A feel-good story about a book club on an island off the east coast of Australia. Grace Elliot leaves her librarian job and the confines of her battle with illness to help vivacious elderly lady Anne Sato restart the book club. Grace is determined to solve the mystery about what caused the bookstop to suddenly stop seven years ago. The book flashes back to Anne’s youth in the 1950s and her relationship with Tadashi and the anti-Japanese sentiment he faces in postwar Australia. I liked Anne’s grandson Sam and his daughter Addie, and I loved Grace’s bucket list journals. A light and pleasant read with a good audio narration by Taylor Owynns. ( )

The Wattle Island Book Club, the fourth book from Australian author Sandie Docker, is a bittersweet story about love, loss, courage, passion and hope.

Seven years after the last meeting of the book club on Wattle Island, octogenarian artist, Anne Sato, is determined to revive it, hoping in part that it will provide her grandson, Sam, with the impetus to move past the tragedy that haunts him. Reaching out to a library on the mainland, Anne is put in contact with Grace Elliot who is happy to help, despite the logistical challenges. When Anne reports a lacklustre participation in the first book club meeting, Grace proposes attending the next gathering. Not only is she eager to encourage the success of book club, but visiting the island will fulfil an item on her bucket list, which Grace is running out of time to complete.

Anne is a delightful character with a little of the sass that comes from no longer worrying much what others think of you. A recent stroke is her motivation for reviving the book club, which she hopes will not only bring the community together, but also help her grandson. Further insight into her character comes through Anne’s reminiscing about the past, from arriving on the island as an orphan to be placed in the care of her aunt, through to her unconventional (for the times) courtship and marriage to Tadashi Sato.

Grace is initially a bit of an enigma. When we are first introduced she seems to be like any twenty something year old, indulging in adventures like bungee jumping and skydiving with her best friend, though there are early hints that not all is as it seems. I liked the idea of Grace’s evolving bucket list (I’ve never put together one of my own, suspecting it would just say ‘Read more often’) and her determination to live on her terms. Grace is a character that garnered both my admiration and sympathy.

Docker touches on some serious issues in The Wattle Island Book Club including misogyny, racism, mental illness, suicide and cancer, but the power of literature to change lives is a theme that unifies the characters, as well as the past and the present. Readers will no doubt enjoy references to cultural classics such as Anne of Green Gables, Bridget Jones Diary and Jane Austen’s oeuvre.

Combining history, romance, literature, art, and a touch of mystery, there is plenty to engage with in The Wattle Island Book Club. However, It would be remiss of me not to mention there is a fairly major element of the story I have mixed feelings about, and though I was somewhat mollified by the epilogue, it would definitely be something I’d raise for discussion in a book club.

The Wattle Island Book Club is a captivating, wistful, and poignant novel, and would make a wonderful selection for your next book club meeting. ( )