**Monsoon is a journey into the hearts and memories of those caught in a certain time in a particular place from Australia's favourite storyteller with new novel The Last Paradise out soon. ** Sandy Donaldson has been working for a volunteer organisation in Vietnam for the past four years. As her contract nears its end, she is reluctant to leave so she invites her oldest friend, Anna, to come for a holiday and discover its beautiful tourist destinations. Both girls have unexplored links to this country. Sandy's father is a Vietnam vet and Anna's mother was a Vietnamese boat person. During their travels, they meet Tom, an old Australian journalist who covered the war and plans to report on the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. It is Tom who tries to persuade Sandy's father to return to Long Tan and settle the ghosts that have haunted him for 40 years, and suggests that Anna should delve into her mother's past. But the girls are reluctant, swept up in their own concerns, relationships, and a business deal that has the potential to go horribly wrong. However, it is the near-blind Buddhist nun living alone in the pagoda atop one of the karsts in Halong Bay who might hold the key. **
About the Author
Di Morissey is Australia's most popular woman novelist. Well known as a TV presenter on the original Good Morning Australia, Di has always writtne--working as a journalist and advertising copywriter. She has spent ten years living in Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, and Guyana before returning hom. Di now lives and writes in Byron Bay, NSW, in between travelling to research her novels.
From AudioFile
MONSOON listeners gain an original perspective on Vietnam by following two daughters of Australian Vietnam War veterans. Sandy, an NGO worker in present-day Vietnam, persuades her childhood friend Anna (who is half Vietnamese) to join her on holiday. Kate Hood's voice is as soft as the calm Vietnamese waters the girls kayak across while sightseeing. It's a joy to listen to her narration as she believably voices French, American, and Vietnamese characters. However, in several passages Sandy sounds nearly identical to Anna, which is confusing. Also, the production would have been stronger if Hood had depicted Anna's na'vet' with more subtlety. As it is, Anna sounds more like a child than a sheltered 20-something in search of her own identity in her mother's homeland. J.T. ยฉ AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine