This wasn't bad for a first book. But a friend - who lives in Sydney - and I have compared notes. She enjoyed it but she sent this review from Australia: 'A pity an Australian editor hadn't intervened somewhere to eliminate the howlers such as an Aboriginal woman dancer playing the didgeridoo, or the persistent Americanisms (even though Rice is English), or at least fixing the misspellings of words such as galahs. All this spoils its authenticity, something the author is clearly straining for (and to many succeeding because it's already sold in a dozen countries). It is a pleasant little tale, but intensive marketing hype doesn't make it any more than that'.

Perhaps someone should have taken time to edit the book - it is a fairly short one after all.