Cath Ferla

Cath Ferla comes with a decent ouevre and (what looks like) an all-girl production team. Ghost Girls is part-thriller, part-adventure and part-detective. It's an enjoyable read, best taken in just a few sittings because there's a bunch of characters to follow. The plot is not complicated but there are enough little twists to keep you wondering, especially one near the end (well done, Cath!). Some of the encounters between characters might have more to do with plot mechanics than believability, but the coincidences are too few to be grating.

The story is set in Sydney's Chinatown and Cath writes with the authority of someone who's been there, and in China. She deals with sexual exploitation of young women with an unsensational ethic. I'll look for more by Cath Ferla.… (altro)

Quality fiction can entertain us or challenge us, the characters can take us on an emotional journey we may not otherwise experience or the story’s setting or subject matter will cause us to give greater consideration to our own opinions and actions… but rare is it that a ‘thriller’ will achieve all of these things. Ghost Girls is a novel with impact — an important story told in a powerful way. Read full review >>… (altro)

Sophie, half Irish and half Chinese, daughter of an erstwhile Australian PI and a missing Chinese mother teaches English as a second language in Sidney. When she looks for one of her favorite students signed up for a new semester, she sees the student’s name but not the face. Then a student jumps to her death; again name and face don’t match. This leads her on a dangerous journey through the underbelly of sex crimes and organized prostitution. Young Chinese girls are recruited from China to study English for university classes but end up as slaves to the underworld. As Sophie pieces together her clues we journey through the savory smells of Chinese cooking and the not so savory odor of death. This is a remarkably close-knit piece of fiction, keeping your interest to the very end with plenty of action and mystery.

I received an electronic copy in return for an honest review.… (altro)