Reviews

There’s a lot of subtlety to Barry Lee Thompson‘s short story collection, Broken Rules and Other Stories. It’s clear from the first story that this collection is incredibly literary. Most of the stories have their action take place in a character’s mind and draw tension from a close examination of the social contracts that govern the…

Shore Leave centres around an American Naval vessel that docks in Fremantle in 1989. The drama that surrounds that vessel and the sailors onboard will be etched in the minds of many locals for years to come.  Readers are introduced to a range of characters, a criminal with six months left on their prison sentence;…

Ceridwen Dovey‘s latest novel is a bit of a departure from her previous offerings. Set at Harvard University, during the week of a fifteen year reunion, Life After Truth follows five friends as they navigate the many parties and events of the week, all the while wondering if they’ve taken the right path in life. The…

Alexander Thorpe’s debut novel, Death Leaves The Station introduces a standard Australian farmhouse in Western Australia’s wheatbelt to a world of crime, homophobia and racism.  Set on Halfwell Station, Mullewa, in 1927 Death Leaves The Station is also a coming-of-age novel. Ana, a young woman, starts encountering the world outside the seclusion of the family…

Biting The Clouds is the latest book from visual artist, writer and academic Fiona Foley. Adapted from her doctoral thesis, Biting The Clouds, is a compelling critical examination and exhumation of Australia’s, specifically Queensland’s, colonial history from an Indigenous perspective.  Foley is from the Wondunna clan of the Badtjala nation, and is a renowned visual…

Well-known English writer, Rose Tremain‘s latest novel, Islands of Mercy explores the concept of places of safety, and contrasts two very different storylines – tenuously connected – in an attempt to explore what it means to have a meaningful life. Unfortunately, while the settings are richly drawn, both plotlines are ponderous and the book fails to excite….

The first time Sue Smethurst sat down with her husband’s grandmother and asked about her experiences during the Holocaust, she was shooed away. Surrounded by fellow survivors in the Montefiroe Jewish nursing home in Melbourne, Mindla (pronounced Marnya) Horowitz felt no need to share her story. Everyone around her had one much the same, after…

Last year, Outlander stars Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish set off for the Scottish Highlands in a questionable campervan, keen to explore more of the country they grew up in. From Glencoe to Culloden and countless lochs and castles in between, Clanlands is a record of their adventure filming what would eventually become Starz doco…

Gwyn just wants to go home. After months of imprisonment, first in the Clockwork City’s Bird Tower prison, then its horrific Charnel Vaults, her control over her magic is weakening, and the sooner she’s safe amongst friends, the better. But the Mancers of the Syndicate have come to a decision. Too dangerous to be freed,…

Reprehensible, from comedian and broadcaster Mikey Robins, is an informative and rollicking guide through the shameful behaviour of humanity’s most celebrated figures.  As Robin notes, “We are under bombardment from all of our screens, all of the time, reminding us with just one click what a dreadful time we are living through. But, here is…

Gail Jones‘s latest book, Our Shadows, looks at the history of a Kalgoorlie family through three generations. The story is told from several points of view; from those of Frances and Nell, two sisters who were raised by their grandparents in the fictional Midas Street, Kalgoorlie (located in the ‘shadow’ of the super pit) after the…

It’s hard to keep track of just how many books Jackie French has published. This year alone she will have published five books and according to her website, her total publications number around two hundred. French describes herself as an “Australian author, ecologist, historian, dyslexic and honourary wombat.” It’s not hard to see why generations…

Reading The Hollow Ones you will be drawn into a crime spree, and find yourself sharing time with a killer who can’t be seen and a killer who has defied the ages. The perfect read for Halloween; reading this will leave you rattled and looking at your friends and colleagues with an extra hint of…

Clarissa Goenawan‘s second novel The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida may tread familiar ground for her fans. While Goenawan is an Indonesian-born Singaporean writer, both this and her debut novel Rainbirds are set in Tokyo. Perhaps it is only fitting, then, that Sharlene Teo compares Goenawan’s writing to that of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, calling this novel…

To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde is the latest memoir from actor, author, and now director Rupert Everett. In the book Everett, recounts the story of how he set out to make the film of Oscar Wilde’s last days, 2018’s The Happy Prince. The book, then, is part memoir, part travelogue,…

The year is 997 and the Vikings have come to Combe. After losing both his father and his lover in a devastating raid, Edgar sets out for Dreng’s Ferry, taking up an offer to rent a nearby farm and start over. Shipbuilders by trade, Edgar and his family attempt to begin a new life as…

Fetch Phillips, the noirish rouge for hire from Weatherly, is back. It’s been less than year since his last case. And, it’s aftermath is still rippling through Sunder City. People have got the idea that the magic might be coming back. They’ve also got into their heads that Fetch is working to figure it all…

Morrigan Crow has finally found a place to call home. Spending her days with her Wundrous Society classmates, and her evenings with the inhabitants of the magical Hotel Deucalion, Morrigan can now focus on her real task: mastering her growing Wundersmith powers. But something strange is happening in Nevermoor. Well, stranger than usual. Nevermoor’s peaceful…

Gabrielle Carey may have written more in the field of biography, but is best known as the co-author of Puberty Blues, written alongside Kathy Lette. Her latest offering, Only Happiness Here: In Search of Elizabeth von Arnim combines the straight accounting of the twentieth century writer’s life with a form of literary analysis and memoir that has…

The Billymil family have lived in the small town of Darnmoor for three generations, and expectant parents Celie and Tom are preparing to welcome the newest addition. But tensions between Darnmoor’s Indigenous and settler families are rising. And the divide between the white run town and the Campgrounds, where the Billymils call home, is growing….

Music fans will often find their favourite tracks are bigger than their genre. In fact, some music is so big it permeates into an entire subculture. Australian DJ, Steve Wide celebrates this with two sharp new books, A Field Guide to Punk and A Field Guide to Post-Punk and New Wave. Both of these are…

Robin Hood is dead. A grief-stricken Will Scarlett takes on the mantle, struggling to balance the need to survive with the desire to end those who have taken everything from him. But he is not the only one calling himself Robin Hood; others have co-opted his friend’s myth, and their intentions are less than pure….

The premise for Brisbane writer, Laura Elvery’s second collection of short fiction, Ordinary Matter, is enticing. Inspired by the twenty times a woman has won a Nobel Prize for scientific research, it is a collection about womanhood, feminism and motherhood. But, also about big issues which are very much prescient today, such as climate change and politics. From…

1819, Manchester. Sarah McCaffrey and her mother Emily attend a talk at St Peter’s Field by the renowned orator and reformist Harold Hartford (a fictional character based on Henry Hunt). The establishment, wary of the revolutionary sentiments growing among the poorer working classes in the shadow of the French Revolution some twenty years earlier, have…

Caitlin Moran is back with new memoir (and a new silver streak). Opening with modern day Moran travelling back in time to visit her thirty something self, who is fresh off saving the final draft of 2011’s How To Be A Woman. But the Moran of More Than A Woman has distressing news for her…

In an indeterminate future Australia where everything is run by The Department, Mim’s husband, Ben, goes missing. Unable to track him using the technology that all citizens are fitted with, members of The Department begin asking questions. They claim to be concerned for his welfare, but they take Mim’s passport and those of her two…

A film director in Hackney with a fox problem in her garden; an escapee from a cult in Japan; a Sydney cafe-owner rekindling an old flame; an English tutor who gets too close to an oligarch; a journalist on Mars, face-to-face with his fate. These are just some of the characters and situations which readers will…

Imbi Neeme‘s debut novel The Spill was released in June, in the midst of a pandemic. Rather than despairing at the changed world of publishing that her first novel was born into, Neeme embraced the challenges and opportunities that this brought. She has since launched a campaign to support those Victorian Writers who, like herself, were…

Wendy Williams’ new book The Language of Butterflies is an enchanting look at one of the world’s most beautiful and resilient animals and the role they play in our ecosystem. It’s a trove of facts and treasure and all things butterfly and moth. From evolution, survival, nature and existence, it’s all covered here in great…

With Lord Rennard dead, Kaylan is on the run. Bound to a powerful Relic she has little control over, she’s headed for Stynos, the one place she might find an ally, and someone who can help her manage this dark and dangerous power. But with Edriast guards on her tail, restless rebels watching from the…