This is the third Fiona McCallum book I've read, and the second one I've rated two stars. There's one main reason this book tanked in my opinion. 

Apologies in advance for the tirade below:

Jessica, the main character, is a self-centred, immature and selfish adult-child. The constant inane babbling of her inner thoughts drove me batty, and her complete inability to think about anyone outside of herself left me wanting to wring her scrawny neck. 

Add to this continued form of abuse to the reader, Jessica's incapacity to put basic symptoms of pregnancy together after the reader was subjected to copious PG-rated coitus between Jessica and Steve, her rough-on-the-outside-but-soft-on-the-inside husband, and you're left wondering how this TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) character even made it to adulthood. 

Considering the amount of inner dialogue the reader is subjected to, Jessica's character has very little character growth, the one tiny speck of change really didn't warrant the 220 pages of torment within the covers. What's with that?! Really? Are there people like this in the world?

This book gets added to my swear-tastic shelf, not because it has a lot of vulgar language in it (there is a little, it's fairly light on), but instead it's added because of the quantity of vulgar language it elicited from me as I read it.

The ONLY reasons this book gets 2 stars instead of 1, is Laurel and Hardy, the farm dogs who were adorable, and the Plain-Jane-but-not-really, Faith. The little filly, Faith, is a welcome piece of sunshine and amusement to the book. If only we'd spent more time in her mind and less in Jessica's. 

I was left thinking:



Not Fiona McCallum's best, but still might appeal to horsey people who don't mind reading about characters that are annoying and downright unlikable.

**Note: I was provided a copy of this book from the Publisher in return for an honest review**

Wattle Creek by Fiona McCallum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Always love an Aussie read (or listen). The narrator was fabulous and the interpretations of each character was fun to listen to. Wattle Creek sounds like the typical Australian small town with gossip mongers galore and drama around every corner.

Shows the fantastic community support of small towns and how they pull together when somebody's in need.

Can't wait to read the sequel, Standing Strong.

View all my reviews

Time Will Tell is book #2 in Fiona McCallum's Button Jar Series. After a reasonable story in book #1 I wanted to know what was going to happen to Emily...

Ultimately, this book was too repetitive (how many times did we have to be reminded about John, about Nathan, about Enid?). The plot twists were glaringly obvious, the subtle hints were as subtle as a sledge hammer.

I really started hating Emily in this one, her moodiness and stupidity were so bad I wanted to throttle her.

Add to that, the 'country bumpkin-ness' sign she places upon her head as soon as she left Wattle Creek, it almost made me want to puke.

Overall, this was very much a 'sequel'. Not a great deal of importance happens in this one, everything is internally focussed on Emily and her inability to make the right decisions, even the most basic ones.

Having said that, I still found the book easy to read - I read the whole thing in one day and at some point in the future I will probably buy the third book in the series just to see how it all pans out, but I'm not in any great rush.

The saving parts of this book were Grace (the Border Collie pup) and Jake, I also liked Simone's character too.

There were a number of small typos and grammar issues - but as this was an ARC they may have been picked up before publication.

**Note: I was provided a copy of this book from the Publisher in return for an honest review**