: English

Genre: African, Literature, Historical British & Irish Literature, Military Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 014006110X

ISBN-13: 978-0140061109

Pages: 192 (Paperback)