Assassins, gorgons, greyhounds and calico cats all feature in this quarter’s most anticipated list, with characters across the board witnessing their own personal versions of hell (and the very literal hell in one case). But amongst these monsters and trials and conflicts are also moments of peace, moments of solidarity, and moments of personal growth. Buckle in for a July, August and September full of heart-wrenching and gut-punching stories filled with rage, despair, and ultimately, hope.
July
Nock Loose by Patrick Marlborough
Fremantle Press | Pub Date: 1 July | Order HERE
Simon: Patrick Marlborough‘s novel Nock Loose sounds, quite frankly, like a fever dream. And, I for one am very much here for it. It’s billed as a semi-serious screwball revenge thriller; or per the media release “Game of Thrones meets Wake in Fright meets Kill Bill meets The Simpsons”. Which is quite the mash up.
Drawing upon tropes from anime, manga and your local medieval renaissance reenactment fayre, Nock Loose follows Joy – gifted archer, former olympian and retired stuntwoman – and the fellow residents of Bodkins Point, a tiny country town which annually hosts an ultra-violent medieval festival called “Agincourt”, as they cope with the aftermath of a devastating fire. Long buried secrets come into the open as Joy embarks on a furious road to revenge.
I’m not 100% sure I know what to expect, but I’m down for the journey all the same. Ganbarimasu!
Daughters of Batavia by Stefanie Koens
HarperCollins | Pub Date: July 29 | Preorder HERE
Emily: WA writer Stefanie Koens won the 2023 Banjo Prize for this novel, a sweeping historical adventure set against the backdrop of the true historical shipwrecking of the Batavia in the Abrolhos Islands on the WA coastline. Anyone who has spent an afternoon wandering around the WA Maritime Museum’s shipwreck gallery in Fremantle is sure to be tantalised by the prospect of a novel about this 17th century disaster from an exciting debut novelist.
Here’s the blurb: Two women. One shipwreck. And four centuries of secrets. Shortly before Christmas in 2018, Tess McCarthy, a hard-working English teacher who never does anything out of the ordinary, flies to Western Australia’s remote Abrolhos Islands. She is in search of answers – both to the infamous Batavia shipwreck and her personal family crises.
Amsterdam, 1628. Saskia, an orphaned young Dutchwoman, boards Batavia with relatives, bound for a new and potentially dangerous life in the East Indies – only for her world to first collide with Aris Jansz, the ship’s reluctant under surgeon. Tess, Saskia and Aris – their lives linked by secrets that span generations – carry the baggage of past losses and the uncertainty of their futures. And, in the most unlikely circumstances, they find qualities that echo through centuries: faith, acceptance, and love.
Fractured Pieces by Mandi Kontos
Dreaming Fully Awake Press | Pub Date: 11 July | Preorder HERE
Stephen: Melbourne author Mandi Kontos kicked off her Nexus series with her debut novel Faded Fragments in 2023, unlocking a world of Magick with intriguing ties to Ancient Egypt. Now, Fractured Pieces aims to expand the world, hinting at further mysteries and questions that I, for one, need answers to. It’s an urban fantasy story with plenty of romance, action and mystery to go around… plus there’s still time to catch up before its release.
Reapers are killing the magickally inclined. A secret society of assassins, highly trained to slay monsters that lurk in the shadows. It’s been a year since Devin Ryder left The Camp, and the adjustment has been… interesting. Between playing the doting son, hotelier heir and brother by day, he is the dream-walking assassin by night. Ryder terrorises his victims by showing up in their dreams weeks before their death, tormenting them with a taste of what’s to come. Until he meets her.
The Occupation by Chloe Adams
Penguin Books | Pub Date: 15 July | Preorder HERE
Emily: Another novelist discovered through a literary prize, Chloe Adams’ Penguin Prize Winning The Occupation is out mid-month in July. Set in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the novel charts the journey of a young woman living in Kure, near Hiroshima, in occupied Japan and witnessing the devastation that local Japanese people continue to endure, all the while ‘carefree expats’ cavort around and explore the Japanese countryside.
Many readers will have discovered Kure in Alli Parker’s stunning At the Foot of the Cherry Tree, and I for one am keen to return there and learn more about Australian involvement in Japan in the post-war period. There also seems to be a mystery to be solved…
August
The Eagle and the Crow by JM Field
UQP Books | Pub Date: 29 July | Preorder HERE
Simon: The Eagle and the Crow is a collection of lyric essays from JM Field, a Gamilaraay mari, author and research mathematician. The collection, which is described as part instruction manual, part philosophical text, explores a range of subjects including, Gamilaraay conceptions of time and place, the ways English can quietly disrupt languages and cultures, and the form and practical functions of kinship systems.
As you would expect there’s also more than a few mathematical insights too that offer a road map for the revitalisation of Gamilaraay social structures that once were severely prohibited. The Eagle and the Crow promises fascinating, and necessary, exploration of Indigenous knowledge and kinship, one that’s increasingly relevant in the face of an increasingly confusing and disconnected world.
Yilkari by Nicolas Rothwell and Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson
Text Publishing | Pub Date: 29 July | Preorder HERE
Simon: Yilkari follows Valentin, a Siberian composer, who is looking for the narrator of Yilkari who he first met the night the Berlin Wall fell. We first meet them in a remote roadhouse in the Western Desert before they travel on together deeper into the desert.
Described as mesmerising and unclassifiable, Yilkari is the latest novel from prize-winning author Nicolas Rothwell, co-written with his wife the acclaimed artist Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson. It’s described as a novel of chance encounters, slowly revealed secrets, strange coincidences and meandering journeys through the desert. Sounds right up my street!
