Author: Jess Gately

Picked from a shortlist packed with incredible stories, the Small Press Network has announced its Book of the Year. The SPN Book of the Year Award recognises the literary greatness of books published by small publishers in Australia each year. The winner this year was Gravidity and Parity by Eleanor Jackson, a poignant and intricate collection of…

If you’ve been looking for a book that has the booksellers raving then its time to check out the Dymocks Book of the Year winners. On Monday 28 November, the Dymock’s team announced the 2022 Book of the Year and Young Readers Book of the Year as voted for by Dymocks staff across the company….

Philippa Gregory, best known for her worldwide hits The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Queen is a recognised authority on women’s history. With a slew of awards and recognitions for her contributions to literature, including a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020, her latest saga, The Fairmile Series, spans the years of 1648-1685. The…

The Dymocks Book of the Year award was first introduced in 2018 to recognise and continue to support literary talent. Voted on by Dymocks staff across the country, the winners will be announced on Monday 28 November at the Dymocks flagship store on George St, Sydney. The shortlist for the Dymocks 2022 Book of the…

Perth Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2023, and artistic director Iain Grandage looked to the stars when pulling together this program. In his address at the program launch held at the Perth Concert Hall last week, Grandage talked about how the stars are central to, and connect, cultures around the globe; and how for Noongar…

Shehan Karunatilka‘s story of a war photographer who wakes up dead in a celestial visa office and has ‘seven moons’ to try and solve the mystery of his own death has taken out the 2022 Booker Prize. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (published by Sort of Books) is Karunatilka’s second novel and was announced…

October 8th was Love Your Bookshop Day and The AU Review book team took to their local bookshops to snap up an entire haul of titles to top up their TBR piles. Two of the team even went on a whole bookshop crawl to share the love with as many of their local indie bookshops…

Holly Black breaks away from YA and into adult fiction in her latest novel Book of Night, a gritty urban fantasy about a woman who just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. After a life of petty crime nearly gets her killed, Charlie Hall decides it’s time to go straight. But when she stumbles…

Holden Sheppard is the award-winning author of Invisible Boys (Fremantle Press, 2019), which was published to both critical and commercial success. It won the WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and was named a Notable Book by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Invisible Boys is…

Taking home the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Bodies of Light, Jennifer Down is one of the youngest authors to ever receive the accolade and as such has cemented herself as a potent voice to watch in the Australian literary landscape. The judges said of Down’s work, “Bodies of Light invites readers…

Kate Murray’s debut novel We Who Hunt the Hollow is a wholesome, angsty YA dystopian urban fantasy about who we are and who we want to be. Perfectly drawing on the awkwardness and fear of the late teenage years, Murray uses the anxiety and anticipation of becoming an adult to address issues of identity, family,…

The new novel from award-winning author Emily St. John Mandel traverses time and space to tell a multifaceted story of love, endurance, human nature and reality. Sea of Tranquility is set within the same universe as her previous novels Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel offering fans of her earlier works plenty of ‘a-ha’ moments….

“I think it’s really important to show that, for us, the past, present and future, are happening simultaneously.” These are the words of editor Rafeif Ismail in the introductory conversation with fellow editor Ellen van Neervan for Unlimited Futures, a collection of speculative fiction from First Nations and Afro-Black writers. They perfectly encapsulate the unifying…

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories is a beautiful, intelligent and poignant collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories and essays by Chinese women and non-binary creators, edited by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang. The stories range from the fantastic to fable-like, with writing voices and styles that at times feel more…

Astrid Scholte’s League of Liars is a YA fantasy thriller full of twists and turns; in which no one can be trusted to tell the truth and everyone’s motives are questionable. It’s a suspenseful page-turner with an interesting cast, told in alternating points of view. But despite its young protagonists, the book doesn’t shy away…

Melbourne’s Vanessa Len takes all the tropes you know and love and manages to make them feel new and exciting in her debut novel Only a Monster. This urban fantasy adventure features enemies-to-lovers romance, a hidden magical underworld, time travel, hot monster boys, and a mysterious monster king surrounded by a frightening monster court. The…

Michael Trant is a WA country boy who now resides in Perth after a variety of careers ranging from farmer, marine draftsman, pastoralist, and FIFO pot washer. He writes with an authentic rural voice, drawing on his experiences to open readers to places and lifestyles foreign to many. Trent is passionate about farming, writing and…

At times unsettling but decidedly open and honest, Sarah Walker’s collection of essays The First Time I Thought I Was Dying explores the often-taboo aspects of life and living. Told from her perspective as an actor and photographer, the collection examines the awkwardness, the disgustingness and the discomfort of our bodies and minds in a…

A refreshingly fun and hopeful take on the coming of age story, Jessica Walton and Aśka’s Stars in Their Eyes is a graphic novel that celebrates nerdiness and reinforces the value of representation, all while exploring first love, self-care and identity. The story follows Maisie as her Mum takes her to her first Fancon. Maisie…

Larissa Behrendt doesn’t pull any punches in this poignant but difficult examination of family relationships, racism, and the justice system. After Story is a captivating tale about a mother and daughter trying to reconnect after years of tragedy, trauma and secrets have created rifts between them. Bookworm Jasmine is a lawyer and the first of…

Professor Tony Birch is the bestselling and award-winning Australian author of The White Girl, Ghost River, Blood, Shadowboxing, Father’s Day, The Promise and Common People. In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. An activist, historian and essayist, Birch’s latest short story collection Dark As Last Night was released by the University of Queensland Press in August 2021. We caught up…

Tony Birch once again proves he is the master of short fiction in Dark As Last Night, a collection of sixteen slice of life short stories that range in time, tone and focus. In his trademark style, which brings the world to life with vivid but simple descriptions, Birch explores the various chances we’re given…

Mel Hall’s debut novel, The Little Boat on Trusting Lane, is a tender and thoughtful reflection on the power of community in the process of healing. The Little Mother Earth Ship is an alternative healing centre based out of a houseboat aboard stilts in the middle of a scrapyard on Trusting Lane. Richard, who runs…

Steven Christie pays tribute to and pokes fun at the sometimes impenetrable, often critical, but unquestionably interesting world of art in his comedy graphic novel: Turtlenecks. When art student Sam decides to donate his beloved flower necklace to a charity art auction, his friend Jules reminds him of the sentimental significance of the item. But the…

Cartoonist Chris Gooch manages to pack a lot into this page-turning dystopian graphic novel. Under-Earth follows two sets of prisoners as they struggle to survive in the subterranean landfill prison of Delforge. Gooch’s story is a commentary on everything from capitalism, materialism, and prison culture to revenge, forgiveness, loneliness, and friendship. The story begins with…

“We are all struggling. To acknowledge that is to connect to our fellow human beings and to nature…” In an evening centered around the theme ‘If They Could Talk: On Voice and Voicelessness’, Evie Wyld took out the 2021 Stella Prize and the $50,000 prize for her novel The Bass Rock, “a fearless novel that…

The Australian Psychological Society writes that anger is triggered when a person believes “their wellbeing and social status are either not being respected or are under threat”. It seems timely then to be reading this book amongst the current climate of Australian politics. Women of a Certain Rage is a collection of short stories and…

Kira Navárez is a xenobiologist working as part of a team of scientists who survey planets before they are colonised. All her life she’s dreamed of first contact with an alien race but when, on a routine survey mission, Kira makes the discovery of a lifetime, things don’t turn out at all the way she…