Appeal to boys & girls

Hunter’s Beach 
by Christine Ashton

   Shelley is a keen sailor and is not looking forward to meeting her step brother Rick who is coming to live with them unexpectedly. It is obvious when he arrives that there is a great deal of tension between him and his father who he hasn’t seen for years. Shelley is determined to introduce Rick to her favourite pastime but he’s not so keen.
   A sailing trip on Lake Te Anau turns into a full scale drama when a wounded man is discovered lying on the beach in a secluded cove. Setting off for a pleasant day out, Shelley and her mother introduce Rick to the technical aspects of yachting and he starts to enjoy the occasion until he spots a body on the nearby beach.
   While Shelley’s mother tends the man, the two kids set off back to get help. They encounter rough weather and Shelley’s skills are stretched to the limit.
  This is a good adventure story with extremely clear details of how to sail a boat and good explanations of some of the terms. The characters are believable and the tension builds well. Shelley is a good role model. The book will appeal to both boys and girls from eleven to sixteen.
   I would have liked the map to be clearer as I couldn’t see the details on my Kindle and although there was a note to readers to search for Lake Te Anau on Google Earth, I felt there could have been more description of the area and a stronger sense of placing the story in New Zealand.
  The book is reasonably short and the mystery about the man on the beach was very neatly explained at the end of the novel, and perhaps this could have been extended a little.
  A good read for young adults. I really enjoyed it.

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Review by Jill Darragh

Title: Hunter's Beach
Author: Christine Ashton
Publisher: BookBaby
ISBN: 978-1-4835550-9-6
Available: Amazon for Kindle; ibooks for Apple devices; Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and various other distributors for e-pub devices.