The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura, translated by Yuka Maeno
One More Chapter | Pub Date: 26 August | Preorder HERE
Jess: I have been down the rabbit hole of translated fiction from Korea and Japan this year and this book seems to be following in the footsteps of the trend of cosy fiction designed to allow its characters (and potentially its readers) to reckon with their troubles in a safe haven. The Cherry Blossom Bookshop only appears during the fleeting cherry blossom season; a sanctuary for those burdened by regrets and past sorrows. Here, Sakura, the mysterious young owner and her wise calico cat, Kobako, patiently await the arrival of souls in need of solace and healing.
Told over four seasons, each visitor to the bookshop holds a book that bridges their past and present, guiding them towards understanding and acceptance. Within the antique charm of the shop and the soothing aroma of freshly brewed coffee, Sakura and Kobako help their guests confront their lingering sadness through the power of stories, enabling them to move forward with renewed hope.
Tenderfoot by Toni Jordan
Hachette | Pub Date: 26 August | Preorder HERE
Emily: Toni Jordan is a novelist known for surprising but enthralling fiction, whether she turns her pen to the historical or the contemporary worlds. She understands people and the relationships between them implicitly. Her return to historical fiction after two recent modern-day pandemic novels (following the members of one quirky and lovable family) is cause for excitement in my reading room, although the idea that 1975 is considered historical now is a bit of a scary one!
Still, I would read Toni Jordan’s shopping lists, and seeing as her debut novel Addition has a film adaptation coming out soon, I think I am due a re-read of her back catalogue. This new one is also about greyhounds, so I am prepared to have the tissues on standby, and the number for Greyhounds as Pets adoption agency on speed dial.
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Harper Collins Australia | Pub Date: 26 August | Preorder HERE
Annie: Set in a rather more magical version of our own world, this dark academia story charts a journey through hell – not in search of a lost love, but in search of our protagonist’s professor. It promises a burning rivalry, ruinous ambition and probably some too-relatable jokes about grad school.
I adored the messed-up story of Kuang’s previous novel Yellowface, so when I heard she had a new novel releasing, I knew I had to check this one out as well.
September
Fierceland by Omar Musa
Penguin | Pub Date: 2 September | Preorder HERE
Simon: Fresh off the success of The Offering, a joint performance work with his partner, renowned cellist and composer Mariel Roberts Musa, Bornean-Australian author, artist, poet and rapper Omar Musa is back with a long overdue new novel – his first since the Miles Franklin long-listed Here Come The Dogs.
Fierceland is a family saga played out on a global scale. The novel follows Ron and Harun, two brothers, who return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their father Yusuf, and to reckon with their tainted inheritance. It’s a novel of power and corruption, colonialism, secrets and dreams all tucked away in one family’s story and told by one of contemporary Australia’s great storytellers.
What Stalks the Deep by T Kingfisher
Tor Nightfire | Pub Date: 30 September | Preorder HERE
Annie: Kingfisher’s brand of folktale-adjacent horror has been a consistent delight, and this new entry into her Sworn Soldier series vows to be another weird tale with an unsettling atmosphere – perfect! What Stalks the Deep looks to be a little different from the previous entries as well, taking our protagonist to a supposedly-haunted coal mine in America. I can’t wait to read it.
The Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory
HarperCollins | Pub Date: 30 September | Preorder HERE
Emily: I’ve loved Phillipa Gregory’s novels about the Tudor and Plantagenet courts ever since I read The Constant Princess as a teenager and fell in love with the tenacity of Katherine of Aragon.
Though her more recent series, beginning with Tidelands, left me underwhelmed, I am excited to see Gregory returning the salacious court of Henry the Eighth and this time fleshing out the character of Jane Boleyn, the lady in waiting and sister-in-law of the doomed Anne, who also had a part to play in the downfall of Katherine Howard.
While Philippa Gregory’s novels often play up the more scandalous rumours from the Tudor period, they’re also a great entry point into the era and give voices to women who often appeared only as footnotes in history.
Medusa by Rosie Hewlett
Bantam | Pub Date: 2 September | Preorder HERE
Jess: Am I done with feminist retellings of classic myths? Absolutely not. Especially after reading Sarah Clegg’s Woman’s Lore earlier this year.
Hewlett’s novel delves into the depths of the Underworld where the formidable snake-haired Gorgon has finally had enough of being eternally and unjustly brandished a villain. Determined to expose the centuries of lies surrounding her name, Medusa recounts her cursed life from her abandonment at birth right through to her untimely death at the hands of hero Perseus, and in doing so breathes new life into an ancient story that echoes the battle of women throughout millennia.
I am prepared for both tears and rage.
The Original by Nell Stevens
Scribner | Pub Date: 16 September | Preorder HERE
Emily: Nell Stevens won me over with her two memoirs of writing and bookish life, Mrs Gaskell and Me and Bleaker House, but she won the hearts of many more readers with her recent gothic-inspired novel, Briefly, A Delicious Life about the ghost of a young woman named Blanca her otherworldly crush on the 19th century novelist, George Sand—a book which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas prize.
In The Original, she turns her attention to the art world, looking at imposters, forgeries and imitation in the very late 19th century, in a work that has been compared by reviewers to Daphne du Maurier and Sarah Waters. No doubt there will be a literary allusion or two for the well-read reader to spot as well.
Thanks to Simon Clark, Annie Mills, Stephen Parthimos, and Emily Paull for their contributions to this article.
