![]() The Pawn premiered at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival and also screened at the Imperia Film Festival in Italy. Morcan Motion Pictures' first feature, The Pawn, was a noir-style thriller starring Reg Gorman (A Cry in the Dark, Evil Angels), Dennis Manahan (Neighbours) and Tim Ferris (Underbelly) and was directed by David Brand. It is also developing Underground Knowledge into a TV series. The Morcans' production company Morcan Motion Pictures has a number of feature films in early development, including adaptations of Silent Fear, Into the Americas and White Spirit. An additional non-fiction title, Debunking Holocaust Denial Theories, was written in collaboration with Holocaust survivors to document the genocide. They also have several series on the market including The Orphan Trilogy, an international thriller series, the globetrotting action-romance series The World Duology, and the controversial non-fiction franchise The Underground Knowledge Series. The father-and-son team's published books include the horror Silent Fear (A novel inspired by true crimes) and the bestselling historical adventures White Spirit and Into the Americas. A former journalist and newspaper editor, he regularly writes in collaboration with his son James Morcan, and their books are published by Sterling Gate Books. ![]() ![]() ![]() He began his career in the entertainment industry when he scored the lead role in an episode of Australia's Most Wanted as a bank robber. New Zealander Lance Morcan is a published author, film producer and screenwriter. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() While I originally considered the book to be no more than mediocre, many of the images stuck with me so vividly that I want to revisit them and place them into context. I first read The Foundling four months ago, and writing this review has almost convinced me to read it again. There’s a lengthy travelogue section that’s reminiscent of China Miéville, the current master of socially-conscious steampunk.Ī great book, though, is more than the sum of its parts. ![]() His craft is not fully developed, but is still well done. Children won’t care about the book’s clichés, while writers will appreciate the way Cornish refashions Victorian archetypes with subtle fantasy touches. Writers and children will love this book. Our poor orphan is robbed of his innocence by a parade of seedy characters, and upstanding members of society are quickly juxtaposed with the grifters in the underbelly. Cornish’s novel The Foundling-the first book in his "Monster Blood Tattoo" trilogy-is structured as a Dickens-esque slice-of-life novel. Still, he is about to have greatness thrust upon him.ĭ. ![]() Kids pick on him, potential employers pass him over, and all but a few of his caretakers would just as soon he simply vanished. He's scrawny and curious in a world where neither is desirable. Orphaned and odd, he just can’t catch a break. ![]() ![]() ![]() Army had encountered since the end of World War II. Barely surviving the attack, Parnell's men now realized that they faced the most professional and seasoned force of light infantry the U.S. ![]() Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Army's legendary 10th Mountain Division's heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan, Captain Sean Parnell shares an action-packed and highly emotional true story of triumph, tragedy, and the extraordinary bonds forged in battle.Īt 24 years of age, U.S. ![]() ![]() Lulu Minturn may earn a nice surplus by facilitating business deals between American and Chinese clients, but she generates the bulk of her income by managing sex workers who come to her as young as 13. ![]() ![]() Most of the story, which begins in 1905, is narrated by Violet, whose early confidence is squashed: “When I was seven,” she begins, “I knew exactly who I was: a thoroughly American girl in race, manners, and speech, whose mother, Lulu Minturn, was the only white woman who owned a first-class courtesan house in Shanghai.”Īs it turns out, Violet knows almost nothing about who she is - or who her mother is - but she’s well-informed about what goes on in a courtesan house. It has been almost 25 years since “The Joy Luck Club” launched Tan’s career, and this new novel explores some of the same themes of festering family secrets, the conflicts between mothers and daughters, and the sacrifices that women must make. The valley of “The Valley of Amazement” is very deep, indeed, an arduous journey of fraud, kidnapping and ritualized rape. ![]() ![]() That’s the first rule of the Shanghai courtesans in Amy Tan’s exhausting new novel, “The Valley of Amazement.” Just because these women provide sex in exchange for money, they’re not prostitutes, so don’t even think that.ĭeception and misperception are the stock in trade of the sex business - and of this story, too, which stretches over four generations and thousands of miles. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Eleven years later in Africa, she spotted a young boy wearing that very sweater, with her name still on the tag inside. It all started back home in Virginia, with the blue sweater, a gift that quickly became her prized possession―until the day she outgrew it and gave it away to Goodwill. The Blue Sweater is the inspiring story of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. For the first 5,000 copies of The Blue Sweater purchased, a $15 donation per book will be made to Acumen Fund, a nonprofit that invests in transformative businesses to solve the problems of poverty. ![]() ![]() ![]()
