The best travel books are first-person, and Ms. Brewster's book is charming and insightful. A first-hand look at one woman's attraction to an amazing country!

Barbara Brewster's book "Down Under All Over" gets inside a vast country, and let's us see, hear, see and smell it with plenty of detail and first-person account. The book has made me want to see Oz. The author's relationship with the people there has touched me as well. After all, what travel is about, when all is said and done, is the folks you meet. I highly recommend this book.

This book made a perfect vacation read. On a domestic trip I read it a little each day for a week, and every moment it was like I was down under. Brewster takes us through quick stops throughout the continent, telling of her hitchhiking adventures, soulful solitary moments, profoundly happy and inviting stays with local friends and acquaintences, and unique cultural experiences, both during her more recent return trip to Australia and her original stay 20+ years ago. Interested in going, I checked the book out from the library along with some travel books on Australia, and it really brought some neat vicarious experiences into my life. I'm checking into getting some of the music she mentions, especially 'Gondwanaland'. Definitely a recommended read to those wanting an enjoyable look into some of Australia's life!

This story begins with an adorable four-year-old girl wandering into Bryce Walker's firehouse. Her mom, Lisa Billings, comes to claim her and charms Bryce at the same time (she's just moved into town with her mother and the daughter). But Lisa's been burned by love before and finds it difficult to accept Bryce's interest in her and her daughter, in part because of his profession. How Bryce and Lisa overcome their problems and find a love worth keeping is the crux of this story. A wonderful book with true family values in the idyllic fictional town of Bedford, California (one of Marie Ferrarella's favorite locales).