I recently purchased your book "Starting Over" through 40South. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your beautifully composed work and just thought I would drop you a line through the publishers to tell you just that. The research that you have undertaken is just extraordinary and I love the way you have weaved a tale of connective fiction throughout the story. Your writings on "Reflection on my journey" on pages 277 and 278 are so true to us who struggle with an avalanche of research material and the burning desire to investigate what did happen in a time and culture that is almost incomprehensible in modern times. You shine a light to us strugglers, and have shown how to humanify the lives of those past by a careful injection of added fictionalization. I will be reviewing your book to our members at the next meeting of our Wodonga Family History Society and I will encourage people to read your well prepared work. My best wishes for your future and writing. Kindest regards, Vince Aitkin 

I recently finished reading 'Starting Over' by Jan Westerink, which I ordered a copy of via your website. Once making a start, I read it really quickly and found it hard to put down. It was a very interesting read - thank you to Forty South Publishing and the author for sharing their stories! 

I found I was surprised by how much of a loving wife and mother Martha Gregory proved to be - reading the blurb on her being such an astute businesswoman, I imagined her more self-serving. But the author made her into a wonderful mix of them all! She sounds like an amazing woman.  

William Guest's advertising in local newspapers provided a good laugh, and appears to have given the author a good idea of his personality and beliefs to share with the reader! Being Tasmanian, I particularly enjoyed reading about Martha and William's time in Hobart. It is fascinating to imagine the city back then, and consider how it has changed and what people's lives were like at the time. 

Thank you for the stories you share, and the authors you support. It's wonderful to have a local publisher working to make such stories easily accessible to the wider public. 

Kind regards, Anneka Morgan