![]() ![]() ![]() That is a horrible story of animal cruelty and bound to lead to nightmares.Īurélia Fronty’s pictures are great fun with a lovely use of colours and textures. There is one story that I think should have been left out, though the story of Samson catching three hundred foxes, tying their tails together, putting a torch between their tails and letting them run wild in the enemies’ fields. The stories include the creation of the world, the Garden of Eden (the snake), Noah and the Ark (the raven and the dove), Moses (the frogs, flies, grasshoppers and bees) and many stories about Jesus (sheep, doves, scorpion, camel, pigs, sparrows, hens, a rooster and fish). Marie-Hélène Delval and illustrated by Aurélia FrontyĪnimals of the Bible For Young Children is a picture book for children aged 4-8 about the different animals who appear in the Bible (with the proviso that ‘this selection of Bible stories, paraphrased for younger children, uses language and imagery appropriate for children while remaining faithful to the spirit of the biblical texts.) ![]() ![]() ![]() Maybe less, Dad said, if we were lucky and it was “just a phase” (it wasn’t). We figured it was only for a couple of months anyway. She said all her future roommates at Oberlin would be “absolutely horrified” if they found out she ate meat. My sister decided at the beginning of the summer that we should all be vegetarians. In fact, the only good thing I could see about Camellia going off to college was that Dad and I would get to eat meat again. Dad and I both thought this was a pretty good plan. Maybe we would microwave some frozen green beans and eat them with our spaghetti and meatballs. ![]() Once she was gone, we were going to eat frozen pizza every night. Dad and I were never going to chop vegetables. I remember because I was stuck in the kitchen for, like, five hours while my older sister, Camellia, insisted on teaching me how to make pasta primavera. It was pasta primavera night, about a week before school started, when I first heard about the dog. ![]() ![]() Who lives next door? Oprah Winfrey? Richard Branson? Jeff Bezos? I can’t stop saying that word as he shows me around. “Wow!” I say with a gasp when I step into the entrance that is bigger than the house I spent the first half of my life in. We grab our bags from the trunk and he opens the front door with his own key. “I think this is going to be an amazing freaking summer!” “What do you think?” he asks with a grin as he parks beside a Bentley and a red motorcycle. We roll up to the house and my jaw is hanging open as I stare at the gorgeous mansion in awe. I feel bad driving over it, but my father doesn’t seem to mind. Even the driveway is breathtaking with all of the stones arranged into a gorgeous mosaic. The enormous metal gate silently opens, revealing a stunning property that’s perfectly manicured. “Oh yeah,” he says as he reaches into the glove compartment, pulls out a clicker thing, and presses it. “No!” I shout as he pulls up to a gated property. It would be nice to have a family to call my own. ![]() I should really try to make this work for him. ![]() I can’t help but smile as I watch him gush about his new wife. “I had no idea she was so rich! You really hit the jackpot.” He lists off a dozen or so companies-all companies I’ve heard of. ![]() ![]() Get ready as Jessica Jung, K-pop legend and former lead singer of Korea’s most famous girl group, Girls’ Generation, takes us inside the luxe, hyper-color world of K-pop, where the stakes are high, but for one girl, the cost of success-and love-might be even higher. ![]() He’s also the first person who really understands how badly she wants her star to rise. It’s not just that he’s charming, sexy, and ridiculously talented. As the dark scandals of an industry bent on controlling and commodifying beautiful girls begin to bubble up, Rachel wonders if she’s strong enough to be a winner, or if she’ll end up crushed… Especially when she begins to develop feelings for K-pop star and DB golden boy Jason Lee. Six years ago, she was recruited by DB Entertainment-one of Seoul’s largest K-pop labels, known for churning out some of the world’s most popular stars. ![]() ![]() ![]() What would you give for a chance to live your dreams?įor seventeen-year-old Korean American Rachel Kim, the answer is almost everything. Crazy Rich Asians meets Gossip Girl by way of Jenny Han in this knockout debut about a Korean American teen who is thrust into the competitive, technicolor world of K-pop, from Jessica Jung, K-pop legend and former lead singer of one of the most influential K-pop girl groups of all time, Girls ’ Generation. ![]() |