AustLit

'Then she saw that the old windmill straddled a hole. It was square and lined with wood, and fixed to one side was a wooden ladder whose first steps had almost rotted away. And from its depths came a chill breath of endless darkness.

'IN a small country town during one long, hot summer, the Bloom family begins to unravel. Secrets, old and new, are revealed—with devastating effect.

'Martha is straining against the confines of her life, lost in regret for what might have been. Her husband, Mike, is frustrated with his increasingly distant wife. And while teenagers Tilly and Ben are about to step out into the world, nine-year-old Ada is holding on to a childhood that will soon be lost to her.

'When Ada discovers an abandoned mineshaft beneath a rusting windmill, she is drawn to its darkness and danger. And when she witnesses a shocking and confusing event, the mine looms large in her mind—as events lead inexorably towards tragedy.

'The Last Summer of Ada Bloom is a beguiling story about the fragility of family relationships, about the secrets we keep and the power they hold to shape our lives.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'He hated the word ‘retirement’, but not as much as he hated the word ‘village’, as if ageing made you a peasant or a fool. Herein lives the village idiot.

'Professor Frederick Lothian, retired engineer, world expert on concrete and connoisseur of modernist design, has quarantined himself from life by moving to a retirement village. His wife, Martha, is dead and his two adult children are lost to him in their own ways. Surrounded and obstructed by the debris of his life – objects he has collected over many years and tells himself he is keeping for his daughter – he is determined to be miserable, but is tired of his existence and of the life he has chosen.

'When a series of unfortunate incidents forces him and his neighbour, Jan, together, he begins to realise the damage done by the accumulation of a lifetime’s secrets and lies, and to comprehend his own shortcomings. Finally, Frederick Lothian has the opportunity to build something meaningful for the ones he loves.

'Humorous, poignant and galvanising by turns, Extinctions is a novel about all kinds of extinction – natural, racial, national and personal – and what we can do to prevent them.' (Publication summary)

Looking back, Martha could've said no when Mr Booker first tried to kiss her. That would've been the sensible thing to do.

'But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town—a cemetery with lights—her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she's waiting for the rest of her life to begin. Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whiskey, cigarettes and sex. But Martha didn't count on the consequences.

'Me and Mr Booker is a story about feeling old when you're young and acting young when you're not.' (From the publisher's website.)